The Russians are rattling their nukes. Again. And so is Washington D.C.
Apparently Mr. Biden’s teleprompter jockeys have allowed him to do a limited hangout on the severity of the situation.
Biden Says Risk of Nuclear ‘Armageddon’ Is Highest Since 1962 Crisis – The New York Times
Back then in the 1950’s and ’60s the nuclear powers — in their infinite wisdom (and with something like 65,000 Military-Industrial-Congressional-Complex nukes on hair trigger) — came up with an excuse for their psychotic behavior. They called it “Mutually Assured Destruction.” M.A.D. for short. The idea was, “If you blow the people who live in my territorial area to Kingdom Come, I’ll do the same to yours.” Small print: “We’re not too worried. We have well-buried ‘undisclosed locations‘ to hide in when we screw up.”
No, I’m NOT making any of that up.
Sound reasonable? Well, it doesn’t matter because, reasonable or not, whether you were in the Soviet Union or North America “your” government bought into it for you. In fact, everyone in the world “bought into it” since even a relatively limited nuclear exchange would, for all intents and purposes, blow the entire biosphere “to Kingdom Come.”
And they almost did. My favorite skin-of-the-teeth escape was courtesy of Russian hero Stanislav Petrov in 1983. So far, involving just the U.S., there have been at leastnine other such “Broken Arrow” close calls which diligent researchers managed to pry out of the archives so far. Usually that requires extensive and persistent use of FOIA (Freedom Of Information Act) demands.
So, if you don’t count the fallout from all those nuke tests, it was luck, not good management, that kept the biosphere more or less intact.
There were a couple of flicks. Failsafe. And this final scene from Dr. Strangelove that, I think, captures the essence.
And there were more intentional government nuclear adventures. The one etched indelibly into my memory is The Cuban Missile Crisis. Since the U.S. Government had nukes on hair-trigger in Europe targeting the U.S.S.R., the Soviet leaders, sticking to the M.A.D. plan, thought it only fair they should likewise have nukes on hair-trigger in Cuba targeting the U.S. — and began installing them.
My teen friends and I were seriously planning to occupy the huge tunnels of a nearby abandoned limestone quarry to try and survive the fallout. Unfortunately, we weren’t just paranoid.
If you’re curious, you can get an idea of what nearly happened here:
And, there was another Rusian hero too, Vasili Arkhipov, who, thank the Goddess, also successfully raged against the machine.
But the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, effectively ending the “Cold War.” As of 2022, that was 33 years ago – – – so that lunacy is long gone. Right?
Ok, NOT right.
If you don’t mind being outraged, educated and terrified, all at the same time, here’s a scene from the 1983 movie Wargames which meticulously recreates just how that end-of-the-world launch would go.
And the U.S. Government has more than just the 450 land-based nuke-tippped missiles, likely MIRV’ed, reported by ThisWeek. They’re at sea on nuclear subs. As of 2011, perhaps as many as 2,688 warheads, eight mounted and MIRV’ed on each of the 24 Trident missles carried by each of the fourteen still commissioned Ohio Class “boomers.”
And the Russian Government is still all nuked-up too of course. We don’t even need to mention France, Great Britain, Pakistan, China, India, North Korea and, of course, Israel for sure. So there are still approximately 13,082 nuclear warheads in the world, more than enough to assure mutual destruction.
And there are still those little nuclear glitches too.
So the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist is once again moving it’s Doomsday Clock closer to nuclear midnight. As of October 6, 2022, their estimate is that we’re within 100 seconds of annihilation — that’s 1 minute and 40 seconds.
Ok, so they ARE still MAD after all these years.
What could Mr. Biden’s teleprompter jockeys have him do about it? What are you going to do about it?
Sooner or later something will likely occur to you.
L. Reichard White [send him mail] taught physics, designed and built a house, ran for Nevada State Senate, served two terms on the Libertarian National Committee, managed a theater company, etc. For the next few decades, he supported his writing habit by beating casinos at their own games. His hobby, though, is explaining things he wishes someone had explained to him. You can find a few of his other explanations listed here.
Tommy Thompson didn’t save the world from nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Soviet Naval officer Vasili Arkhipov did. Of course an American has to hero worship another American instead of telling the truth.
Hi Jeff!
You’re correct about Mr. Arkhipov! However if you look closely, the article does indeed give Mr. Arkhipov credit — including a link. Several folks “saved the world” during that aberration. INCLUDING Tommy Thompson.
And yes indeed, “we” need heroes to worship since “we” haven’t all grown up yet – – –
Fair point, but Arkhipov should be highlighted when discussing this, not Thompson. Regardless of what Thompson did, if Arkhipov hadn’t prevented the missile launch, none of us would be here.
While researching Soviet documents I was amazed to discover MAD did not exist in the Soviet Union. Their plan if NATO moved on them, was to lure them to Poland and wipe the entire nation out. As long as party leaders survived, everyone else could die.
Because of Russia’s geography it is wide open to attack. It really doesn’t matter who is in power, or what kind of government, it protects itself by creating a ring of circles which sadly are other nations. The only way to break this is for NATO and or the U.S. to offer to protect Russia from unprovoked attack.
A decade ago I gave a lecture on the Cuban Missile Crisis based on Russian documents and interviews and stated JFK had made a quid pro quo deal to end it and made Adlai Stevenson the scapegoat, even though it was his plan that saved the day. Recently declassified documents show I was 100% correct.
https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuba-cuban-missile-crisis/2022-10-28/cuban-missile-crisis-coverup-kennedy-adlai-stevenson
The danger we are in as a result of the cover-up is that every President since JFK has tried to have his own Kennedy moment, with the sole exception of Trump. I have learned it can take a decade or more for declassified materials to reach the media and historians, so we will continue to read and hear that JFK didn’t negotiate and stood tough against the Soviets. From Vietnam to Afghanistan the impact of the propaganda has put us all in danger. We should be pushing for talks between Ukraine and Russia. Not preparing the public for nonsense like this:
https://youtu.be/zznmdUJbeU8
The propaganda from the Democratic Party has cost millions of lives. I think the public is ready for the truth.
Become an open source ninja: because intel is too much for any organization. The citizen soldier is the future.
Support for U.S. empire is bipartisan. The Republicans are just as much to blame as the Democrats.
I think a lot of Republicans are on the take from lobbyists but add up history and Democrats have zero reason to be smug. Eugenics, segregation, lynching, banning Chinese, locking up Japanese, locking up Jews (in New Orleans), FDR refusing to see Jesse Owens and Democrats lying about it to this day, Truman dropping atomic bombs on people trying to surrender for a year, still with me, Truman lying about how many Jews we let in after the war, a paid Soviet Democrat spy began HUAC, LBJ lied about an attack on us in Vietnam to start the draft, Clinton lied about weapons of mass destruction started sanctions that killed hundreds of thousands of children, we have just been through 6 years of lies about Trump, I can go on. Many of these are war crimes. My problem with both Trump and Biden are they are too old. Our leaders are in their 70’s and 80’s while other nations in the West have leaders in their 40’s and 50’s.
Thanks for the info, Mike F. Archived.
Well, “No man’s life. liberty, or property are safe as long as the legislature is in session,” especially if it’s the U.S. FED legislature (or there’s a living U.S. president) – – – even if you live in a foreign country.