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That's because we're lucky to live in a world where the cold war stayed cold, and LeMay and von Neumann were coming from half a century of the worst slaughter t

That's because we're lucky to live in a world where the cold war stayed cold, and LeMay and von Neumann were coming from half a century of the worst slaughter the world had ever seen.

arethuza 7y ago
We can be thankful that the likes of Eisenhower and later Kennedy, who lived through the very same times, recoiled from the prospect of initiating a greater slaughter than WW2.
- chasd00 7y ago
  you can't attribute staying out of nuclear conflict to any head of state, morality, or even logic ( there was plenty of luck involved ). For example, after Kennedy resigned himself to striking the sites in Cuba during the missile crisis it was someone else who told him he was wrong and reconsider. (see the documentary Fog of War) To put a fine point on it, even after all the brinksmanship, analysis, diplomacy to resolve the Cuban missile crisis it was a long Soviet officer objecting to launch a nuclear armed torpedo in response to sounding depth charges (interpreted as an attack) from US ships. Pulling the trigger would have started a global thermonuclear war but it wasn't pulled, one officer decided that against a 2/3 vote in favor. "Later that same day, what the White House later called "Black Saturday," the US Navy dropped a series of "signaling depth charges" (practice depth charges the size of hand grenades[114]) on a Soviet submarine (B-59) at the blockade line, unaware that it was armed with a nuclear-tipped torpedo with orders that allowed it to be used if the submarine was damaged by depth charges or surface fire.[115] As the submarine was too deep to monitor any radio traffic,[116][117] the captain of the B-59, Valentin Grigorievitch Savitsky, decided that a war might already have started and wanted to launch a nuclear torpedo.[118] The decision to launch these required agreement from all three officers on board, but one of them, Vasily Arkhipov, objected and so the nuclear launch was narrowly averted." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis There are plenty of examples where, basically, a roll of the dice saved civilization during the cold war. The destruction of society during the cold war was prevented by luck as much as anything else.
  - acqq 7y ago
    > There are plenty of examples where, basically, a roll of the dice saved civilization during the cold war. The destruction of society during the cold war was prevented by luck as much as anything else. The systems are still in place and even today the danger of "accidental" start of the complete destruction of the current civilization is completely real. I always recommend a book subtitled "Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner." I won't write the details so that this doesn't appear as an advertisement. It's worth reading the whole book to get the exact idea how fundamentally flawed the logic of those managing these systems is. Absurdly, they still think they will "win." As the poet said "We will all go together when we go."
    - 7thaccount 7y ago
      There is a documentary on Prime (Command and Control) that covers three incidents in the US where nuclear bombs almost went off.

That's because we're lucky to live in a world where the cold war stayed cold, and LeMay and von Neumann were coming from half a century of the worst slaughter the world had ever seen.

arethuza 7y ago

We can be thankful that the likes of Eisenhower and later Kennedy, who lived through the very same times, recoiled from the prospect of initiating a greater slaughter than WW2.

chasd00 7y ago
you can't attribute staying out of nuclear conflict to any head of state, morality, or even logic ( there was plenty of luck involved ). For example, after Kennedy resigned himself to striking the sites in Cuba during the missile crisis it was someone else who told him he was wrong and reconsider. (see the documentary Fog of War) To put a fine point on it, even after all the brinksmanship, analysis, diplomacy to resolve the Cuban missile crisis it was a long Soviet officer objecting to launch a nuclear armed torpedo in response to sounding depth charges (interpreted as an attack) from US ships. Pulling the trigger would have started a global thermonuclear war but it wasn't pulled, one officer decided that against a 2/3 vote in favor. "Later that same day, what the White House later called "Black Saturday," the US Navy dropped a series of "signaling depth charges" (practice depth charges the size of hand grenades[114]) on a Soviet submarine (B-59) at the blockade line, unaware that it was armed with a nuclear-tipped torpedo with orders that allowed it to be used if the submarine was damaged by depth charges or surface fire.[115] As the submarine was too deep to monitor any radio traffic,[116][117] the captain of the B-59, Valentin Grigorievitch Savitsky, decided that a war might already have started and wanted to launch a nuclear torpedo.[118] The decision to launch these required agreement from all three officers on board, but one of them, Vasily Arkhipov, objected and so the nuclear launch was narrowly averted." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis There are plenty of examples where, basically, a roll of the dice saved civilization during the cold war. The destruction of society during the cold war was prevented by luck as much as anything else.
- acqq 7y ago
  > There are plenty of examples where, basically, a roll of the dice saved civilization during the cold war. The destruction of society during the cold war was prevented by luck as much as anything else. The systems are still in place and even today the danger of "accidental" start of the complete destruction of the current civilization is completely real. I always recommend a book subtitled "Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner." I won't write the details so that this doesn't appear as an advertisement. It's worth reading the whole book to get the exact idea how fundamentally flawed the logic of those managing these systems is. Absurdly, they still think they will "win." As the poet said "We will all go together when we go."
  - 7thaccount 7y ago
    There is a documentary on Prime (Command and Control) that covers three incidents in the US where nuclear bombs almost went off.