Terrorists with cyber capabilities provoke conflict and war.
Falcone 23 (Johnathan Falcone; UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations and Financial Analyst at Investment Bank; “PROVE IT BEFORE YOU USE IT: NUCLEAR RETALIATION UNDER UNCERTAINTY,” 6/1/2023, https://warontherocks.com/2023/06/prove-it-before-you-use-it-nuclear-retaliation-under-uncertainty/)
*lowkey this card is much worse than the one above. Just say ISIS resurgence causes extinction, vedant
Furthermore, the proposed posture serves as a deterrent to adversaries with cyber capabilities. A strategic adversary could launch a real strike and use cyber-based tactics to induce additional uncertainty. This heightened uncertainty may overwhelm the president, making it difficult to initiate a retaliatory response. Consequently, this situation may create incentives for adversaries to launch a first strike. However, if adversaries believe that a delayed retaliatory response is likely, the incentive to launch such a cyber-nuclear attack is reduced. Other actors, namely terrorists with cyber capabilities, may try to provoke a preemptive launch by fabricating a false signal. The decide-under-attack posture addresses this by delaying the response until there is greater evidence, such as additional sensor correlation or confirmation of weapons impact. A potential weakness of this approach would be if an adversary could convincingly deliver a false signal across multiple systems to provoke a launch order and then disrupt communications. However, the time delay, combined with the availability of alternative communications methods (since the warning was false), adds layers of resilience to prevent a mistaken launch.