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Did the US Plan a Nuclear First Strike Against Russia in the Early 1960s?

87 points by yurisagalov 10y ago

bifrost 10y ago
I always imagined we had, interesting to find some details. We planned, and still do to some extent, for every eventuality.
- Retric 10y ago
  The DoD writes up plans to attack 50+ countries every year. This is a useful exercise in part because doing so well take a long time and show where capability might be lacking. But, it's also simply a good way to train for the current war instead of falling into the trap of preparing to fight the last one. PS: It's also not clear how serious this stuff is. The DoD does a lot of stuff simply because it's budget and manpower is insane. And nothing says people are not simply taking the plan written in 1983 changing the name of the aircraft and dating it 2016.
  - mjevans 10y ago
    It's also a good idea to have such plans drawn up in case they are needed. Think of it as a strategic deterrent. Also, I would be amazed if, for example, Russia wasn't doing exactly the same thing.
    - atemerev 10y ago
      Oh boy we did! https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Soviet-San-Diego.jpg https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Soviet-San-... Why do you think during the Cold War we made these nice high-detail maps of US cities? To promote Soviet-American tourism? Wired article on these: http://www.wired.com/2015/07/secret-cold-war-maps/ http://www.wired.com/2015/07/secret-cold-war-maps/
  - lostlogin 10y ago
    > train for the current war instead of falling into the trap of preparing to fight the last one < This is likely true, but they haven't done all that well in the last few they started. The completely flat-footed occupations have been more than a little humbling I'd have thought.
    - mikeash 10y ago
      All the plans in the world won't do you any good if your political masters refuse to follow them. I'm sure the DoD had good plans for the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. And I'm sure those plans involved things that the administration refused to consider, like sending four times as many troops as we actually did.
    - rhino369 10y ago
      The US occupations have been pretty successful from a military prospective. I'm not sure you could do a much better job in the 21st century (without resorting to insane brutality). It was the geopolitical result that was disasterous. Blame that on the administrations that ordered the occupations, especially, the state department and intelligence agencies. The occupation of Iraq was a stupid move, but the military could have sustained it indefinitely.
      - lostlogin 10y ago
        The ability to sustain losses is very different to what the GP was discussing - learning from the past to deal with the present. Of course the US can sustain losses easily - that has been a hallmark of the industrialised world. However the US did not pay attention to the experiences of others with experiences when occupying Afghanistan or Iraq. This did not appear to be an easy learning experience with IEDs, suicide bombing and insurgency being a departure from what the US expected to face. At least that's what it looked like from afar.
        mikeash 10y ago
        Our political leaders sold Iraq on the basis that it would be cheap and easy and that we would be welcomed as liberators. Fighting an insurgency requires abandoning those assumptions, which was politically nearly impossible. The problems we faced there weren't with planning, they were with ignoring planning.
king_magic 10y ago
"I quickly read the article and was stunned." ... "Could such a momentous historical discovery have been so totally ignored by our mainstream journalists and historians that I’d never heard of it during the previous twenty years?" Ugh, come on, enough, Internet, enough with the over-sensationalization of everything. Is the author really that naive? Of course we planned a nuclear first strike against Russia. And China. And likely the entire Eastern Bloc. It would have been irresponsible for our war planners to do otherwise, as it's one of many contingencies that may ultimately arise. The United States is not a "no first use" country. So it absolutely, 100% stands to reason we would have planned out first strikes against many countries.
- throwanem 10y ago
  I'm a little surprised as well; Unz is usually at least somewhat more level-headed than this. On the other hand, he strikes me as a person whose ideals are very deeply held and whose perception of the United States is strongly informed by them, so maybe it's not too unlikely he would react this way.
- etrevino 10y ago
  > Of course we planned a nuclear first strike against Russia. And China. And likely the entire Eastern Bloc. It would have been irresponsible for our war planners to do otherwise, as it's one of many contingencies that may ultimately arise. There are only five comments here, but I'm relieved to see that they all more or less come to the same conclusion you do. The press (especially the national security press) would have known the same thing, so they're highly unlikely to have considered the existence of these plans to be particularly revelatory. I think that explains away UNZ's fears about the press's possible complicity with whitewashing history (in this case, anyway).
  - lostlogin 10y ago
    Having these documents add to the story in a meaningful way through. It very much gives context to the Cuban crisis as the USSRs only decent tools appear to have been shorter range than what the US had. The US could be just as threatening to the USSR without leaving home when it took the USSR setting up in Cuba to counter the threat. This certainly gives context to me and make the USSR look less the aggressor and actually weak, forced into a corner.
Jtsummers 10y ago
Military plans such as these are rarely intended to be acted upon. They're plans from a strategic perspective. A question is posed: What if we executed a first strike? Related questions come up: When should we do it, what would be the retaliation, what would be the economic impact, etc. These get put together into a report, and it's set aside. Military plans are not statements of intent on their own.
- usrusr 10y ago
  Not to mention the nice side effect of having a much better idea of how the other side might proceed if they wanted to do a first strike (which is a rather strong "if", but America back in the day surely felt different about that). But what gives the Unz interpretation a bit of weight is the element of "if you ever want to first strike, it's now or never" that was clearly present. This can easily turn a purely theoretical game-plan into a purely theoretical game-plan with a zealous PR department.
- pasbesoin 10y ago
  Also, the value in exploring "What is our opponent thinking?" Although they won't know of all your resources and capabilities, they will have some idea of many. And it's valuable to know what they may worry about. As well, how well their concern does or doesn't match reality. In such planning, you need to explore the whole space of thought and possibilities -- from both sides -- and not just the more palatable ones you wish to follow.
finid 10y ago
There were knuckleheads on both sides who thought they could get away with a first strike. During the Russian-Georgian war, the Bush administration actually toyed with the idea of striking Russia. Bush was given the option, but he declined. Edit: The option was not nuclear, though.
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  I can't imagine a US strike on Russia that would not become nuclear very quickly. If nothing else, the Russians can't assume that the US strike is not nuclear, so the Russian response would be. And the US can't assume that the Russian response is not nuclear, so the next US strike would be. And there we go...
  - pravula 10y ago
    Not really. As a counter point, see India/Pakistan Kargil war (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War). Both were nuclear armed and still kept it conventional.
    - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
      India and Pakistan share a border, though. For the US to strike Russia is either a missile or a plane. That missile or plane carries a nuclear threat that a bullet or a mortar shell doesn't. "Is that missile that's going to hit in 10 minutes carrying a nuclear warhead?" is a different category of question than "Is this shooting war on the line of control going to cause the other side to use the nuclear weapons that they have, but which are not anywhere near where the fighting is, and are clearly not yet being fired at us?"
    - sgt101 10y ago
      Not really. You are making a false comparison. The differences are : - USA has an asymmetric conventional dominance that would prevent a non nuclear outcome that could provide a strategically acceptable outcome for Russia. - The USA's continental territory is 1000's of km from Russia; a Russian retaliation would not be short range strikes but intercontinental - this would look pretty much like a nuclear escalation even if it wasn't - The outcome of a conventional strike by Russia on the continental territory of the USA - for example one conventional cruise missile striking Portsmouth Navel Base in Maine - would be politically catastrophic for the sitting president. I cannot imagine the likely outcomes for said president or their likely next move, and I invite you to contemplate the possibility that neither you or the Russians are able to do that either. A conventional confrontation between Russia and the USA could remain rational so long as neither national territory is involved. If either national territory is involved the retaliation would lead to an irrational situation immediately - after that all bets are off. Even a clear accident would be extremely likely to trigger a nuclear war.
karma_vaccum123 10y ago
At the very least, Nixon at one point decided a good tactic would be for the Soviets to believe he was unstable and was willing to embrace the idea of conflict, so as to scare them off of aggression. His quote was "I want them to think I am nuts". During this period of his presidency, Nixon was known to become so drunk that Kissinger effectively took over many of his duties in private To reinforce the idea that he was "nuts", Nixon ordered at least one bomber-wing approach of Soviet airspace. I don't recall if the planes actually carried nuclear weapons, but IIRC, it was Nixon's intent that they should. Not sure if this qualifies as a "plan", but it was rehearsed. A neighbor who was once was stationed in a Titan ICBM silo also recounted a story that seemed extremely scary: during the Arab/Israeli war there was apparently a report by US intelligence of a Russian missile launch, and in his silo he claims they had their hands on the keys ready to turn (weapon was armed, fueled, they were literally waiting for the launch order)...although they were later informed to stand down when the missile was confirmed as a test. I asked him if he would have turned the key, and he said absolutely.
- honkhonkpants 10y ago
  Wasnt the Titan II always fueled and armed? The Titan I had to be fueled but the Titan II that lines up with that war could be launched in less than a minute.
  - blakeyrat 10y ago
    "it's fueled and armed" is not mutually-exclusive with "it's always fueled and armed".
- Immortalin 10y ago
  Sounds like the DPRK's current strategy
- pekk 10y ago
  Nixon had more domestic incentive to act crazy than there was geopolitical advantage in acting crazy.
emeraldd 10y ago
A military that does not plan to eliminate everyone else in the "room", no mater who they are, is remiss in it's duties. It doesn't take much for a former "friend" to turn into a countries worst nightmare.
mmcconnell1618 10y ago
I'm pretty sure we (the United States) have plans in place for an invasion of Canada. That doesn't mean Canada should be worried. It means our planners want to cover every scenario they can think of so that should the need arise, we have put some thought into how to handle that situation.
- karma_vaccum123 10y ago
  Just a heads-up, the US is 0-2 for invading Canada...there were failed incursions during both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. In the bizarro-event of an invasion, Canada could just go scorched-Earth and dump nuclear waste into the Great Lakes and obliterate the habitability of the northeast. Or just create a Chernobyl-like disaster at a nuclear plant to coincide with weather patterns blowing southward. If the US retaliated with nuclear weapons, it would just blanket itself with more fallout. Protip: a nuclear neighbor is not a good invasion target.
  - douche 10y ago
    Bringing up events effectively prior to the founding of the standing US Army is not a particularly effective point. If you thought Operation Desert Storm was quick, don't even think how fast the USAF could dismantle a smaller military when operating from their own home bases.
    - karma_vaccum123 10y ago
      Given that Canada is mostly barren, air power isn't that useful. If you'd like to bomb Nunavut, go nuts.
      - akiselev 10y ago
        US population centers on the coasts and plenty of military/air force bases are well within reach of most major Canadian population centers and throw in a blockade at sea it would be a very assymetric war. This isn't the early 19th century. But what's the point? The US doesn't need tundra and tarsands... or a French Canadian resistance. It would also probably through the UK into play in a really awkward position.
douche 10y ago
It would be almost criminal if the DOD didn't prepare a plan for that contingency. It is their job to be prepared for every possibility.
WalterBright 10y ago
The military has plans for everything, because plans take time to prepare, and they don't want to be winging it should a need suddenly arise.
ufmace 10y ago
I sure hope we did. "Plan" in the context of national militaries has a very different meaning from making a "plan" with your buddies. Any national military planners wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't have a plan for attacking any country they could conceivably reach. It's their job to have plans available and ready for the political leaders, and it's those leaders' jobs to decide which plans to actually execute and when. Consider: If you're, say, the Secretary of Defense, at any meeting, the President might tell you "Country X just went nuts! We have to deal with this now! What can we do?". You don't wanna tell the President "Umm, I dunno, let us look into it". You wanna be able to say something more like "We could go with a nuclear strike, using units A, B, and C. Expected casualties in country X are Y military and Z civilian, and we estimate a possible retaliatory nuclear strike against at least 10 US cities, with casualty estimates as described. Or we could launch a conventional strike with Carrier Group D, attacking these government and infrastructure targets, optionally following up with a land invasion with these units or special forces attacks, with enemy and friendly casualty estimates." Clearly, we want to have plans for every possible way of attacking every country we would be capable of attacking, all continuously updated to reflect our forces and their readiness, as well as estimated enemy forces and their readiness. We also want to be able to talk intelligently about possible force level changes. If the President wants to, say, dissolve one or more Army divisions, raise another one, buy or sell aircraft, retire nukes or build more, etc, we want to be able to describe how that would affect our ability to attack and defend against attacks from various countries.
- bootload 10y ago
  "I sure hope we did." I'm sure the 'dogs of war' tried. In '60 Eisenhower green-lit an invasion plan by the CIA (Dulles) in response to the nationalisation of Esso, Standard Oil and Shell in Cuba. Does this sound familiar? (https://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/The-Bay-of-Pigs.aspx https://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/The-Bay-of-Pig...) It's election year. Kennedy was elected in '60 and a key part of that was equalising the 'missile-gap'. There was no missile gap. US had 100 times the capability of USSR. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis#Balance_of_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis#Balance_o...) In '61 Kennedy didn't provide ^air support^ for Operation Mongoose organised by Lansdale. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Project) Dulles is fired as head of the CIA. In October '62, the US B team of Generals (Joint Chiefs of Staff) LeMay, Lansdale, Anderson, Anderson, Shoup and Wheeler were being pushed for implementing the first strike over Russian (LeMay) and invading Cuba again (Lansdale). (https://govbooktalk.gpo.gov/2012/10/18/hawks-vs-doves-the-joint-chiefs-and-the-cuban-missile-crisis/ https://govbooktalk.gpo.gov/2012/10/18/hawks-vs-doves-the-jo... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Project) The time clock of the missile crisis, shows the operational nature of the CIA. (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/bayofpigs/chron.html http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/bayofpigs/chron.html) Cooler heads prevailed. Khrushchev and Kennedy negotiated secretly, while the military of both sides maintained their cool. Just as well. It's now known that Cuba was in the possession of ^tactical^ nuclear weapons. So without any control from the USSR, field commanders ^could^ have deployed them if Cuba was invaded. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis#Post-crisis_revelations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis#Post-cris...) In '63, JFK was assassinated. A year after that Khrushchev was rolled. The change of US political direction allowed the war footing to escalate, ever since. Lansdale, LeMay, Dulles, Nixon, the CIA and US arms and resource companies all had great careers in the post '63 era. [0] [0] The inference here is you can find potential conspirators that lead to 22 November 1963. The same names appear again and again in the "Assassination Records Review Board: Files of Douglas P. Horne" (http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/review-board/horne-files.html http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/review-board/horne-file...)
hollerith 10y ago
>the motivation [for building fallout shelters] had never made much sense to me, since in most cases the supplies would only have been sufficient to last a few weeks or so, while the deadly radioactive fallout from numerous Soviet thermonuclear strikes on our urban centers would have been long-lasting. Uh, fallout is only deadly for a few weeks or so even after thousands of nuclear weapons are used on a country. The radioactive elements produced in a nuclear explosion are very different from those produced in a nuclear power plant: the latter can stay deadly for years. The reason fallout shelters were so popular during the Cold War is that they're a cost effective way of avoiding a major cause of death during a nuclear war.
- 7952 10y ago
  A few of the fallout products have a long half life and can cause harmful effects. Do you consider those to be not deadly? Could they exist in sufficient quantities to be an issue? Also a ground bursting weapon could interact with other elements present at ground zero so it seems more complex than just "wait a few weeks and it's safe".
  - hollerith 10y ago
    Ground bursts do produce a lot more fallout than air bursts, but that's been taken into account. The worst fallout would probably be downwind of the ICBM silos both because of the number and the size of the weapons used and the fact that they'd be ground bursts. Downwind of the ICBM silos, one might have to stay in a fallout shelter for 4 weeks or even a little longer. Fallout can be even higher IIRC within a few miles of the explosion, but implicit in the concept of the fallout shelter (as opposed to the much more expensive blast shelter) is the assumption that the shelter will be outside of the range in which the explosion is immediately deadly to humans (through blast, through heat / infrared radiation and through "prompt" radiation). Note that even before the START treaties, the Soviets only ever had enough weapons to cause immediate death to humans over approximately 5% of the area of the United States. Consequently, many suburban and rural American could and can realistically expect to survive the immediate effects of the explosions with fallout being the main danger in the weeks immediately after the attack. After a few weeks, starvation starts to become the main danger although note that as of a 1985 survey, the US had enough food stored (mainly on farms, mostly wheat, corn, grain sorghums, and soybeans) to keep 200 million Americans from starving for 6 years. This information comes from Cresson Kearny's Nuclear War Survival Skills, revised 1986 or 1987, which is available for free in PDF form on the internet. Kearny was employed by the American civil-defense establishment.
jomamaxx 10y ago
The US military has definitely planned 'first strike' ops, as well as every other conceivable option they could possibly face. It's called 'preparation'. It's their job to prepare for any circumstances that they can possibly foresee. Example: every bridge in Europe is 'pre-prepared' for demolition. Normally, a combat engineering team has to scout the bridge, plan, then figure out how to disable it. In the event of ww3 - the plans are already done. A combat engineer need only draw the plan for the database and execute one of the options. It goes much further than that.
- j1vms 10y ago
  > Example: every bridge in Europe is 'pre-prepared' for demolition (..) the plans are already done. A combat engineer need only draw the plan for the database and execute one of the options. You would think. But in reality, these one-off type preparations probably have a actual low chance of going as planned or being executed in a timely manner. The only exceptions being contingencies that are actively, regularly simulated by computer or otherwise. I don't think it'd be surprising to find that, bureaucracy & budgets working the way they do, no one there is simulating demolitions like that (at least not since the 50s or 60s).
  - jacobush 10y ago
    I concur.
  - jomamaxx 10y ago
    I don't think you understood the comment. A bridge reconnaissance does not change once it's done unless the bridge changes materially. The hard part of a bridge recon plain is taking measurements of the abutments, the deck, types of materials etc.. The attack plan is easy once you have that. Also - there is nothing to simulate based on computers in this case. The only variable that changes is demolition technology and the availability of air support to do demolitions which forgoes the requirement to have Engineers do it.
    - jomamaxx 10y ago
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
mlvljr 10y ago
What about our (Russian) first strike plans? Any known to public?
piyushpr134 10y ago
Is it even surprising ? USA is the only country in the world to have used nuclear weapons. You have already used it in first strike mode which did not even have nukes. Why is it surprising that it would not happen again ?
- Teever 10y ago
  I don't think that is necessarily a valid conclusion to draw. If anything the first use of nuclear weapons was a corner case.
gtrubetskoy 10y ago
It is not a secret that Von Neumann's work on Game Theory at RAND corporation in the 50's was precisely commissioned by the US government to answer the first strike question. Here is a quote from Wikipedia: "In 1950, the first mathematical discussion of the prisoner's dilemma appeared, and an experiment was undertaken by notable mathematicians Merrill M. Flood and Melvin Dresher, as part of the RAND Corporation's investigations into game theory. RAND pursued the studies because of possible applications to global nuclear strategy." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory And another on RAND corp: "Its most visible contribution may be the doctrine of nuclear deterrence by mutually assured destruction (MAD), developed under the guidance of then-Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and based upon their work with game theory." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAND_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAND_Corporation A great fun and entertaining book on the subject: https://www.amazon.com/Prisoners-Dilemma-William-Poundstone/dp/038541580X https://www.amazon.com/Prisoners-Dilemma-William-Poundstone/...

87 points by yurisagalov 10y ago

I always imagined we had, interesting to find some details. We planned, and still do to some extent, for every eventuality.

Retric 10y ago
The DoD writes up plans to attack 50+ countries every year. This is a useful exercise in part because doing so well take a long time and show where capability might be lacking. But, it's also simply a good way to train for the current war instead of falling into the trap of preparing to fight the last one. PS: It's also not clear how serious this stuff is. The DoD does a lot of stuff simply because it's budget and manpower is insane. And nothing says people are not simply taking the plan written in 1983 changing the name of the aircraft and dating it 2016.
- mjevans 10y ago
  It's also a good idea to have such plans drawn up in case they are needed. Think of it as a strategic deterrent. Also, I would be amazed if, for example, Russia wasn't doing exactly the same thing.
  - atemerev 10y ago
    Oh boy we did! https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Soviet-San-Diego.jpg https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Soviet-San-... Why do you think during the Cold War we made these nice high-detail maps of US cities? To promote Soviet-American tourism? Wired article on these: http://www.wired.com/2015/07/secret-cold-war-maps/ http://www.wired.com/2015/07/secret-cold-war-maps/
- lostlogin 10y ago
  > train for the current war instead of falling into the trap of preparing to fight the last one < This is likely true, but they haven't done all that well in the last few they started. The completely flat-footed occupations have been more than a little humbling I'd have thought.
  - mikeash 10y ago
    All the plans in the world won't do you any good if your political masters refuse to follow them. I'm sure the DoD had good plans for the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. And I'm sure those plans involved things that the administration refused to consider, like sending four times as many troops as we actually did.
  - rhino369 10y ago
    The US occupations have been pretty successful from a military prospective. I'm not sure you could do a much better job in the 21st century (without resorting to insane brutality). It was the geopolitical result that was disasterous. Blame that on the administrations that ordered the occupations, especially, the state department and intelligence agencies. The occupation of Iraq was a stupid move, but the military could have sustained it indefinitely.
    - lostlogin 10y ago
      The ability to sustain losses is very different to what the GP was discussing - learning from the past to deal with the present. Of course the US can sustain losses easily - that has been a hallmark of the industrialised world. However the US did not pay attention to the experiences of others with experiences when occupying Afghanistan or Iraq. This did not appear to be an easy learning experience with IEDs, suicide bombing and insurgency being a departure from what the US expected to face. At least that's what it looked like from afar.
      - mikeash 10y ago
        Our political leaders sold Iraq on the basis that it would be cheap and easy and that we would be welcomed as liberators. Fighting an insurgency requires abandoning those assumptions, which was politically nearly impossible. The problems we faced there weren't with planning, they were with ignoring planning.

king_magic 10y ago

"I quickly read the article and was stunned." ... "Could such a momentous historical discovery have been so totally ignored by our mainstream journalists and historians that I’d never heard of it during the previous twenty years?" Ugh, come on, enough, Internet, enough with the over-sensationalization of everything. Is the author really that naive? Of course we planned a nuclear first strike against Russia. And China. And likely the entire Eastern Bloc. It would have been irresponsible for our war planners to do otherwise, as it's one of many contingencies that may ultimately arise. The United States is not a "no first use" country. So it absolutely, 100% stands to reason we would have planned out first strikes against many countries.

throwanem 10y ago
I'm a little surprised as well; Unz is usually at least somewhat more level-headed than this. On the other hand, he strikes me as a person whose ideals are very deeply held and whose perception of the United States is strongly informed by them, so maybe it's not too unlikely he would react this way.
etrevino 10y ago
> Of course we planned a nuclear first strike against Russia. And China. And likely the entire Eastern Bloc. It would have been irresponsible for our war planners to do otherwise, as it's one of many contingencies that may ultimately arise. There are only five comments here, but I'm relieved to see that they all more or less come to the same conclusion you do. The press (especially the national security press) would have known the same thing, so they're highly unlikely to have considered the existence of these plans to be particularly revelatory. I think that explains away UNZ's fears about the press's possible complicity with whitewashing history (in this case, anyway).
- lostlogin 10y ago
  Having these documents add to the story in a meaningful way through. It very much gives context to the Cuban crisis as the USSRs only decent tools appear to have been shorter range than what the US had. The US could be just as threatening to the USSR without leaving home when it took the USSR setting up in Cuba to counter the threat. This certainly gives context to me and make the USSR look less the aggressor and actually weak, forced into a corner.

Jtsummers 10y ago

Military plans such as these are rarely intended to be acted upon. They're plans from a strategic perspective. A question is posed: What if we executed a first strike? Related questions come up: When should we do it, what would be the retaliation, what would be the economic impact, etc. These get put together into a report, and it's set aside. Military plans are not statements of intent on their own.

usrusr 10y ago
Not to mention the nice side effect of having a much better idea of how the other side might proceed if they wanted to do a first strike (which is a rather strong "if", but America back in the day surely felt different about that). But what gives the Unz interpretation a bit of weight is the element of "if you ever want to first strike, it's now or never" that was clearly present. This can easily turn a purely theoretical game-plan into a purely theoretical game-plan with a zealous PR department.
pasbesoin 10y ago
Also, the value in exploring "What is our opponent thinking?" Although they won't know of all your resources and capabilities, they will have some idea of many. And it's valuable to know what they may worry about. As well, how well their concern does or doesn't match reality. In such planning, you need to explore the whole space of thought and possibilities -- from both sides -- and not just the more palatable ones you wish to follow.

finid 10y ago

There were knuckleheads on both sides who thought they could get away with a first strike. During the Russian-Georgian war, the Bush administration actually toyed with the idea of striking Russia. Bush was given the option, but he declined. Edit: The option was not nuclear, though.

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
I can't imagine a US strike on Russia that would not become nuclear very quickly. If nothing else, the Russians can't assume that the US strike is not nuclear, so the Russian response would be. And the US can't assume that the Russian response is not nuclear, so the next US strike would be. And there we go...
- pravula 10y ago
  Not really. As a counter point, see India/Pakistan Kargil war (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War). Both were nuclear armed and still kept it conventional.
  - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
    India and Pakistan share a border, though. For the US to strike Russia is either a missile or a plane. That missile or plane carries a nuclear threat that a bullet or a mortar shell doesn't. "Is that missile that's going to hit in 10 minutes carrying a nuclear warhead?" is a different category of question than "Is this shooting war on the line of control going to cause the other side to use the nuclear weapons that they have, but which are not anywhere near where the fighting is, and are clearly not yet being fired at us?"
  - sgt101 10y ago
    Not really. You are making a false comparison. The differences are : - USA has an asymmetric conventional dominance that would prevent a non nuclear outcome that could provide a strategically acceptable outcome for Russia. - The USA's continental territory is 1000's of km from Russia; a Russian retaliation would not be short range strikes but intercontinental - this would look pretty much like a nuclear escalation even if it wasn't - The outcome of a conventional strike by Russia on the continental territory of the USA - for example one conventional cruise missile striking Portsmouth Navel Base in Maine - would be politically catastrophic for the sitting president. I cannot imagine the likely outcomes for said president or their likely next move, and I invite you to contemplate the possibility that neither you or the Russians are able to do that either. A conventional confrontation between Russia and the USA could remain rational so long as neither national territory is involved. If either national territory is involved the retaliation would lead to an irrational situation immediately - after that all bets are off. Even a clear accident would be extremely likely to trigger a nuclear war.

karma_vaccum123 10y ago

At the very least, Nixon at one point decided a good tactic would be for the Soviets to believe he was unstable and was willing to embrace the idea of conflict, so as to scare them off of aggression. His quote was "I want them to think I am nuts". During this period of his presidency, Nixon was known to become so drunk that Kissinger effectively took over many of his duties in private To reinforce the idea that he was "nuts", Nixon ordered at least one bomber-wing approach of Soviet airspace. I don't recall if the planes actually carried nuclear weapons, but IIRC, it was Nixon's intent that they should. Not sure if this qualifies as a "plan", but it was rehearsed. A neighbor who was once was stationed in a Titan ICBM silo also recounted a story that seemed extremely scary: during the Arab/Israeli war there was apparently a report by US intelligence of a Russian missile launch, and in his silo he claims they had their hands on the keys ready to turn (weapon was armed, fueled, they were literally waiting for the launch order)...although they were later informed to stand down when the missile was confirmed as a test. I asked him if he would have turned the key, and he said absolutely.

honkhonkpants 10y ago
Wasnt the Titan II always fueled and armed? The Titan I had to be fueled but the Titan II that lines up with that war could be launched in less than a minute.
- blakeyrat 10y ago
  "it's fueled and armed" is not mutually-exclusive with "it's always fueled and armed".
Immortalin 10y ago
Sounds like the DPRK's current strategy
pekk 10y ago
Nixon had more domestic incentive to act crazy than there was geopolitical advantage in acting crazy.

emeraldd 10y ago

A military that does not plan to eliminate everyone else in the "room", no mater who they are, is remiss in it's duties. It doesn't take much for a former "friend" to turn into a countries worst nightmare.

mmcconnell1618 10y ago

I'm pretty sure we (the United States) have plans in place for an invasion of Canada. That doesn't mean Canada should be worried. It means our planners want to cover every scenario they can think of so that should the need arise, we have put some thought into how to handle that situation.

karma_vaccum123 10y ago
Just a heads-up, the US is 0-2 for invading Canada...there were failed incursions during both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. In the bizarro-event of an invasion, Canada could just go scorched-Earth and dump nuclear waste into the Great Lakes and obliterate the habitability of the northeast. Or just create a Chernobyl-like disaster at a nuclear plant to coincide with weather patterns blowing southward. If the US retaliated with nuclear weapons, it would just blanket itself with more fallout. Protip: a nuclear neighbor is not a good invasion target.
- douche 10y ago
  Bringing up events effectively prior to the founding of the standing US Army is not a particularly effective point. If you thought Operation Desert Storm was quick, don't even think how fast the USAF could dismantle a smaller military when operating from their own home bases.
  - karma_vaccum123 10y ago
    Given that Canada is mostly barren, air power isn't that useful. If you'd like to bomb Nunavut, go nuts.
    - akiselev 10y ago
      US population centers on the coasts and plenty of military/air force bases are well within reach of most major Canadian population centers and throw in a blockade at sea it would be a very assymetric war. This isn't the early 19th century. But what's the point? The US doesn't need tundra and tarsands... or a French Canadian resistance. It would also probably through the UK into play in a really awkward position.

douche 10y ago

It would be almost criminal if the DOD didn't prepare a plan for that contingency. It is their job to be prepared for every possibility.

WalterBright 10y ago

The military has plans for everything, because plans take time to prepare, and they don't want to be winging it should a need suddenly arise.

ufmace 10y ago

I sure hope we did. "Plan" in the context of national militaries has a very different meaning from making a "plan" with your buddies. Any national military planners wouldn't be doing their job if they didn't have a plan for attacking any country they could conceivably reach. It's their job to have plans available and ready for the political leaders, and it's those leaders' jobs to decide which plans to actually execute and when. Consider: If you're, say, the Secretary of Defense, at any meeting, the President might tell you "Country X just went nuts! We have to deal with this now! What can we do?". You don't wanna tell the President "Umm, I dunno, let us look into it". You wanna be able to say something more like "We could go with a nuclear strike, using units A, B, and C. Expected casualties in country X are Y military and Z civilian, and we estimate a possible retaliatory nuclear strike against at least 10 US cities, with casualty estimates as described. Or we could launch a conventional strike with Carrier Group D, attacking these government and infrastructure targets, optionally following up with a land invasion with these units or special forces attacks, with enemy and friendly casualty estimates." Clearly, we want to have plans for every possible way of attacking every country we would be capable of attacking, all continuously updated to reflect our forces and their readiness, as well as estimated enemy forces and their readiness. We also want to be able to talk intelligently about possible force level changes. If the President wants to, say, dissolve one or more Army divisions, raise another one, buy or sell aircraft, retire nukes or build more, etc, we want to be able to describe how that would affect our ability to attack and defend against attacks from various countries.

bootload 10y ago
"I sure hope we did." I'm sure the 'dogs of war' tried. In '60 Eisenhower green-lit an invasion plan by the CIA (Dulles) in response to the nationalisation of Esso, Standard Oil and Shell in Cuba. Does this sound familiar? (https://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/The-Bay-of-Pigs.aspx https://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/The-Bay-of-Pig...) It's election year. Kennedy was elected in '60 and a key part of that was equalising the 'missile-gap'. There was no missile gap. US had 100 times the capability of USSR. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis#Balance_of_power https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis#Balance_o...) In '61 Kennedy didn't provide ^air support^ for Operation Mongoose organised by Lansdale. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Project) Dulles is fired as head of the CIA. In October '62, the US B team of Generals (Joint Chiefs of Staff) LeMay, Lansdale, Anderson, Anderson, Shoup and Wheeler were being pushed for implementing the first strike over Russian (LeMay) and invading Cuba again (Lansdale). (https://govbooktalk.gpo.gov/2012/10/18/hawks-vs-doves-the-joint-chiefs-and-the-cuban-missile-crisis/ https://govbooktalk.gpo.gov/2012/10/18/hawks-vs-doves-the-jo... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Project) The time clock of the missile crisis, shows the operational nature of the CIA. (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/bayofpigs/chron.html http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/bayofpigs/chron.html) Cooler heads prevailed. Khrushchev and Kennedy negotiated secretly, while the military of both sides maintained their cool. Just as well. It's now known that Cuba was in the possession of ^tactical^ nuclear weapons. So without any control from the USSR, field commanders ^could^ have deployed them if Cuba was invaded. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis#Post-crisis_revelations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis#Post-cris...) In '63, JFK was assassinated. A year after that Khrushchev was rolled. The change of US political direction allowed the war footing to escalate, ever since. Lansdale, LeMay, Dulles, Nixon, the CIA and US arms and resource companies all had great careers in the post '63 era. [0] [0] The inference here is you can find potential conspirators that lead to 22 November 1963. The same names appear again and again in the "Assassination Records Review Board: Files of Douglas P. Horne" (http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/review-board/horne-files.html http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/review-board/horne-file...)

hollerith 10y ago

>the motivation [for building fallout shelters] had never made much sense to me, since in most cases the supplies would only have been sufficient to last a few weeks or so, while the deadly radioactive fallout from numerous Soviet thermonuclear strikes on our urban centers would have been long-lasting. Uh, fallout is only deadly for a few weeks or so even after thousands of nuclear weapons are used on a country. The radioactive elements produced in a nuclear explosion are very different from those produced in a nuclear power plant: the latter can stay deadly for years. The reason fallout shelters were so popular during the Cold War is that they're a cost effective way of avoiding a major cause of death during a nuclear war.

7952 10y ago
A few of the fallout products have a long half life and can cause harmful effects. Do you consider those to be not deadly? Could they exist in sufficient quantities to be an issue? Also a ground bursting weapon could interact with other elements present at ground zero so it seems more complex than just "wait a few weeks and it's safe".
- hollerith 10y ago
  Ground bursts do produce a lot more fallout than air bursts, but that's been taken into account. The worst fallout would probably be downwind of the ICBM silos both because of the number and the size of the weapons used and the fact that they'd be ground bursts. Downwind of the ICBM silos, one might have to stay in a fallout shelter for 4 weeks or even a little longer. Fallout can be even higher IIRC within a few miles of the explosion, but implicit in the concept of the fallout shelter (as opposed to the much more expensive blast shelter) is the assumption that the shelter will be outside of the range in which the explosion is immediately deadly to humans (through blast, through heat / infrared radiation and through "prompt" radiation). Note that even before the START treaties, the Soviets only ever had enough weapons to cause immediate death to humans over approximately 5% of the area of the United States. Consequently, many suburban and rural American could and can realistically expect to survive the immediate effects of the explosions with fallout being the main danger in the weeks immediately after the attack. After a few weeks, starvation starts to become the main danger although note that as of a 1985 survey, the US had enough food stored (mainly on farms, mostly wheat, corn, grain sorghums, and soybeans) to keep 200 million Americans from starving for 6 years. This information comes from Cresson Kearny's Nuclear War Survival Skills, revised 1986 or 1987, which is available for free in PDF form on the internet. Kearny was employed by the American civil-defense establishment.

jomamaxx 10y ago

The US military has definitely planned 'first strike' ops, as well as every other conceivable option they could possibly face. It's called 'preparation'. It's their job to prepare for any circumstances that they can possibly foresee. Example: every bridge in Europe is 'pre-prepared' for demolition. Normally, a combat engineering team has to scout the bridge, plan, then figure out how to disable it. In the event of ww3 - the plans are already done. A combat engineer need only draw the plan for the database and execute one of the options. It goes much further than that.

j1vms 10y ago
> Example: every bridge in Europe is 'pre-prepared' for demolition (..) the plans are already done. A combat engineer need only draw the plan for the database and execute one of the options. You would think. But in reality, these one-off type preparations probably have a actual low chance of going as planned or being executed in a timely manner. The only exceptions being contingencies that are actively, regularly simulated by computer or otherwise. I don't think it'd be surprising to find that, bureaucracy & budgets working the way they do, no one there is simulating demolitions like that (at least not since the 50s or 60s).
- jacobush 10y ago
  I concur.
- jomamaxx 10y ago
  I don't think you understood the comment. A bridge reconnaissance does not change once it's done unless the bridge changes materially. The hard part of a bridge recon plain is taking measurements of the abutments, the deck, types of materials etc.. The attack plan is easy once you have that. Also - there is nothing to simulate based on computers in this case. The only variable that changes is demolition technology and the availability of air support to do demolitions which forgoes the requirement to have Engineers do it.
  - jomamaxx 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

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mlvljr 10y ago

What about our (Russian) first strike plans? Any known to public?

piyushpr134 10y ago

Is it even surprising ? USA is the only country in the world to have used nuclear weapons. You have already used it in first strike mode which did not even have nukes. Why is it surprising that it would not happen again ?

Teever 10y ago
I don't think that is necessarily a valid conclusion to draw. If anything the first use of nuclear weapons was a corner case.

gtrubetskoy 10y ago

It is not a secret that Von Neumann's work on Game Theory at RAND corporation in the 50's was precisely commissioned by the US government to answer the first strike question. Here is a quote from Wikipedia: "In 1950, the first mathematical discussion of the prisoner's dilemma appeared, and an experiment was undertaken by notable mathematicians Merrill M. Flood and Melvin Dresher, as part of the RAND Corporation's investigations into game theory. RAND pursued the studies because of possible applications to global nuclear strategy." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory And another on RAND corp: "Its most visible contribution may be the doctrine of nuclear deterrence by mutually assured destruction (MAD), developed under the guidance of then-Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and based upon their work with game theory." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAND_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAND_Corporation A great fun and entertaining book on the subject: https://www.amazon.com/Prisoners-Dilemma-William-Poundstone/dp/038541580X https://www.amazon.com/Prisoners-Dilemma-William-Poundstone/...