How Nukes Were Almost Launched From Okinawa During Cuban Missile Crisis (thebulletin.org) 289
Lasrick writes: Aaron Tovish is calling on the U.S. government to release documents pertaining to one of the scarier incidents of the Cuban Missile Crisis. According to an Air Force airman, the system designed to prevent an accidental launch of nuclear weapons failed as the codes ordering a launch were given in each of the three transmissions required for a launch: "By Bordne's account, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Air Force crews on Okinawa were ordered to launch 32 missiles, each carrying a large nuclear warhead. Only caution and the common sense and decisive action of the line personnel receiving those orders prevented the launches -- and averted the nuclear war that most likely would have ensued."
Amazing we didn't kill ourselves (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering the number of incidents in the Cold War where a nuclear war was averted by cool heads, it makes me glad (as General Baringer would say) that our boys were in those silos, instead of a computer.
Re:Amazing we didn't kill ourselves (Score:5, Informative)
Obligatory shout out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Amazing we didn't kill ourselves (Score:5, Interesting)
Obligatory shout out:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Well, while we're at it : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov [wikipedia.org]
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This man was such a badass that he was portrayed by Liam Neeson [wikipedia.org] and Denzel Washington. (The plot of Crimson Tide [hubpages.com] was loosely based on the B-59 incident.)
In fact, his heroics on K-19 were much of the reason his caution was heeded on B-59.
Re:Amazing we didn't kill ourselves (Score:5, Funny)
Bah. All you need is your simulation program of a nuclear war to cross reference with Tic-Tac-Toe to come up with some correlation that the only way to not fail, is to not start. To make sure this is effect, please make sure your sumulation program is hooked up to a 300bps modem, and allow anyone who had war diled the number to get it.
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Unless, of course, the computer discovered that the way to win is to go first and hope the other player messes up.
Re:Amazing we didn't kill ourselves (Score:5, Interesting)
One of my first introductions to card-based gaming was a game called Nuclear War. As you might guess, players lob nuclear warheads at each other trying to decimate each others' populations. One of the more inventive gaming rules was "Final Strike." A player whose last civilian died would be able to throw everything he still had in one last "I'm dying and will take everyone I can with me" maneuver at either a single player or at multiple players. If any of those players were then killed, they would launch their own Final Strike. It was quite common for games to end with everyone dead.
It was a fun game, but could also teach a valuable lesson about battling using nuclear weapons.
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Do you live in Detroit and drive a Pontiac 600 SUX?
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Nobody lives in Detroit, it's total zombie apocalypses south of 8 Mile road.
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And a password set to the programmer's son's name.
Re:Amazing we didn't kill ourselves (Score:4, Interesting)
If it happened. From the link.
"I recognize that Bordne's account is not definitively confirmed. But I find him to have been consistently truthful in the matters I could confirm. An incident of this import, I believe, should not have to rest on the testimony of one man."
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Considering the number of incidents in the Cold War where a nuclear war was averted by cool heads ...
There may have been a number of incidents ... but I doubt if this one really happened. This is all based on the testimony of ONE person, backed up by another anonymous witness that may, or may not, actually exist. Since there were dozens of people supposedly aware of the situation, I find it hard to believe that no one told this story before, or is able to corroborate this one guy's story.
This is likely just some half-senile old geezer trying to draw attention to himself by making up wild war stories.
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First paragraph of TFA:
John Bordne, a resident of Blakeslee, Penn., had to keep a personal history to himself for more than five decades. Only recently has the US Air Force given him permission to tell the tale, which, if borne out as true, would constitute a terrifying addition to the lengthy and already frightening list of mistakes and malfunctions that have nearly plunged the world into nuclear war.
So, it seems there was a permission process involved and it was only recently given. That would put everyone involved into the 70-90 year old range by now. Some are no doubt dead. Others just don't care anymore. Someone had to be the first to say something.
Castro scared Khrushchev ... (Score:2)
Considering the number of incidents in the Cold War where a nuclear war was averted by cool heads, it makes me glad (as General Baringer would say) that our boys were in those silos, instead of a computer.
In a somewhat tangential note, the hotter heads frightened the cooler heads into making a deal. Castro basically told Khrushchev to go nuclear if Cuba is invaded by the US. Supposedly Castro's willingness to sacrifice his own country and millions around the globe to defend the global Communist movement frightened Khrushchev, convincing him Castro was nuts. Not so coincidentally Khrushchev and Kennedy reached a deal immediately after Khrushchev received Castro's letter.
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Considering your average dictator of the time and the fact that both US and USSR dealt with such dictators as a matter of routine, your theory sounds highly implausible.
Those leaders did not get any say in usage of the weapons stationed in their countries.
Re:Amazing we didn't kill ourselves (Score:5, Interesting)
it makes me glad (as General Baringer would say) that our boys were in those silos, instead of a computer.
If this story is true, it is an example of a tragedy that would have only happened because humans were in control instead of computers. There was no order to move to DEFCON 1, so the computer would never have launched the missiles. The human operators in this case did just what a computer would have done (not launch), except for one lieutenant. It is this single human officer who allegedly almost launched his nukes.
I'm not saying we should remove humans from launch command, but if this story is true it is an argument against having humans in the loop, not the other way around.
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I give you Frigate Peder Skram [wikipedia.org]. Missile coordinates were given to the launch computer, and the Harpoon missile launched, without the launch keys being inserted.
And that was back when computer code was small enough to be reasonably scrutinized.
Re:Amazing we didn't kill ourselves (Score:5, Informative)
No, you're wrong. Defcon 1 is "most ready", Defcon 5 is "least ready". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Why use the past tense? (Score:3)
Amazing we didn't kill ourselves
I wish it were appropriate to use past tense here. Unfortunately, the risk of a launch that is accidental or based on misinterpreted data, and sparks a major nuclear exchange, is about as high today as it ever was.
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I'd piss on a spark plug if I thought it would help.
Re:Amazing we didn't kill ourselves (Score:5, Insightful)
Get rid of nuclear weapons altogether. They benefit no-one and endanger all of us.
Nuclear weapons have done more for peace than any other invention in the history of the human race. No-one can risk fighting a major war any more.
The downside, of course, is that if we ever do get into a nuclear war, we're screwed.
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So they were a little premature.
The fact remains war used to be a profitable business. Now all sides always lose in real wars. So all they can do is fight proxy battles with pawns.
And this is why war can never be automated (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing can replace the wisdom or common sense of a discerning and skeptical human being.
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That's so untrue, it's a real WOPR.
Re:And this is why war can never be automated (Score:5, Insightful)
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Nothing can replace the wisdom or common sense of a discerning and skeptical human being.
I follow your point, but all my instincts tell me to doubt it.
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Nothing can replace the wisdom or common sense of a discerning and skeptical human being.
Skeptical and discerning humans did not solve this problem. They were simply following orders, and their orders were not to fire missiles unless they were at DEFCON 1. Based on this story, they most certainly would have launched if they were at DEFCON 1.
The only real tragedy that almost happened was one lieutenant who was going to fire his missiles even though they were not at DEFCON 1. If this tragedy had happened, it would have been because the process was not automated enough.
The answer remains eternal (Score:3)
As far as Japan and the end of WWII is concerned, we should have forgone the nukes, invaded and if it caused hundreds of thousands of deaths
You first.
Re:And this is why war can never be automated (Score:5, Interesting)
The two nuclear attacks on Japan basically ended any chance of World War III, and guaranteed that the Great Powers would never again become directly embroiled in a major war against each other. Yes, it's meant lots of proxy wars, but those are far preferable than a nuclear age version of the great wars of the past.
Nuclear weapons are the most profoundly successful peacemaker in history.
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The two nuclear attacks on Japan basically ended any chance of World War III
At least through 1961.
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None of which is even remotely comparable to "world war III"
Only because we got a bit lucky.
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Sorry, there's no free lunch. MAD prevents wars only if something doesn't go horribly wrong. It generally exchanges bunches of smaller wars for an all-or-nothing situation: peace OR "instant mass rapture".
It just shuffles the risk profile, and is arguably more dangerous because it can end humanity. Lots of smaller wars couldn't end humanity.
We either got lucky per these near-misses, or multi-verses "saved" us (see my other message).
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Nuclear weapons are the most profoundly successful peacemaker in history.
I don't think that's necessarily true. Say that nuclear weapons had never been invented, or a ban had been placed on them and no-one had broken it. We would still have extremely powerful conventional weapons, probably more advanced than our current ones since the vast investment in nuclear would have been diverted. The potential losses would still be huge, and it's likely that no superpower would want to get into an all-out conventional war with another.
So perhaps it's more accurate to say that MAD seems to
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The two nuclear attacks on Japan basically ended any chance of World War III, and guaranteed that the Great Powers would never again become directly embroiled in a major war against each other. Yes, it's meant lots of proxy wars, but those are far preferable than a nuclear age version of the great wars of the past.
Nuclear weapons are the most profoundly successful peacemaker in history.
At the cost of untold numbers of human lives.
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Untold is correct. problem is that most people think, and or want, peaceful outcomes. it's just not going to happen. at the core it seems we are a violent species
Re:And this is why war can never be automated (Score:5, Insightful)
The two nuclear [] guaranteed that the Great Powers would never again become directly embroiled in a major war against each other.
Guaranteed? I don't think so. The future is a long, long time my friend.
Perhaps, but you do understand that so far it's been working for nearly 4 generations?
The future may be a long time, but anything that has worked for 70 years and has successfully reduced the number of the weapons in question is not a bad start.
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My family has had 5 generations in that time. My great grand parents were adults around that time, my grand father flew in the Korean war, my mother, me, and my kids who are 15 and 13. I was 20 when my oldest was born, and I get the impression my mother was around that age as well, her parents were a bit older, and I am unsure of their parent's ages. You are forgetting that the first generation can start already an adult, and the last generation isn't necessarily to adulthood yet.
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As soon as possible? In their 20's? Hardly...
Pedantic is the one above me arguing that 70 years isn't 4 generations but 3.
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You have to remember that in World War II, 60 million people died as a result.
All the proxy wars don't even add up to a tenth of that. If MAD prevented another global-scale conflict from happening, then the GP is correct in his / her assessment.
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What school did you go to? No public school I'm familiar with would ever say such a thing. True or not.
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Would you rather see 10 times the losses to force Japan to stop fighting? The US would have shelled all the cities of Japan until the emperor surrendered, which he had every likelihood of never doing. You are assuming that the losses in Nagasaki and Hiroshima are anything like what an invasion would have caused in losses for either side.
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I love the way people second-guess Truman's decision to use atomic weapons, and assume they are right.
Truman had to make one of the toughest decisions any human has ever been called upon to make. Would anyone liked to have been in his shoes?
He knew he would be judged by history, but he made the best decision he could given what he knew.
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Truman already had knowledge of intercepted messages indicating that the Japanese were prepared to surrender. Dropping the bombs on two civilian populations was wholly unnecessary.
If he was concerned about being judged by history; it was only to make sure he made a name for himself.
Re:And this is why war can never be automated (Score:5, Insightful)
Hi, can you cite the source of this. I have heard of this before, but did not know if it was real or not.
Japan wanted an armistice not surrender (Score:5, Interesting)
Truman already had knowledge of intercepted messages indicating that the Japanese were prepared to surrender. Dropping the bombs on two civilian populations was wholly unnecessary.
Japan was **not** prepared to surrender. The militarists thought that by inflicting severe casualties upon the US they could force negotiations, an armistice - a cease fire, not a surrender. They wanted to remain in power, have no limitations on their military size and capability, have no occupation and possibly hold on to some of their conquered territory.
When surrender rumors began military units mutinied and attacked the imperial palace in an attempt to remove the emperor from the corrupting influence of "cowards and traitors" that were misleading him. They nearly found and would have destroyed the emperor's surrender recording. The vast majority of the military was ready to face US landings and to oppose them and to have massive assistance from civilians to resists US forces as they moved inland. Even the atomic bombings did little to change this. The military was telling civilians how wearing white sheets helped protect them from the flash of the new atomic bombs. I believe some Japanese war plans called for the use of chemical weapons on US landing forces.
Surrender was an option to a fearful minority in government, diplomats and politicians who kept their opinions very close and lived in fear of assassination by the militarists. Only a fluke of history, the emperor's decision saw their path adopted. Given the actual evidence available to the US, invasion or blockade were the only two likely non-atomic paths, either risking millions of civilians. Note that the firebombing would have continued during a blockade and such firebombing inflicted far more casualties than the atomic bombings.
Re:And this is why war can never be automated (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is why Japan immediately surrendered after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Oh, wait. No, they didn't.
You're twisting history to try to condemn something you dislike (the atomic bombings). The Allied forces had drafted the Potsdam Declaration [wikipedia.org] demanding the unconditional surrender of Japan and outlining how the Allies would treat Japan in exchange. Yes Japan was willing to surrender, but only if key provisions of the Potsdam Declaration were changed in their favor. In other words, they wanted to keep fighting to try to gain better terms for surrender.
By best accounts, the first bombing was met with disbelief among those in power in Imperial Japan. That the reports of the city being gone were inaccurate, or this was some sort of trick - a regular bombing raid and not just a single plane. They wanted to continue to fight, or negotiate for better terms of surrender. It took the second bombing (and the Soviets breaking their non-aggression pact and declaring war on Japan) to convince the emperor to overrule the hawks and surrender unconditionally. In fact there was even a rebellion by some of those hawks to try to take over the government after the surrender was announced.
There's a tendency for people to compare decisions like these against a vacuum. i.e. To compare the atomic bombings to if the bombs hadn't been dropped but the rest of history proceeded the exact same way. You can't compare to a vacuum like that. For those of us who grew up in countries which were occupied by Japan at the time, we were living in a hell of subjugation, inhumane treatment, and executions. Japanese soldiers forced my grandmother to watch as they raped and killed her sister and niece, all to coerce my grandfather (a doctor) into treating their commanding officer. Any act which might shorten that hell was justifiable. For people in the occupied territories, the atomic bombings meant liberation. Roughly 15% of the people killed in the Hiroshima bombing were Koreans brought over to Japan for slave labor. Aside from the lack of recognition (they're classified as Japanese deaths because Korea didn't exist as a country at the time) Korea has never complained about those deaths. Because as a price of liberation, those deaths were worth it.
10-15 million civilians were killed during the Japanese occupation. That works out to an average of about 150,000 killed by the Japanese each month. If the atomic bombings shortened the war by just 2 months, it was worth it purely on those numbers alone (never mind the number who would've been killed in an invasion of the Japanese mainland). That's the context you have to compare the bombings against. Japan likes to play the "innocent" victim in the atomic bombings, but they weren't innocent. They were guilty as hell of a mass extermination on the order of the Holocaust in Europe. Hastening the end of that extermination was completely justified.
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Considering 70 years later we are still arguing about it rather than roundly condemning it... well, I'd say that reflects pretty well on Truman. It shows how it was a difficult decision, even given the cooling of heads that comes with the passage of time.
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From what I recall the Emperor was actually more pro-peace than much of his military leadership was. The Emperor actually put down a coup when he decided to surrender after the bombings? Before that though he did seem to want to resist a land invasion before surrendering as a means of saving face somehow. He definitely was looking to surrender, he just wanted to save as much face as possible before doing so. Nothing quite like trading thousands of lives for personal pride.
Which reminds me of one of my favor
Re: And this is why war can never be automated (Score:2)
In Europe, we talk much more of Hitler, as an argument against a new world war, than nuclear weapons. "We have to remember how terrible this war was, to never make the same mistakes again".
There is general humanism, social programs, rejection of extremes, education, rights and laws to protect them, pacifism, the European Union, etc.
In the US, it's like "hell yeah, we nuked 'em good, 'don't nobody mess with us now, fuck these jap chinks, fuck these red commies, fuck herr hitler and his nazi boyfriends, we're the kings of the world, and we'll send back our boys to war and beyond whenever needs be for us! we're supermen!".
You're starting your argument for Europe being less warlike than the US at the conclusion of WWII. Fine. Since the end of World War II, the US has nuked exactly the same number of "jap chinks," red commies, and "Hitler's Nazi boyfriends" as the combined forces of the EU Member Nations, so I'm not sure what your problem is.
I'd check your facts on relative pluralism and "rejection of extremism" on either side of the Atlantic as well.
Millions expected to die in US invasion of Japan (Score:3)
As far as Japan and the end of WWII is concerned, we should have forgone the nukes, invaded and if it caused hundreds of thousands of deaths on either side, then so be it.
Actually the invasion was expected to cause hundreds of thousands of deaths on the US side and millions of deaths on the Japanese side (weapons + disease + starvation + ...).
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Expected by those who wanted to test the bombs. Japan was on the brink of surrender, and it's people were beginning to starve. Despite the propaganda, no country fights to the last man.
Fluke of history, not rational workings of govt (Score:4, Insightful)
Expected by those who wanted to test the bombs. Japan was on the brink of surrender, and it's people were beginning to starve. Despite the propaganda, no country fights to the last man.
The massive civilian suicides on Okinawa in the face of defeat, and the repeated suicidal attacks by the military in the face of defeat and throughout the war, indicate that things were not that simple.
Surrender was only a consideration by *some* diplomats and politicians, and they kept their opinions very close and lived in fear of assassination by the militarists. Even the emperor's surrender announcement, which was an absolute game changer, was nearly prevented as military units mutinied and attacked the imperial palace in an attempt to remove the emperor from the corrupting influence of "cowards and traitors" that were misleading him. They nearly found and would have destroyed the emperor's surrender recording. The vast majority of the military was ready to face US landings and to oppose them and to have massive assistance from civilians to resists US forces as they moved inland. Even the atomic bombings did little to change this. The military was telling civilians how wearing white sheets helped protect them from the flash of the new atomic bombs. I believe some Japanese war plans called for the use of chemical weapons on US landing forces.
Surrender was an option to a fearful minority in government. Only a fluke of history, the emperor's decision saw their path adopted. Given the actual evidence available to the US, invasion or blockade were the only two likely non-atomic paths, either risking millions of civilians. Note that the firebombing would have continued during a blockade and such firebombing inflicted far more casualties than the atomic bombings.
Your basic premise fails due to its assumption of rational actors. The militarists of imperial japan were inherently irrational. As navy minister Yamamoto tried to argue against the militarists (primary from the army) with respect to war with the US. He tried to argue manpower and industrial production. He told his subordinates that all his facts and figures were dismissed by the militarists as irrelevant, that the "superior fighting spirit" of the japanese soldier will assure ultimate victory. Various assassination attempts were made on Yamamoto for his opposition to alliance with Germany and war with the US. He was actually forced to move his office from town to a battleship. Given the eventual attack on the imperial palace when surrender rumors began to spread it seems little had changed, rational thinking was still not being used. Except for one single person that even the militarists would not oppose, the emperor. Again, surrender was more a lucky fluke of history than any rational working of a government.
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As far as Japan and the end of WWII is concerned, we should have forgone the nukes, invaded and if it caused hundreds of thousands of deaths on either side, then so be it.
Your tune would change if your ass was about to be drafted into the armed forces to take part in said invasion, like so many men were in that war.
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As far as Japan and the end of WWII is concerned, we should have forgone the nukes, invaded and if it caused hundreds of thousands of deaths on either side, then so be it.
There was no need either to nuke Japan or invade it. Japan was no longer capable of fighting, and had/has practically no indigenous resources with which to re-arm and resume the war. Strange this third alternative is rarely mentioned
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As far as Japan and the end of WWII is concerned, we should have forgone the nukes, invaded and if it caused hundreds of thousands of deaths on either side, then so be it.
Imagine two hundred thousand grieving parents finding out that the government had the bomb but didn't use it.
Common sense seems common (Score:2)
It is encouraging, the number of times we read about launch orders being given and the people manning the silos or submarines disobeying those orders, only to find out later that a mistake had happened to generate the order.
That is a bright spot in humanity's hope for survival.
A fun book to read is Command and Control (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.amazon.com/Command-... [amazon.com]
A fun history of one particularly disturbing incident where a single dropped tool almost caused a huge explosion and also some other fun anecdotes as well. When you think about how true the phrase "to err is human" is, you have wonder why they ever thought building these WMDs was ever a good idea in the first place. Scary stuff.
deterrent (Score:4, Funny)
That seems like a reasonable deterrent. How else would we stop the Cuban software?
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Oopsie! (Score:2)
That is all.
Damn near WAS all...thank $DEITY CPT Bassett had a good head on his shoulders.
What if the nuclear war happened? (Score:3)
From the first Fallout game :
In 2077, the storm of world war had come again. In two brief hours, most of the planet was reduced to cinders. And from the ashes of nuclear devastation, a new civilization would struggle to arise.
A few were able to reach the relative safety of the large underground Vaults. Your family was part of that group that entered Vault Thirteen. Imprisoned safely behind the large Vault door, under a mountain of stone, a generation has lived without knowledge of the outside world.
So far, it have been mostly what I have imagine the world during a nuclear conflict, but how will it have turned out exactly? Is there a more thoughtful research on the subject? I've found a few text with a quick google search but none really catches my eyes so far.
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Being downwind of the atmospheric test blasts of Operation Upshot-Knothole was an early death warrant for some of the cast and crew of 1956's The Conquerer.
Corbyn (Score:3)
Suddenly having a prime minister who'd at least hesitate at the height of a crisis before nuking a few million civilians doesn't sound like such a bad idea...
http://blogs.new.spectator.co.... [spectator.co.uk]
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So, what, are you suggesting that our "leadership" shouldn't be made up of complete sociopaths?
Fermi Paradox (Score:5, Insightful)
Anecdotes like this practically answer the Fermi Paradox. We don't meet advanced civilizations because those civilizations destroy themselves fairly quickly. Once you have the technology to destroy your civilization, you only have to fuck up once to do it.
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Let's take the philosophical musing of a nuclear physicist as good clear headed thinking. Yea, he has a real gift for understanding human nature.
I don't agree with Femi on this particular point. Nuclear weapons have been used ONCE in the 70 years since their invention and have in recent decades been declining in number. Where I'm not willing to claim success on this, evidence seems to say that Man has at least *some* capacity for restraint. In fact, we have made great strides in limiting "weapons of ma
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And people like you are a huge part of the problem. No, this is not some irrelevant side-show and hopes of people not eventually fucking up completely are entirely misplaced. This is the thing that still has a good chance of sterilizing this planet. The weapons are around and ready to use. The safeguards are not really better, as the fully insane military mind-set places destruction of the enemy above survival.
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Anecdotes like this practically answer the Fermi Paradox. We don't meet advanced civilizations because those civilizations destroy themselves fairly quickly. Once you have the technology to destroy your civilization, you only have to fuck up once to do it.
To build on this - as your civilization becomes more advanced, the ways to destroy itself multiply and the threshold to trigger this is lowered.
So within couple generations, something equivalent to incorrectly dereferencing a pointer on nanbots cloud can trigger the end of the world.
We are f*&^ed.
Schrodinger's Luck? (Score:5, Insightful)
There have been several near-misses to nuclear Armageddon on both sides of the Atlantic. We got real lucky.
With that many near misses, we statistically should not be here*. Common sense is usually hit and miss during crisis.
Let's say common sense kicks in about half the time, which is typical of humans in crisis. We've had roughly 7 near misses. 0.5 to the 7th power is about 0.008, which is less than 1 percent. (Remember, it takes only one instance out of those 7 to finish us.)
I wonder if multi-verses are not at play: only "forked" realities in which we got "lucky" have us in it to ponder our luck. 99% of the forks got fried.
* At least not in large numbers. A few lucky stragglers perhaps could survive an all-out nuclear war. But most likely the vast majority of us would not be here reading this if launched.
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Well if you get back in time and step on a dead leaf, you will kill insects that a slug will then eat, thus a rat won't have the same encounter with the slug meaning its sperm cells configuration inside of gonads won't be the same when it meets its significant other, and baby rat will or will not be eaten by a bird of prey who will shit at a different time or not at all on your great-grandmother's post box, meaning in any "alternate timeline" starting before you were conceived or born (or even after that) i
DEW Line commissioning. (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder if multi-verses are not at play: only "forked" realities in which we got "lucky" have us in it to ponder our luck. 99% of the forks got fried.
That's an interesting application of the Anthropic Principle.
One of the near-misses I read about was the commissioning of the DEW Line over-the-horizon early-warning radar.
There was some concern that the Russians might stage a pre-emptive strike just before it went into service. So the US put it into service a few days ahead of the announced date, disguised as a late-stage test of the equipment. The military and administration were prepared to react to the expected possible strike.
Some hours after the system went live it started showing volleys of missiles rising. Oops! Was it the feared attack? Was it time to retaliate, before the soviet missiles could wipe out that capability, leaving Russia in charge of a half-charred planet?
There was only one fly in the ointment: The system did not identify expected impact locations for the missiles. Failure of the computation, or a sign that this might be an illusion? (Remember this was 1957. Cray's first mainframe computer for CDC, with substantially less than 1 megaflop, was still three years in the future.)
The commander in charge smelled a rat, and recommended that the US NOT stage a "before their missiles wipe out most of our stuff" retaliatory strike, at least until we had other confirmation. The Russians actually WEREN'T attacking, so war-by-mistake was averted.
It turns out that the radars had seen Moonrise. The moon was big enough to be visible by the sensitive over-the-horizon radars. But the round trip was long enough that several pulses had gone out meanwhile. The radar paired the returns with later pulses - and between that, the size of the moon, and other details came up with a fleet of targets. The imaginary targets were not on a ballistic trajectory (it looked like a "forced orbit" - orbiting with acceleration still occuring, rather than a ballistic trajectory - and even if you assume the "engine" would cut off right now and it went ballistic, the illusion wouldn't hit the planet). So the failure to identify expected impact locations was correct. Somehow, previous tests hadn't happened to occur at the right time of day for this effect to be noticed.
The system was modified to reject moonrise, went into service, and the Cold War stayed cold until it ended.
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Metals actually aren't likely to be a major problem. Most of the metals we've refined over the years are still available and frequently in higher purities than we found them. Junk yards and landfills would be the best place to go after them in all likelihood. Metals aren't commonly destroyed, even iron and steel just oxidize, which is pretty much what we smelt to get iron in the first place.
Oil would definitely be in short supply though. I've actually wondered what would happen in the long term with oil wel
Okay, I'm going to need a lot more. (Score:5, Insightful)
So, we have: a single-sourced story from a news source that has in the past been an advocate of the removal of the U.S. base from Okinawa, an anonymous verification source (and thus unable to be contacted for independent verification), and a reprinting of the story by the BoAS, which has long changed its tune to keep itself as being seen as relevant.
I'm surprised that this story was even allowed to be printed, as single-sourced stories are usually laughed out of the editors' offices. Even in this case, if you allow 2 sources, usually you'd need hard evidence, not just hearsay.
How does the expression go? "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"? I don't see anything extraordinary here.
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Such is the state of journalism today, especially on the internet where nobody knows or cares about your ethics or editorial standards and revenue is determined by how many clicks you generate and not if you are telling the truth or not. If you lack credibility for you story, who cares, just put of a snappy good looking website, a couple of good pictures and pay for Google placement for as long as it generates clicks...
Don't get me started on Social Media.... Where everybody becomes the reporter with a self
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Another such story? (Score:2)
Is slashdot going to have a monthly column entitled one man vs the apocalypse? I mean do we need a near nuclear holocaust story every month?
That seems a tad far fetched (Score:2)
Now sure the military has a great track record of screw ups and what could go wrong doing so.
But this one sounds like it has grown over time, like the stereotypical fish that got away story.
I call BS (Score:2)
There weren't any nuclear missile silos in Okinawa
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Informative)
There weren't any nuclear missile silos in Okinawa
Without commenting on the veracity of the story, the missiles in questions were Mace missiles, which, like the Regulus, Bomarc, et. al. were what we today call cruise missiles. So a "silo" is likely to be more like a building than an ICBM silo. They even had Regulus silos on submarines.
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these were Mace B cruise missiles, no silos needed, there were container and portable versions.
Bulletin of Scientists = BS (Score:2, Interesting)
The summary should probably mention the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists since that's where the link goes and that's who is making the claim.
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Only if some of yours in the first volley miss.
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The first 32 aren't so bad. It's the next 1,000 that *really* ruin your day.
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NATO's military might dwarfs Russia's. Hell, NATO's military might dwarfs the rest of the world's combined military capability. Yes, Putin could do a helluva lot of damage to NATO's member states if he wanted, but if he ever did, we'd end up with a modern version of the Roman salting of the fields of Carthage would bring Russia so low it's hard to see how it would ever rise again.
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That is what Napoleon thought when he burned Moscow. ... and as they have nukes too ...
That is what Hitler thought when he tried to conquer Stalingrad.
Without nukes you don't beat the Russians on their own territory
If the Russians would attack west Europe, they would get a bloody nose, likely by the sacrifice of Germany, Poland and the baltic nations. Perhaps even France and Denmark.
However underestimating the capabilities of the Russian Military is plain dumb. It is only american magazines where an america
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Napoleon can be chalked up as a failure of logistics. The doctrine of the time was that your armies relied heavily on plundered resources for their sustenance. That doctrine was especially important given the distances involved in invading Russia. The Russians denied Napoleon that strategy and it all went south from there.
Hitler was stopped in Russia because Stalin basically decided to just poor conscripts into the fight as long as it took to choke the German offensive. If Hitler had actually been able to b
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NATO couldn't find Serbia's armoured forces in Kosovo. If it comes to war with Russia, half of Europe will panic and desert the alliance anyway.
Oh please, they where not really looking. Everybody knew what the Rules of Engagement where, so Serbia just put their stuff where NATO wasn't going to look. Not to mention that it's likely *everybody* knew where the stuff was and that NATO wouldn't touch it where it sat. Everybody was just sitting on their hands telling themselves that it wasn't worth poking the bear and risking an all out conflict over Kosovo.
If the gloves come off and NATO actually *does* something more than give lip service to containin
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Not Kosovo, Bosnia. The the Serbs folded real quick once NATO decided to stop playing hit the weasel & destroy Serbia's means of supporting it's war.
Anyway, rules avoiding civilian casualties are abandoned in "Real Wars".
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I'm guessing it's a bit of both... Something dangerous happened and many of the safeties where disabled, but the true story isn't as bad as this sounds.
As close as we where to a nuclear exchange during the Cuban Missile crisis (and we where close) and as bad as the technical faults may have been or not, it didn't happen. I'd like to point out that for each of these "We almost launched" stories we have on this side, there are at least as many on the other side, even during this crisis, yet nobody has died du
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Also, your comment, "a bit of both" would imply there were only 2 options...the OP said "senile, crazy, or just making shit up." leaving
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So JFK and his brother where better leaders than what we've had lately? Well, maybe...
However, good leaders tend to rise to the need when necessary in history but are not always evident or seemingly available before they are needed. Lincoln was a two bit lawyer with zero experience that many believed was largely responsible for the Civil War. He took the highest office of a deeply divided country and it literally fell apart under his leadership. As a leader, he failed in his first term and almost didn't
Re:decline in leadship quality (Score:4, Informative)
... Lincoln was a two bit lawyer with zero experience that many believed was largely responsible for the Civil War. He took the highest office of a deeply divided country and it literally fell apart under his leadership. As a leader, he failed in his first term and almost didn't win the primary to be elected to his second term. Yet we remember him as a leader, as an important part of the Civil War, one of the BEST presidents on record.
What bizarrely ignorant claptrap!
Lincoln took office on 4 March 1861. By that date seven of the eleven states of Confederacy had already seceded (with the secession process in full swing the last four); the CSA government had already been declared, and the first hostilities of the war (by the South) had already occurred when South Carolina fired on the Star of the West that was resupplying Ft. Sumter, which was under siege, on 9 January 1861.
Very odd notion of a "failed first term". When Lincoln was re-elected the western half of the Confederacy had been defeated, and the last remaining Confederate army of any strength (Lee's army) was pinned down, unable to move or act against the Union in any way, was shrinking through desertion, and was only five months from final surrender. Basically the war was already won, it was then only a matter of time to get the defeated to lay down their arms.
Lincoln had also abolished slavery in fact everywhere in the Confederacy where Union troops had set foot (most of it), and gotten the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery everywhere, completely, passed by the Senate, and well on the way to ratification.
Oh, and his diplomacy had kept even a single nation anywhere in the world from recognizing the Confederacy.
And his first term wasn't even all about the war either. He had gotten the Pacific Railroad Bill passed in July 1862, that set in motion the transcontinental railroad project that would unite the two coasts of America by rail in 1869.
The bit about "almost didn't win the primary to be elected to his second term" is truly bizarre. First, there were no primaries. Second, the challenger to Lincoln - Salmon P. Chase - withdrew in March and Lincoln faced no opposition when he was renominated in June. He won the election 212-21. If by "almost didn't win" you meant "easily crushed all opposition" then you would be far closer to the truth.
Please cite who these "many" are that think he was "largely responsible for the Civil War".
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From the perspective of the South, the Election of Lincoln was the trigger that ignited the war. He was a Republican, which had at it's core two fundamental beliefs that where antithetical to life in the South. The position that Slavery was wrong and should be made illegal and that the southern states who where threatening to leave the union over the first issue should not be allowed to leave. This is why many of the southern states left the union AFTER Lincoln was president-elect but before he took offi
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Yeah only 32. In what would have been the first wave of a full scale nuclear war.
The Soviets would have either picked up the missiles being launched or maybe only the explosions, can't remember the level of launch detection technology in 62, and launched their alpha strike weapons. Once the US realized the Soviets had launched, their retaliatory strike would launch. Remember both sides were extremely twitchy that week and looking for the slightest signal that the other side was firing.
Maybe the lieutenant
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No more than 10 to 20 Million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.
I think I'll have some more pure grain alcohol, in rainwater.
Anyone seen my golf bag?