Cold War Nuclear Target Lists Declassified For First Time (gwu.edu) 166
HughPickens.com writes: Scott Shane writes in the NY Times that the National Archives and Records Administration has released a detailed list of the United States' potential targets for atomic bombers in the event of war with the Soviet Union, showing the number and the variety of targets on its territory, as well as in Eastern Europe and China. The Strategic Air Command study includes chilling details. According to its authors, their target priorities and nuclear bombing tactics would expose nearby civilians and "friendly forces and people" to high levels of deadly radioactive fallout. Moreover, the authors developed a plan for the "systematic destruction" of Soviet bloc urban-industrial targets that specifically and explicitly targeted "population" in all cities, including Beijing, Moscow, Leningrad, East Berlin, and Warsaw.
The target list was produced at a time before intercontinental or submarine-launched missiles, when piloted bombers were essentially the only means of delivering nuclear weapons. The United States then had a huge advantage over the Soviet Union, with a nuclear arsenal about 10 times as big. "We've known the general contours of nuclear war planning for a few decades," says Stephen I. Schwartz. "But it's great that the details are coming out. These are extraordinary weapons, capable of incredible destruction. And this document may be history, but unfortunately the weapons are not yet history."
The target list was produced at a time before intercontinental or submarine-launched missiles, when piloted bombers were essentially the only means of delivering nuclear weapons. The United States then had a huge advantage over the Soviet Union, with a nuclear arsenal about 10 times as big. "We've known the general contours of nuclear war planning for a few decades," says Stephen I. Schwartz. "But it's great that the details are coming out. These are extraordinary weapons, capable of incredible destruction. And this document may be history, but unfortunately the weapons are not yet history."
East Berlin, really? (Score:3)
Re:East Berlin, really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:East Berlin, really? (Score:4, Interesting)
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So, do you want us to be the World Police or not? And, frankly, some of us know history well enough to know that the US contributed greatly to both of those wars. Less so in WWI than in WWII but that really wasn't our problem. We even left you alone to resolve it at the end and look at what you did. We didn't even partake in the whole League of Nations thing (though a lot of people really seem to think we did) and we even encouraged you to not go full retard with the treaties and reparations. You're mad tha
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So, do you want us to be the World Police or not?
Is too much to ask for a police force to not be the Keystone Cops?
Re:East Berlin, really? (Score:5, Interesting)
And the US military posts in West Berlin were OK with that?
If a Cold War confrontation got to the point that nukes were needed, those soldiers stationed in West Berlin would probably all have been dead already anyway. In the event of a surprise attack, the soldiers station all along the border would be tasked with defensive actions, holding the line as best as possible while stateside troops were mobilized and linked up with prepositioned equipment. Given the standard Soviet style of attack, that role would most likely have been not much more than "try not to die for as long as possible", especially if you found yourself in the schwerpunkt. In any case, the war would have had to have ground to a WWI style war of attrition or gone so poorly that the front lines were knocking on the gates of Paris or Moscow before nukes would have been used, and they would have most likely been used in a tactical role first (which would have quickly escalated to a full on strategic exchange).
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Read the book: Command And Control (Score:1)
http://www.amazon.com/Command-Control-Damascus-Accident-Illusion/dp/0143125788
We were fucking lucky we never blew ourselves up or kicked off our own automatic response plan built with no way to de-escalate.
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A great book explaining of the history of the cold war. And how lucky the world was.
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I have trouble believing it was all luck. There were a lot of safeguards.
Some things went wrong but there was never escalation into a nuclear attack. Seems like it all worked out. Is that luck?
I don't know the answer for sure, no one does, but I think we may, in the interests of making a political statement, skew the analysis somewhat.
They are not history (Score:5, Interesting)
A nuclear weapon is an effective deterrent. Without them, you can be invaded or can be subject to total war, which is almost unthinkable if you have them. With them, invading you is a much, much bigger risk. The stockpile is too big--the sheer size creates a security nightmare--but you want at least some. Whether you need enough to make nuclear war unwinnable is a closer question.
Also, the world should probably always have a few, even if they're locked in a drawer somewhere. Because aliens.
Re:They are not history (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is precisely why Iran getting nuclear weapons would be a good thing. It would deter Israel from its constant aggression and would bring some semblance of stability to the Middle East since neither would want to do anything stupid to tick the other off.
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yes but you are forgetting the current rhetoric of muslims can't be reasoned with. though it is interesting to gloss over pakistan.
Re:They are not history (Score:4, Insightful)
yes but you are forgetting the current rhetoric of muslims can't be reasoned with. though it is interesting to gloss over pakistan.
Christ on a crutch! Stereotype much? Might as well throw "Christians" under that broad brush, because the "evidence" of their inability to reason is all around us.
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woosh
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That's what the GP is saying. Pakistan has nukes for defence and uses them rationally (I.e. as a deterrent).
In fact the only country to ever use an atomic weapon on another was Christian.
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And they did not use it on other Christians.
Re:They are not history (Score:5, Insightful)
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Clueless liberals think that everything would be all lovey-dovey over there without "western interference" or " Israeli imperialism" fail to acknowledge the history and culture of the region. These are "countries" that can't stay together without brutal military dictactorships to keep the warring factions in line. Their idea of democracy is that it's a means to "sieze power" and abuse every other faction.
These people are at each others throats without a conqueror to keep them in line. With a conqueror to ke
Re: They are not history (Score:1, Insightful)
Conservatives always have to blame somebody else for their own screwups. The favorite tactic is to come up with an exaggeration, apply it to 'liberals' as if they'd actually said it, and then argue against it. Classic strawman arguing.
Their brains don't even process the contradictions, like how they claim Obama is a Muslim and yet go on about the rantings of his Christian minister from 20+ years ago. Doesn't even register how clueless it sounds.
The middle east was invaded by economic interests some time
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It's Israel they are most concerned about. Israel has nukes and continually expands its borders.
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Wrong! You forgot to mention the illegal occupation Palestine [sqspcdn.com] and the theft of their land.
Nice try.
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Wrong! You forgot to mention the illegal occupation Palestine and the theft of their land.
Your forgot to mention that the Jordanians surrendered the West Bank to Israel after the 1967 war. The only significant border change since then was the Sinai Peninsula returned to Egypt under the 1978 Camp David accords.
Re:They are not history (Score:4, Interesting)
There is only one reason and one reason only why nuclear wars do not break, the rich douche bag fuck head psychopaths in charge who do not give a crap about the rest of us beyond how they can exploit, use and abuse us, would also be killed. If you think for a second that those posing douche bags would willingly spend their lives in a bunker, hole in the ground instead of posing about in yachts and mansions, you are really naive.
This is exactly why they have banned political assassination, instead they prefer all out war with the poor dying, in a game of political assassination the douche bag psychopaths would be the first to die. Just like in nuclear war but when it comes to the rest of use suffering and dying in their wars, they basically get off on being able to get us to kill each other.
Take terrorists all over the world, they can not be that stupid as to not realise that it is the rich and greedy who exploit their countries and yet they never attack the rich and greedy, just run around killing poor and middle class who have very little to do with the conflict. It is seems really suspect, that terrorists always attack nobodies and continually ignore the rich and greedy who actually would have real influence on those outcomes in those regions that produce terrorists.
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How in the hell could Israel cause any more chaos in the ME? That's the one thing the Arab's are quite capable of all by themselves. And Israel does represent a massive danger to the Arab countries and the Arab countries have experienced that danger up close and personal. The Arab's are also aware that Israel doesn't ask for permission or forgiveness when launching military attacks to protect it's interests. That level of decisiveness scares the hell out of countries who rely on delaying political strategie
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I agree with grand parent, the great grand parent is crazy. Iran getting the bomb would massively raise the stakes in the Middle East. The outcome isn't like to be an uneasy peace via MAD like we had with the Soviet Union.
The central conflict there is Shiite vs Sunni with some other sects and groups playing 'the enemy of my enemy' type games. The national boarders while control and organize the conflict somewhat are not the drivers of it. We have already seen with Iraq and Syria, and may of the North A
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How many invasions has the State of Israel conducted? (Hint: I'm not discussing military action after being hit by rockets from somewhere outside their country). Oh wait! The answer is ZERO!
The UN disagrees with you, see for instance United Nations Security Council Resolution 228. Do you rationalize the Six-Day War as not an invasion, but "military action after being hit by rockets"?
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Because they have admitted it: [theguardian.com]
Martin Van Creveld (Israeli military historian): “We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force. . . Our armed forces, however, are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can
i don't think you are using your brain (Score:1, Flamebait)
"Israel from its constant aggression"
what world do you live in? you're an idiot.
Israel is constantly under attack from practically everyone in the region. The very ones you wish to give nukes to, wants to kill all the Jews and remove Israel from the map.
Giving nukes to a religious group of people who want the end of the world, and doesn't care about M.A.D. is a double plus ungood bad thing.
it's people like you that enable people like that to continue doing the things they do.
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All one has to do is to read the comments section of the Jerusalem Post [jpost.com]. Quite telling.
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Because aliens.
And asteroids [wikipedia.org]
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Whether you need enough to make nuclear war unwinnable is a closer question.
You don't. The key is to have just enough nukes and (this is the key point) the capability to reliably deliver them so that, even if the other side wins, their government cannot remain in power. You don't truly need MAD, or hundreds of missiles on deadman switches; you just need enough nukes to hit a few population/economic centers or the state's capital (if they are properly prepared you won't get the head of the government but you will get most of the bureaucrats and functionaries of the government whic
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Also, the world should probably always have a few, even if they're locked in a drawer somewhere. Because aliens.
How's that gonna work then? Nukes are designed to land on Earth. Even if you found a way to launch them at a space target the nuclear fallout would probably fuck over everybody on Earth anyway, doing the aliens' job for them.
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A nuclear weapon is an effective deterrent. Without them, you can be invaded or can be subject to total war
Also, without the use nuclear weapons, Japan would have torn us up at the end of WWII, many millions more lives would be gone, and today the US would be a conquered nation subservient to the Russian empire.
Chilling? More like "obvious" (Score:5, Insightful)
> The Strategic Air Command study includes chilling details
This faux pearl-clutching is a joke or just the side effect of ignorance. Every country's targets have included high-population areas that include infrastructure and manufacturing, as described. Why would this be chilling? It's pragmatic.
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indeed that includes the buried telecom switching hubs the major cities have; cities will not only be targeted with air bursts but have ground bursts to take out certain buried infrastructure like generators, water distribution, aforementioned telecom.
All out nuclear war isn't pretty folks, there is no notion of "naughty things we won't do because we're more humane now"! HA!
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Re:Chilling? More like "obvious" (Score:4, Interesting)
Well I expect when things like this get published its all a little more real to some people. Maybe it checks their 'rah rah, lets turn them into glass' attitudes and forces them out of denial and to confront the very real potential consequences of nuclear war.
You are right though none of this is really a surprise. What did people think we going to raise some wheat fields in rural Ukraine? Obviously a finite number of super weapons would be deployed to where they would have the greatest negative impact on the enemies ability to make war.
While destroying low population bread basket targets might be effective those areas are two large and dispersed to be totally destroyed by a short-term strike even with nukes. Hitting them also might not immediate cripple the retaliatory strike capability, which is also very very important in a possible nuclear exchange.
The only reason to blast some field someplace is if you have intel there is missile silo or weapons facility under it. As these plans were largely pre-ICBM there would be no reason at all do that. As stomach turning an affair as it might be the only rational targets would have been enemy air bases and then high population cities where the factories, and distribution of goods occurred.
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There's no such thing as a purely military mission for large nuclear weapons. It's doubtful there's a use for small ones.
The only thing that is "chilling" in this document is that the deployment of such weapons was carefully, methodically considered. The calculations of a suicide pact.
It's one thing to accept that nuclear war would destroy our civilizations, kill billions, and cause suffering we literally can't imagine. We already 'accept' that war is hell, in our detached way.
It's something else entirely t
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There's no such thing as a purely military mission for large nuclear weapons. It's doubtful there's a use for small ones.
I hate to quote Clancy, but US carrier groups are an almost canonical target for a small nuke.
As for the large ones? If China decided to gear up 2-3 years of production and equip 300 million troops, you're not saving India and Pakistan with conventional forces.
Not nice. (Score:2)
Indeed. East-Berlin alone was programmed to get 91 nuclear bombs on their heads.
The Germans are not amused.
I can guess one city on the current list (Score:2)
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I can guess one city on the current list
Mecca, with the Kaaba at 0,0,0. Probably added on 9/12/2001.
Mecca is in Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia is a U.S. ally. Even in a general nuclear exchange, we're probably not going to attack our own allies. And I hope we wouldn't be stupid enough to try to start a world war with a billion Muslims while already fighting a nuclear war against Russia, China, or whoever.
unfortunately the weapons are not yet history (Score:2)
As someone who's lives in a world that's been without a global war for 70 years, I'm actually quite happy that nuclear weapons are still around.
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Unfortunately, you are mistaken about no global war for 70 years. We are currently in WW4 while the Cold War was WW3.
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Inquiring minds want to know... (Score:2)
Scary beyond belief (Score:2)
Holy nuclear winter, Batman!
Yet another reminder about why we need space programs to get colonies of people off Earth.
Not only will having more places available serve as backup for humanity, but it will also ease the strain of conflict over locations as many people would want to leave for proverbially greener pastures.
Or maybe if taking the pessimistic view, let's hurry up and destroy ourselves before we spread elsewhere.
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Yet another reminder about why we need space programs to get colonies of people off Earth..
As anyone with any data knows, the solution is RAIP, (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Planets). So if we kill one there's one spare to carry on.
Wait a second .... (Score:2)
According to its authors, their target priorities and nuclear bombing tactics would expose nearby civilians and "friendly forces and people" to high levels of deadly radioactive fallout.
Along with an enormous amount of heat, thereby ending the 'cold' part of the war.
Unless ... they had cold fusion bombs all along, the plans for which I bet they buried in the declassified information! Finally, a room-temperature mechanism for producing city-scale energy -- truly, this is a great day for the world.
Category 275 (Score:2)
AFAICT "Category 275" isn't taken as a band name yet. Somebody: Rock that fucker!
huge advantage? (Score:3)
The United States then had a huge advantage over the Soviet Union, with a nuclear arsenal about 10 times as big.
Yes, we could have killed them all 100 times over, they could only have killed us all 10 times over.
Take with a grain of salt (Score:2)
Part of the whole "Mutually Assured Destruction" thing meant simultaneously posturing and acting in secret.
Vast plans to kill the majority of an "enemy" country, including its civilians, were just the sort of thing which needed to produced, in highest secrecy, so that the enemy spies knew the potential cost of poking the big guy
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You spew nonsense, of course cities would be targeted in all out nuclear war, they have to be to take out underground telecom for example. Unbelievable your level of naivety.
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of course cities would be targeted in all out nuclear war
This document isn't about an all out nuclear war. This is describing what a nuclear country would do to a country that could not effectively retaliate with nuclear weapons. In 1956 the US still had a massive nuclear advantage and far more access to air strips that could hit the heart of the USSR. There were no intercontinental missiles or nuclear equipped submarines on either side yet.
Eventually it made sense for the US to target civilian centers as part of mutually assured destruction. But in 1956 the Unit
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But we were expecting the soviets to target cities in late 50s with bombers and missiles, hence the Nike Hercules program
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But we were expecting the soviets to target cities in late 50s with bombers and missiles, hence the Nike Hercules program
From my understanding, the Nike Hercules program started as a defense against jet bombers in general, not long range nuclear bombers specifically. By the late 1950's there was a real threat of Russian nuclear weapons being used against the US homeland, but not in 1956 when the document in question was written (other than easy targets like Alaska and the Northwestern US). I could be wrong though.
Re:Tactics of a different time (Score:5, Insightful)
....Less than 100 years ago we were, and we did carpet bomb cities and nuke cities into the ground....Our new-found humanity prevents us from committing some horrible atrocities...
In the Second World War, we were fighting enemies who also carpet bombed cities and targeted civilian populations. Two examples: the Germans carpet bombed Rotterdam then later London. The Japanese carpet bombed Chongqing in China. The British didn't start targeting German cities until after the London Blitz.
If we fought against Al Qaeda and ISIS like we fought against Germany and Japan, those organizations would not exist and new similar organizations would not take there place.....
That is an assumption that you are making. As you stated, we are not fighting nation states, but we are fighting a political ideology that is promoted by several terrorist organizations and lots of self-radicalized individuals. I don't see how targeting civilian populations in the middle east would ensure peace. It would for one thing result in a mass exodus of refugees headed to Europe and it would wreck the already fragile economies in these countries. Paradoxically it would strengthen ISIS and other similar organizations; they would proclaim themselves to be the protector, and would have no opposition once the educated middle class (who knows better) packs up and leaves. What is needed to end these conflicts are legitimate political solutions, not incoherent tactics based upon false assumptions.
But it would likely take the slaughter of tens of millions of innocents, which we are no longer able to accept.
That is a good thing. Especially if the slaughter of innocents has no benefit whatsoever.
Re:Tactics of a different time (Score:5, Insightful)
....Less than 100 years ago we were, and we did carpet bomb cities and nuke cities into the ground....Our new-found humanity prevents us from committing some horrible atrocities...
In the Second World War, we were fighting enemies who also carpet bombed cities and targeted civilian populations. Two examples: the Germans carpet bombed Rotterdam then later London. The Japanese carpet bombed Chongqing in China. The British didn't start targeting German cities until after the London Blitz.
The Allies didn't start targeting German cities until after the Blitz because they could only do so once the Luftwaffe had gutted itself on the Blitz and Operation Barbarossa/ subsequent Western Front campaigns. The Luftwaffe lost over 2200 aircraft during the Blitz and had an additional 2700 aircraft tasked for Barbarossa (there were only 2-3 months between the 2 events). With all of those aircraft at the Luftwaffe's disposal they would have made the Allies' bombing campaigns much more difficult. During the Blitz and the early years of the war England was focused solely on defense. It was never about morals or ethics, it was about realities and capabilities.
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Re:Tactics of a different time (Score:4, Insightful)
That is an assumption that you are making. As you stated, we are not fighting nation states, but we are fighting a political ideology that is promoted by several terrorist organizations and lots of self-radicalized individuals.
People forget we were fighting a very religiously radicalized country in WWII as well. ISIS atrocities are hardly even comparable to those committed by Japan during WWII. Japan killed millions of Asians, perhaps even over 10 million (estimates vary). Their fanaticism rose to the level not only mass murder of civilians but also suicide bombing.
I agree I can only make assumptions, but history shows even fanatics can be beaten into submission by a determined enough enemy.
That said, I think it would be unthinkable for the United States to do whatever it takes to defeat Islamic terrorism for good. Perhaps hundreds of millions would ultimately need to be killed this time. The United States would become the great Satan their enemies already think they are. My only point was that tactics used by the United States in the 1940's, and apparently had plans to do in the 1950's, are from a different time when the targeting of civilians was treated differently than today. Faulting the use of nuclear bombs 60 years ago is similar to faulting men like Jefferson for owning slaves.
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Similar in that both actions are morally reprehensible and inexcusable? Your demonetization of japan is simply a rationalization for america unnecessarily murdering millions with atomic bombs. The only country ever to do so.
Perhaps you have heard the phrase, two wrongs don't make a right? Except if you get to write the history books and indoctrinate your citizens for the next 70 years that is.
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Similar in that both actions are morally reprehensible and inexcusable? Your demonetization of japan is simply a rationalization for america unnecessarily murdering millions with atomic bombs. The only country ever to do so.
I never made this claim. My claim was that acceptable treatment of civilians in warfare has changed since 1945, just like acceptable treatment of minority races has changed since 1800. People who lived hundreds of years ago were not inhuman monsters for having slaves; they were a product of their times. I also do not think individual Japanese or Nazi soldiers were evil men simply because their indoctrination caused them to do horrible things.
I think the usage of nuclear weapons by the United States was unfo
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The "Geneva Convention" (surprisingly the american tourture camp soldiers claimed they never had heard about it) is a series of 4 or 5 treaties, only the latest one was crafted/refined after WWII.
However you are right, the emphasizes on protecting civilians came after WWII.
Re:Tactics of a different time (Score:5, Informative)
The German 'carpet bombing' of Rotterdam killed less than 1000 people, and involved 90 bombers...
The Blitz in London (which never even got close to 'carpet bombing' killed less than 500 people.
Our lovely Americans killed around 100,000 Japanese in Tokyo with incendiary raids (basically burnt them to death), Hiroshima and Nagasaki averaged about 100,000 each also, but of course those were single bombs.. Other 25,000 in Dresden, pretty much the same method, 40,000 in Hamburg. While the British assisted on such raids, they were very much American designed and lead. There failure is also well documented (it was supposed to 'break' the Germans, instead of course it just strengthened their resolve), but the lessons have pretty much been ignored.
For the Germans you would have been better to perhaps actually learn some history, Warsaw and Stalingrad were their big cases of bombing,although neither was at all typical carpet bombing (more a long sustained attack over weeks), and a large number of the casualties there are considered secondary (disease, starvation, exposure, etc) (around 25,000 and 40,000, similar to Dresden and Hamburg, however fatalities from actual bombing are estimated to be closer to 1/3 of those numbers).
Sorry to let facts get in the way..
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Some of your figures are a bit off, and you omit some important data.
The Blitz in London (which never even got close to 'carpet bombing' killed less than 500 people.
The Blitz killed far more than that. Just the first attack killed almost that many.
... by the end of the Blitz, around 30,000 Londoners would be left dead, with another 50,000 injured.-- The Blitz [bbc.co.uk]
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The German 'carpet bombing' of Rotterdam killed less than 1000 people, and involved 90 bombers...
The German bombing of Rotterdam occurred while the Dutch were negotiating surrender. The only reason it killed so few people (~900) was that there had been evacuations. As it was the bombing destroyed about 2.5 square km of city [wikipedia.org], and left many thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) homeless.
Other 25,000 in Dresden, pretty much the same method, 40,000 in Hamburg. While the British assisted on such raids, they were very much American designed and lead.
You've pretty much got that wrong. The UK and US teamed u
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The only reason nukes aren't used now, is that cruise missiles and other guided munitions reduce the size of warhead required to destroy a particular target. Taking out power stations, power lines, bridges, refineries, airfields and telephone exchanges is all they need to do in order to send a country back to the stone age.
Re:Tactics of a different time (Score:5, Insightful)
If you nuke Al Qaeda -- which would necessarily mean nuking a non-belligerent city full of civilians and a few dozen Al Qaeda operatives (let's say Karachi) -- it's certain that Al Queda would greatly expand its enrollment as a result and become much more dangerous. What survivor or neighbor wouldn't join them? There'd be nothing left to lose and every reason to die trying to revenge instead of die an uninvolved coward.
Re:Tactics of a different time (Score:4, Interesting)
Atrocities and genocides have been happening in war torn areas of the world right up to the present day; it's just that nobody reads the news anymore.
I am not aware of military atrocities even close to the scale of nuking cities committed by western nations, let alone the United States, in the past 50 years. And I do read the news.
If the West gets into a total war situation again, you'll see the same atrocities that happened in WWII and WWI re-enacted on a grand scale.
I guess my point is that the US of 1945 would have nuked Vietnam, but the US of 1960 did not. The US was not in total war against a country threatening invasion in either situation, but the tactics used were very different.
When the United States dropped nuclear bombs on Japan, they were arguably no longer in a total war situation with Japan. They simply needed to get a crippled country to completely capitulate. Going after primarily civilian targets like Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not the type of tactics the western world uses anymore to get enemies to surrender. We don't even carpet bomb cities with standard munitions like we did in both Japan and Germany after the outcomes of both wars were decided.
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Truman weighed heavily the decision to use the bomb on Japan. He ended up going for it.
Truman also weighed heavily the decision to use the bomb on North Korea and China during the Korean War, as some generals wanted to. He opted out. The world is better for it.
Re:Tactics of a different time (Score:4, Interesting)
I am not aware of military atrocities even close to the scale of nuking cities committed by western nations, let alone the United States, in the past 50 years. And I do read the news.
Then you missed Vietnam. ...
You missed Angola.
You missed Algeria.
You missed Tunisia.
You missed Zimbabwe
To late here to count all the countries you missed.
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Apparently you missed the "even close to the scale of nuking cities" part. Not sure how many times the US killed millions of civilians in a single encounter in any of those countries. There will always be cases of civilian deaths in wartime, whether by accident or by small groups of soldiers acting out. The worst thing the US military has done in those wars that I can think of is the My Lai Massacre, and at most 500 civilians dead in that encounter (more likely closer to 400). That is 3-4 orders of magnitud
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The US Massacred civilians in Vietnam every day by napalm bombing their towns and villages. ... that was not clear from your post.
If it is important for you that this happened over a course of time and not on a single day
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The US Massacred civilians in Vietnam every day by napalm bombing their towns and villages. ... that was not clear from your post.
If it is important for you that this happened over a course of time and not on a single day
Most of the civilians massacred in the Vietnam war were killed by the Communist forces, not weapons like Napalm. Total civilian deaths caused by US / South Vietnam total between 50,000 and 70,000, while total civilian deaths caused by North Vietnamese forces totaled 360,000 to 720,000. Literally ten times as many. This is the difference between the morality of modern nations and the 3rd world.
And again, 6000 civilian deaths per year in Vietnam is nothing compared to the bombing campaigns in WW2. And conside
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Apparently you missed the "even close to the scale of nuking cities" part. Not sure how many times the US killed millions of civilians in a single encounter in any of those countries. .
No-one said anything about only the US doing the killing.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki totalled about 200k deaths compared to say the genocide in Rwanda of up to 1 million, or the Cambodian genocide of over 2 million.
Shit is still happening...
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Going after primarily civilian targets like Hiroshima and Nagasaki are not the type of tactics the western world uses anymore to get enemies to surrender.
Hiroshima served as the headquarters for the 2nd Army which was responsible for defense of southern Japan. It was also a communications hub, storage point, and assembly points for troops. The harbor there was used to ship out troops with frequency. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima neutered the command structure for the 2nd Army as well as basically caused the Japanese to write off three divisions. Nagasaki's military importance was due to it having one of the largest ports as well has industrially providing a
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you are ever only given what you can take.
Relation to the Field of Modern Economics (Score:5, Informative)
In the fascinating and disturbing BBC documentary "The Trap: F**k You Buddy" [disclose.tv], Adam Curtis outlines how the field of modern economics, specifically that which relies on game theory and systems analysis, is tightly related to the type of military analysis implied in the document referred to in the parent post. Both modern quantitative economics and military analysis use mathematical models based on game theory to cold bloodedly analyze human life and death. Most people don't realize that the same mode of thought that brought us fire bombing and potential nuclear apocalypse also brought us the Chicago School of Economics [wikipedia.org].
The BBC documentary series "The Trap" [wikipedia.org] utilizes rare footage from the BBC archives that you will not see anywhere else. I highly recommend watching it. More of us need to stare the unpleasant reality of the modern world in the face if we are to get out of our current malaise. In the end, the truth shall set you free.
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Maybe I need to watch the documentary but I don't understand where you are coming from really. You seem to be saying it should be shocking that game theory has both social and military applications. Pretty much all knowledge can be used for good or ill.
Even the basics like knowing how to make fire, I can increase my odds of surviving the winter with a way to keep warm, reduce disease by cooking food; or I can go burn the forest the rival tribe across the river makes their home in.
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Perhaps I am not really summarizing the documentary very well. The thrust of the documentary is that game theory, at least of the kind that was used both in the war games simulations and in economics systems analysis simplifies human beings into selfish parameter maximizing automatons. Though I would agree that humans can at times act that way, I do not believe that this entirely describes our nature. We are both capable of altruism and greed, good and evil. I particularly dislike how both the fields of
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If by "mode of thought" you mean Hollerith cards and their natural outgrowth, I agree completely.
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By mode of thought, I mean describing human behaviour with blind mathematical models and then acting on the prediction of those models as if they were absolutely true. These mathematical models are quite literally the reason we built enough atomic bombs to destroy civilization 20 times over. Decision makers, who are not usually highly educated, hear that the technocrats below them built mathematical models that say we should build many atomic bombs. And so they trust the mathematics without understanding
Re:Weather modeling exposed... (Score:4, Informative)
not a concern since the cities will be targeted anyway (laughing at some rose-colored glasses wearers here to think that is still not doctrine for all out war)
You do know in warfare the silo doors are blasted open with explosives, not mechanically opened?
When all you have is a hammer... (Score:2)
I know it probably makes sense, but it kinda of makes me giggle to think of the engineers involved in the decisions...
So we designed the silos for our nuclear explosives... We haven't figured out how to actuate the doors yet... Have you tried exploding them open? Excellent.
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look it up, minuteman missile silos for example had explosive charges to horizontally move the door away before launch
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no Soviets (or Russians now) would be using nukes on our civilian targets because we'd be doing the same to them, evil on both sides
not news that ground bursts make fallout, look at projections made in 80s and 90s of the high and heavy rad areas from silo busting. plenty of big cities killed, to say nothing of most our farmland rendered useless for a while
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I recall back in the day we fully expected to have civilian population centers targeted.
The general rule was (on top of every other specific military target):
1) Capitols.
2) Technology Centers
3) Population Centers.
That's for each of the 50 states. 150 (or more if multiple warheads were specified for each) detonations that are almost entirely taking out civilians.
The fact this article (and the summary) seem to make a big deal of us targeting population centers the other direction seems extremely naive.
The tru
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we were talking of the past; it is not the case now
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We had that filmstrip when I was in school. Yes, filmstrip.
I don't remember all the words but it was something like:
"There was a turtle his name was Bert,
and Bert the turtle was always alert.
something something something something
and he'd duck and cover. Duck and cover."
I imagine somewhere there's a video of it but I don't like you enough to go find it. Google is so very far away and I am lazy. Even the mouse is too far away.
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and Bert the turtle was very alert;
when danger threatened him he never got hurt
he knew just what to do...
He'd duck! [gasp]
And cover!
Duck!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_and_Cover_(film)#Plot_summary
you're welcome