4 ms·
Part of this is brinkmanship. Even if there was no practical way this would improve even short-term survivability, if the Soviets believed that the US believed
by teachrdan 6y ago
Part of this is brinkmanship. Even if there was no practical way this would improve even short-term survivability, if the Soviets believed that the US believed this would work, that would be enough to show the US would not be cowed by their nuclear arsenal. It was also a way to reassure US citizens that we were not completely vulnerable to nuclear annihilation. Same with backyard fallout shelters and teaching schoolchildren to hide from nuclear explosions under their school desks--the original school shooter drills.
- r00fus 6y agoBrinkmanship or security theatre?
- 1propionyl 6y agoOr option C: greed. Any way you slice it, nuclear deterrence, missile defense, containment theory and more generally any initiative motivated by the fear of imminent nuclear holocaust and the Red Menace were huge windfalls for industrial corporations from the end of WWII onward. It was an effective way to siphon huge amounts of money from the postwar federal coffers for corporations that had made bank during the war, but were now left to justify why the government should continue shoveling money at them. Now, this may not be the case for Houston's interchanges in particular, but it was certainly the case for many such endeavors going forward for decades. See also: SDI ("Star Wars"). And of course, there were other factors like suburbanization/white flight and the ascendant automobile industry. But all of these potential motivators were (are?) very entangled and hard to fully extricate from one another.