UK Cold War Era Nuclear War Plans Revealed 200
NicerGuy writes "The BBC reports that documents from 1975, recently released by the National Archives, detail in part the UK's plan in the event of nuclear strikes during the Cold War. An audio download of the prepared radio broadcast is available. Several other topics are covered." From the article: "Further documents released this week reveal that two pandas in London Zoo sparked fears a diplomatic rift could flare up between Britain and China in the 1970s."
Linux users need not apply (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Linux users need not apply (Score:5, Interesting)
To be fair to them as well, they do give you a choice, if that counts for anything.
Poland did that too (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Seattle Cold War Civil Defense Manual (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a fascinating era, wildly optomistic in some ways (paint your home with reflective white paint to ward off radiation...) and terrifying in others (stay in your city after the atomic explosion and fight the invaders). There's a great collection of public interest films here; It includes the original "Duck and Cover" movie, as well as the "Operation Cue" experiment. A fantastic resource.
Re:Poland did that too (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not like NATO was going to shoot it's nukes harmlessly off into some empty desert.
It was going to be a real nasty fooking war if it happened and very likely the West would have started tossing nukes first because the Warsaw Pact had greatly superior quantities of ground forces.
During the cold war one of the catchy phrases in the military industrial complex was that NATO forces were going to have a "Target rich environment". That means their asses were going to get run over.
The part about Saddam is very interesting (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Whew...Glad that's over! (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem is that if any of those scenarios happen, it's not unlikely that events will spiral out of control afterwards, leading to the eventual launch of all those still-existing ICBMs.
Just look at all the crazy stuff that's happened in response to 9/11, then imagine multiplying that hysteria level by 1000X. That's the environment we'll be in after even a single nuke gets set off.
Actual documents on National Archives Web Site? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Whew...Glad that's over! (Score:4, Interesting)
If the US ever traced a detonated nuclear weapon back to another nation, and it was clear that that nation handed over the nuclear weapon intentionally, they would be fux00red. The US would invade at the bare minimum, and probably glass them over if they thought such an invasion would fail. North Korea in particular would be a candidate for glassing, while Iran would be a candidate for a limited nuking and a full scale invasion. Whatever the case, the nation in question probably would stand no chance to fire back. Playing nuclear war with Washington is a horrible idea. Unless you own a few thousand nukes, the US is not only going to win, but probably win without taking a scratch because they can drop a nuke on any spot even so much as suspected as housing nukes. If Washington has to guess where your remaining nukes are, they will leave no stone unglassed.
Now, to make the situation even uglier, consider if Israel was nuked. The US would likely try and show some restraint if they thought they could achieve their ends and avoid further attacks without glassing a nation over. Glassing a nation is a way to make the prospect of nuclear war too horrible to ever be considered again, but obviously involves mass whole sale genocide. The US might balk at genocide if other options existed. Israel on the other hand would show absolutely no such restraint. Israel would have no compulsions about making a lesson out of the offending nation. Israel would almost certainly glass the entire nation. While Israel doesn't have enough weapons to glass the world, they do have more then enough to glass over any Middle Eastern nation.
All that said, the real loss in life might not be in the actual nukes themselves. The real loss of life would come in the complete collapse of financial markets. People would flee the cities. Societies would spread out very quickly. This sudden change would have disastrous effects on economics. Developed nations would likely find themselves in a deep depression. The effects on the developed would be sever, but the resulting collapse of the world economy would be even worse on developing nations. Such a depression would ravage the economies of developing nations, resulting in mass starvation.
Moral of the story? Nukes = teh sux
Finally - MOD PARENT UP! (Score:2, Interesting)
Finally, someone on
If a nuke was set off in any part of the US, no current politician would be able to resist the public outcry...no make that demands, to glass an entire country or region. The rise of public opinion would be stronger than WWI, WWII, KW, and Vietnam combined! If the person in power here in the US didn't retaliate with nukes I would be willing to bet they would be ousted and replaced with someone who would. An event like that as you mention would change US foreign policy, and even world opinion instantly.
With that being said, I hope it never happens.
However, some insight on things. Everyone believed that Saddam had WMDs prior to our invasion of Iraq. CIA, MI6, Mossad, etc all were in agreement. Well, Saddam couldn't get a nuke to the US, but he might could get one to Israel. As you said Israel has stated many times in the past few years that they are prepared to defend themselves and retaliate mercilessly at any aggressor regardless of world opinion or US intervention.
If you remember just prior to our invasion of Iraq N Korea unplugged the cameras inside their nuclear reactor and began to fire it back up. N Korea is under heavy heavy sanctions and needs crude oil. Iraq needed nuclear fuel for a hydrogen bomb. I suspect they were either about to make a trade, or they had already made the trade.
This is why we invaded Iraq in my opinion; Saddam was trading oil for processed uranium with North Korea, and he would then be a direct threat to Israel if he had a working nuke. The US knows that if Israel is attacked there is no holding them back so we decided to take out Saddam and make the whole situation go away before the entire MidEast was turned into glass. Invading N Korea wasn't really an option as we didn't want to deal with the Chinese aspect of that equation. Also logistically and practically Iraq was a much eaiser target at the time. Iraq had no major allies or at least none that would stand up to a US invasion. Their business partners (France/Germany) were not willing to go to war with the US over the invasion of Iraq, but they did voice loudly their opposition because they were selling a great deal of arms and technology to Saddam.
antique war plans (Score:5, Interesting)
Raiding The Icebox [washingtonpost.com]
I figure the Canadians will never forgive US for neglecting to conquer them.
Years back, I went to Tijuana and looked around and thought, "this place needs adult supervision." And a few years after that, I went to Sault Ste. Marie and saw the perfectly manicured lawns, clean streets, and perfect order. And I thought, "this place has a bit too much adult supervision."
Re:Actual documents on National Archives Web Site? (Score:2, Interesting)
I believe that the national archives puts together a list of highlights of what is going to be available and this is what the BBC is reporting on.
Mark
Re:It would have been nice ... (Score:3, Interesting)
I think if a similar plan existed today, they would keep TV channels running. More people have working/decent TVs now than radios. Many that do have radios they use often are either mains powered, or DAB anyway. The internet would have to play some role too in telling people what was going on.
I heard about 11/9 via text message from a friend who was listening to Radio 1 whilst on the bus. The London bombings I heard about via IRC, then went looking at the BBC and News 24's stream (which had just been put up as it was happening). It seemed most other people were doing much the same, as IRC was buzzing, and the BBC news site was performing horribly. In this day and age it would be naive for the government to assume they could just shut everything down to the radio channels only. In 1975 this would be such a hard thing as TV was relatively new, and as for the internet, it was hardly in the position it is now.
Re:It would have been nice ... (Score:3, Interesting)
In the early 1980s, the government also issued Protect and Survive: the leaflets and some of the public information broadcasts are here: http://www.cybertrn.demon.co.uk/atomic/ [demon.co.uk]