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I'm unaware of those, but I do know that US nuclear targets from the 50s were relatively recently declassified [1], and they were far more macabre. We focused

I'm unaware of those, but I do know that US nuclear targets from the 50s were relatively recently declassified [1], and they were far more macabre. We focused on taking out Soviet air forces (to eliminate their ability to deliver nukes of their own - as this was before the USSR had developed ICBMs), but also focused on targets marked simply as "population" as well as medical production facilities. The goal was not to just defeat the military, but to literally destroy the nation. And I'm certain the USSR had, more or less, identical plans. And I suspect those still remain the plans for both sides to this day. Nukes aren't going to falling out in the middle of nowhere trying to take out military bases, they're going to be falling in NYC, San Francisco, Moscow, and St. Petersburg - to try to completely take out the other country's population and economy. Nuclear war is do or die. The goal is going to be to eliminate the enemy's country from the face of this Earth, so that they can't just recover to become a threat 10 years down the line. [1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/us/politics/1950s-us-nuclear-target-list-offers-chilling-insight.html https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/us/politics/1950s-us-nucl...

ethbr1 3y ago
There are always a menu of pre-built reaction plans, because even in the days of strategic bombers over the arctic there wouldn't have been enough reaction time for anything custom + dissemination to combat commands. Much less once ICBMs become common. And at that point, the only requirement for a total war / civilian+industry apocalypse plan is that your potential opponent might also have such a plan. It's tremendously unlikely to be used except in a "like for like" response scenario (absent an insane president), but if the US saw the Soviets throwing everything they had up with population centers targeted... there'd better be a ready to go plan to respond similarly. And, as Dr Strangelove memorably quips, indeed the most effective deterrence effect of such a plan is to loudly tell everyone you have such a plan -- so they will have to consider that's one of your response options, and thus be disincentivized from starting a nuclear exchange. By which it makes a lot of sense that even if the US didn't have such a plan, they fabricated one and announced they did! (Not that I think they didn't. The Cold War was way too real to bet on a 0% chance that superpowers weren't going to escalate to total war)
- somenameforme 3y ago
  That was not a reaction plan, it was an offensive plan. That's why they even bothered with targeting Soviet airfields. At the time the USSR had not yet developed an ICBM and so nukes would have been delivered by air. If it was a response plan, then targeting those airfields would have been wastes of nukes. The idea was to destroy their entire country and nuclear capability, before they could do anything. Remember, there's only one country that's ever nuked another country.
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ethbr1 3y ago

There are always a menu of pre-built reaction plans, because even in the days of strategic bombers over the arctic there wouldn't have been enough reaction time for anything custom + dissemination to combat commands. Much less once ICBMs become common. And at that point, the only requirement for a total war / civilian+industry apocalypse plan is that your potential opponent might also have such a plan. It's tremendously unlikely to be used except in a "like for like" response scenario (absent an insane president), but if the US saw the Soviets throwing everything they had up with population centers targeted... there'd better be a ready to go plan to respond similarly. And, as Dr Strangelove memorably quips, indeed the most effective deterrence effect of such a plan is to loudly tell everyone you have such a plan -- so they will have to consider that's one of your response options, and thus be disincentivized from starting a nuclear exchange. By which it makes a lot of sense that even if the US didn't have such a plan, they fabricated one and announced they did! (Not that I think they didn't. The Cold War was way too real to bet on a 0% chance that superpowers weren't going to escalate to total war)

somenameforme 3y ago
That was not a reaction plan, it was an offensive plan. That's why they even bothered with targeting Soviet airfields. At the time the USSR had not yet developed an ICBM and so nukes would have been delivered by air. If it was a response plan, then targeting those airfields would have been wastes of nukes. The idea was to destroy their entire country and nuclear capability, before they could do anything. Remember, there's only one country that's ever nuked another country.

deleted 3y ago

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