UK Cold War Era Nuclear War Plans Revealed

NicerGuy writes "The BBC reports that documents from 1975, recently released by the National Archives, detail in part the UK's plan in the event of nuclear strikes during the Cold War. An audio download of the prepared radio broadcast is available. Several other topics are covered." From the article: "Further documents released this week reveal that two pandas in London Zoo sparked fears a diplomatic rift could flare up between Britain and China in the 1970s."

Comments

Linux users need not apply

[user9918277462]

Too bad the so-called audio download is only available as WMP/Realplayer embedded content. Where's the direct download link? Isn't BBC one of the few media giants to have embraced open formats, etc?

Re:Linux users need not apply

[taskforce]

The BBC actually offers an add/BS free version of RealPlayer on their website for people comming from UK ISPs. It's not exactly open, but it's alright. The reason they use WMP and Real is becuase the majority of their content is streaming, and mp3 based streaming servers aren't as well developed at the enterprise level as they could be. I'd imagine the reason this is in the same format (even though for this type of data it would make more sense as a download) is becuase it's a standardised system which they already have implemented for all their audio content.

To be fair to them as well, they do give you a choice, if that counts for anything.

Poland did that too

[MSBob]

A few weeks ago Poland revealed (to the dismay of Russia) the nuclear war plans from the days of the warsaw pact. The map was a truly scary prospect. Much of Poland would be annihilated in that nuclear war. Here's one article covering that story. You can find lots more. One interesting disclosure was the war games map with all the nuclear strike sites marked on it.

Re:Poland did that too

[xs650]

So the Ruskies were going to hit NATO where it cause the most pain. What would anyone except a complete cypher expect of them?

It's not like NATO was going to shoot it's nukes harmlessly off into some empty desert.

It was going to be a real nasty fooking war if it happened and very likely the West would have started tossing nukes first because the Warsaw Pact had greatly superior quantities of ground forces.

During the cold war one of the catchy phrases in the military industrial complex was that NATO forces were going to have a "Target rich environment". That means their asses were going to get run over.

Re:Seattle Cold War Civil Defense Manual

[ozmanjusri]

Check it out, there's some unintentionally amusing stuff in there.

It's a fascinating era, wildly optomistic in some ways (paint your home with reflective white paint to ward off radiation...) and terrifying in others (stay in your city after the atomic explosion and fight the invaders). There's a great collection of public interest films here;

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=mediatype% 3Amovies%20AND%20collection%3Aprelinger%20AND%20%2 Fmetadata%2Fsubject%3A%22Atomic-nuclear%3A%20Civil %20Defense%22

It includes the original "Duck and Cover" movie, as well as the "Operation Cue" experiment. A fantastic resource.

Re:Whew...Glad that's over!

[Shihar]

There really is no danger of MAD. That said, you are right that there is a slight danger of a nation being wiped out. The scenario that I see having some small possibility is that an Islamic fundamentalist group is given a nuclear weapon by a state, most likely Iran or North Korea, and that weapon is detonated in the US or (even worse) Israel.

If the US ever traced a detonated nuclear weapon back to another nation, and it was clear that that nation handed over the nuclear weapon intentionally, they would be fux00red. The US would invade at the bare minimum, and probably glass them over if they thought such an invasion would fail. North Korea in particular would be a candidate for glassing, while Iran would be a candidate for a limited nuking and a full scale invasion. Whatever the case, the nation in question probably would stand no chance to fire back. Playing nuclear war with Washington is a horrible idea. Unless you own a few thousand nukes, the US is not only going to win, but probably win without taking a scratch because they can drop a nuke on any spot even so much as suspected as housing nukes. If Washington has to guess where your remaining nukes are, they will leave no stone unglassed.

Now, to make the situation even uglier, consider if Israel was nuked. The US would likely try and show some restraint if they thought they could achieve their ends and avoid further attacks without glassing a nation over. Glassing a nation is a way to make the prospect of nuclear war too horrible to ever be considered again, but obviously involves mass whole sale genocide. The US might balk at genocide if other options existed. Israel on the other hand would show absolutely no such restraint. Israel would have no compulsions about making a lesson out of the offending nation. Israel would almost certainly glass the entire nation. While Israel doesn't have enough weapons to glass the world, they do have more then enough to glass over any Middle Eastern nation.

All that said, the real loss in life might not be in the actual nukes themselves. The real loss of life would come in the complete collapse of financial markets. People would flee the cities. Societies would spread out very quickly. This sudden change would have disastrous effects on economics. Developed nations would likely find themselves in a deep depression. The effects on the developed would be sever, but the resulting collapse of the world economy would be even worse on developing nations. Such a depression would ravage the economies of developing nations, resulting in mass starvation.

Moral of the story? Nukes = teh sux

antique war plans

[technoCon]

I had a huge laugh tonight after I read about the US Army's plans to invade CANADA! Seems that back in the 1930s we made plans just in case we went to war with Britain. And back then the Canucks had a plan to invade the US. Let's see, where's the link...

Raiding The Icebox

I figure the Canadians will never forgive US for neglecting to conquer them.

Years back, I went to Tijuana and looked around and thought, "this place needs adult supervision." And a few years after that, I went to Sault Ste. Marie and saw the perfectly manicured lawns, clean streets, and perfect order. And I thought, "this place has a bit too much adult supervision."