6 ms·
If anyone has not read Ellsberg’s 2017 book “The Doomsday Machine”, I highly recommend it. It covers his work and knowledge regarding potential nuclear war wit
by isx726552 3y ago
If anyone has not read Ellsberg’s 2017 book “The Doomsday Machine”, I highly recommend it. It covers his work and knowledge regarding potential nuclear war within US policy which was the main reason he wanted to become a whistleblower. Within the book he discuses numerous problems with US command and control procedures for launching nuclear attacks and even calls the movie “Dr. Strangelove” a “documentary” (tongue in cheek) because of its satirical yet accurate highlighting of these issues. It’s a captivating, informative, and frightening book.
- arethuza 3y ago"The total death toll as calculated by the Joint Chiefs, from a U.S. first strike aimed primarily at the Soviet Union and China, would be roughly 600 million dead. A hundred Holocausts. I remember what I thought when I held the single sheet with the graph on it. I thought, this piece of paper should not exist. It should never have existed. Not in America. Not anywhere, ever. It depicted evil beyond any human project that had ever existed. There should be nothing on Earth, nothing real, that it referred to." https://apjjf.org/-Daniel-Ellsberg/3222/article.html https://apjjf.org/-Daniel-Ellsberg/3222/article.html He also notes that Finland would have been completely destroyed by the US strike and 100 million would die in Western Europe from the effects of US weapons.
- zirgs 3y agoWere Soviet war plans any different?
- ethanbond 3y agoNope, and this fact amplifies the evil of the system, it doesn’t mitigate it.
- arethuza 3y agoIn the relevant timescale the Soviets were far less of a strategic threat to the US than they would later become. However, they did have lots of weapons pointed at Western Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap In many respect the Soviet leadership was terrified of the West and a first strike - later it was Reagan who was eventually persuaded of what a risk that fear was and de-escalated.
- consilient 3y agoDifferent yes, less catastrophic no. Soviet plans (to the extent that they've been declassified) generally assumed that nuclear weapons would be used in support of tank warfare in Europe.
- the_af 3y agoI remember that at least the Seven Days to the Rhine plan assumed NATO launched a first strike and this was the Soviet counterattack.
- steve76 3y ago[dead]
- Simon_O_Rourke 3y ago> "The total death toll as calculated by the Joint Chiefs, from a U.S. first strike aimed primarily at the Soviet Union and China, would be roughly 600 million dead. A hundred Holocausts. In retort - "Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks."
- arethuza 3y agoAnother scary thing in that book is the delegation of use of nuclear weapons to relatively junior commanders - the public statement that only the US president can authorise the use of nuclear weapons being completely untrue at the time. That is probably why Ellsberg referred to Dr Strangelove as a documentary...
- sillywalk 3y agoI wonder if it's still true. I'd assume there still has to be some delegation in order to keep a second strike viable, otherwise the entire nuclear arsenal can be rendered useless with a decapitation strike, or the person with the 'nuclear football' jumps off a bridge or something.
- Simon_O_Rourke 3y agoI can only presume there's some delegation of authority still, in case of circumstances like that. The Russians can delegate command authority to a system called "Perimetr" [1], which uses sensors to detect nuclear detonations to ensure a second strike can be (correctly) launched. Still doesn't give me that warm and fussy feeling inside knowing that there's either a rogue system or rogue commander that can launch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand
- sillywalk 3y agoWhat's interesting about that system is the question of the motivation - it ensures a nuclear holocaust even in the event of a decapitation strike, but it also was said that it could give 'command elements' time to consider to not retaliate in the event of false alarms etc. so that "cooler heads" might prevail. So it goes.
- nine_k 3y agoI think a document like that absolutely should exist, as a part of a larger file titled "Why the US is not going to strike first". Full terrors should be exposed for MAD to work.
- arethuza 3y ago"Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world, EH?"
- sillywalk 3y ago"It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday. As you know, the Premier loves surprises."
- nerpderp82 3y agoWhy even launch the weapons? Have them in beautiful crystal palaces in remote locations. Detonate them on your own soil.
- nine_k 3y agoThis has been researched; I highly recommend this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_on_Earth_(novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_on_Earth_(novel)
- nerpderp82 3y agoStanislaw Lem fan! Thanks for the recommendation, I haven't read that one yet.
- greedo 3y agoI read "To win a nuclear war: the Pentagon's secret war plans" by Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod last summer. I had thought I was very well-informed on military matters, WW2 history, nuclear strategy and SIOP. After almost every chapter, I would look up at the ceiling or out a nearby window and think that a madness had overcome the US government and military after acquiring and using the atomic bomb against Japan. This weaponry combined with the apoplectic fear of the USSR and communism has shaped the modern world in ways that are hard to overestimate. I think that it should be required reading at all the US military academies.
- matthewdgreen 3y agoThe really shocking (at the time!) part of that book is not just the level of destruction, but the fact that any small number of bombers or a rogue commander could have started the entire process off. It is an absolute miracle we survived the cold war. It's hard to imagine we would survive it twice.
- arethuza 3y agoWorth noting that UK nukes apparently don't have PALs - the crews of the UK Trident submarines have all they need to launch. Of course, being the UK the ultimate guidance on what to do if Radio 4 goes off air (thus civilisation ending) is in the form of hand written letters!
- fragmede 3y agoLetters of Last Resort is an interesting rabbit hole. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort
- pizza 3y agoThe Guardian reported in 2016 that the options are said to include: "Put yourself under the command of the United States, if it is still there", "Go to Australia", "Retaliate", or "Use your own judgement". The actual option chosen remains known only to the writer of the letter. Well.. if there's any truth to that reporting whatsoever.. blimey....
- pavlov 3y ago> “four identically-worded handwritten letters from the prime minister of the United Kingdom” I wonder if they even got Liz Truss’s letters shipped to the boats before she was out. Her letters probably read: “Nuclear war is very sad. But the priority now is to reduce the top marginal tax rate for high earners and follow through on Brexit” — since these were her answers to everything.
- sillywalk 3y agoFor an excellent pseudo-documentary film on a nuclear war in the UK (in the early-mid sixties), The War Game[0] is kind of terrifying. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Game https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_Game
- DennisP 3y agoHis story about his attempted nuclear whistleblowing is pretty amazing. Aside from the Pentagon Papers he copied thousands of pages on US nuclear war doctrine, which was horrific. Decided to release the Pentagon Papers first, because he figured nobody would even care about them in the wake of the nuclear documents. Hid them in a black plastic bag on the edge of the town dump, then a freak storm washed that whole section of the dump down a hill. He and his brother spent a year looking for it and finally gave up. He said his wife considered the storm a gift from God, because he certainly would have gone to prison for life if he'd released that stuff.
- sillywalk 3y agoI second that recommendation. I'd also highly recommend Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety by Eric Schlosser, which discusses similar C&C issues as well as nuclear accidents, and efforts to efforts to make nukes safer and more reliable e.g. PALs and insensitive explosives, and more and it inter-cuts with the story of an "incident" at a Titan missile silo in Arkansas.
- aenis 3y ago...and for some lighter reading, anything by James Mahaffey, in particular the "Atomic Accidents". Both insightful - and bizzarely entertaining to read.
- Spooky23 3y agoHonestly, that book was pretty meh. I liked Schlosser’s earlier work, but you could have summed up command and control in about 40 pages. I’d recommend “Soldiers of Reason”, which is about the RAND corporation and the thought process behind the madness. Hearing about how military bureaucracy does stupid and incompetent things is a given… understanding how a lunatic like LeMay was in charge of and restrained from initiating a global apocalypse is more enlightening, if not terrifying.
- sillywalk 3y agoI'll have to take a look at that book. Apparently LeMay's successor Thomas Power was even more crazy. LeMay was quoted as privately saying that Power was mentally "unstable" and a "sadist."