Slashdot Mirror
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."
"Oh bloody hell, the Yanks have really done us in this time."
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?
Like to see Las Vegas Odds on that one.
That in discussions between Prime Minister Harold Wilson and the BBC's chairman they talked about whether there were too many "hippies" in the corporation
They all moved on to Slashdot.
Probably a more accurate version of how the British government's "plans" would be followed after a nuclear exchange.
It's an awesome move, too!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/
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.
Your pizza just the way you ought to have it.
Talk about a Panda-mic!
sigfault. core dumped.
Furthermore, my friends and I play a lot of pen-and-paper role-playing games set in Europe (Call of Cthulhu mainly) and they always accuse me of a "lack of realism" in the manner in which my characters behave. My response to said friends? "They're British. They boil their meat. They drink warm beer. I don't have to explain their unusual behavior; just play the damn game."
I can now add: "They'd let their entire population be atomized in order to wipe out the 'hippie menace.'"
... if they provided an unedited and uncommented version of the broadcast. .7) analogue TV channels there is no way to get a major news flash. when 11/9 happened I only knew about it because I happened to be watching BBC1 at the time (well this would be true had I also not been on IRC at the time, but the average daytime TV viewer in the UK isn't always on-line), had I been watching any of the other digital channels I had at the time, I'd not have seen anything.
As a UK resident it would be nice to know the kind of broadcast I'd be hearing the moment all other mediums went down. I have no idea if we even have an emergency broadcast channel or radio station.
Aside from always watching the big 4.7 (Channel five only counts as
I won't get in to the whole "We have plans to make sure we can run the country, even if the rest of the country is dead, injured or suffering from radiation poisoning" thing, that's for another rant.
Music is everybody's possession.
It's only publishers who think that people own it.
Fuck Beta
~John Lenno
Here's a little self-plug for something somewhat related that I scanned. A "Civil Defense Manual" for Seattle from 1951. Check it out, there's some unintentionally amusing stuff in there.
Do not read this sig.
whoosh
That was the sound of a joke. You might have not been able to hear it, as it seems to have passed miles above your head.
Computers allow humans to make mistakes at the fastest speeds known, with the possible exception of tequila and handguns
The panda issue is separate from the nuke issue. That article is a summary of all the documents that were recently declassified by the Brits, and not all of them have to do with nuclear war plans.
What's the big deal? Duck and cover & you're set.
Liquidation probably refers to the unfortunate state that the British economy had reached in the 1970s.
In addition to facing a nuclear threat (vaporization) there was a serious possibility that the country might collapse economically (liquidation).
Eventually the government got support from the IMF.
Of course the Soviet Union might have taken advantage of the situation if an economic collapse did happen in which case you might have had both sequentially.
Lots of different government papers got released at the same time, so it tends to get reported together.
America gave us "The Day After" which came off as an Irwin Allen disaster flick.
Britain gave us "Threads" which scared you shitless.
Also "When the Wind Blows" should be mentioned.
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Note that the pandas and the plans for possible nuclear war are two separate topics, both of which came to light from what amounts to declassified cabinet papers.
The article is about some of the interesting tidbits from this archival release which are by and large unrelated to eachother.
...the nuclear threat is still there
Hmmm...yes and no. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and her 'satellite states', the threat for MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) has virtually disappeared. I mean, twenty years ago the image of thousands of ICBMs crossing each other in opposite directions was palpable, while now it almost sounds like the hysterical folly of Cold War doomsayers. The missiles are still there, but the Politburo has gone the way of the dodo, along with the itchy-trigger-finger military antagonism it fed back and forth with Washington, and I'm sure we all hope that the missiles in the plains beyond the Urals, along with those in South Dakota, rot in their freaking silos.
The image that sounds more feasible today is the suicide backpack nuker blowing a crater in the middle of an urban area, a couple of missiles lobbied from North Korea into Tokyo, or twin nukes blowing up in Delhi and Islamabad.
By the way, does anybody know if SAC (Strategic Air Command) is still flying its' B-52 bombers in circles around the perimeter of the Artic Circle, just in case?
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
Strange that it was not in the original post..but look at one of the items in the secrect docs: "How British diplomats secretly floated the idea that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein - seen then as a figure to be courted - could be brought to the UK for a back operation."
The problem is that if any of those scenarios happen, it's not unlikely that events will spiral out of control afterwards, leading to the eventual launch of all those still-existing ICBMs.
Just look at all the crazy stuff that's happened in response to 9/11, then imagine multiplying that hysteria level by 1000X. That's the environment we'll be in after even a single nuke gets set off.
I've been looking for the documents under the FOI part of the site, and can't find them.. has anyone else?
A panda walks into a bar. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.
"Why? Why are you behaving in this strange, un-panda-like fashion?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda walks towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
"I'm a panda," he says, at the door. "Look it up."
The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.
"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."
From Eats Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss
What could possibly go wrong?
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
if the education system has only been decimated, that's not so bad
i would settle for a technical education system which is 90% as good as the old soviet system.
ok with a bit more money for equipment.
perhaps you meant 'almost completely destroyed' rather than decimated.
MOD PARENT UP!
/. who understands the gravity of the situation!
Finally, someone on
If a nuke was set off in any part of the US, no current politician would be able to resist the public outcry...no make that demands, to glass an entire country or region. The rise of public opinion would be stronger than WWI, WWII, KW, and Vietnam combined! If the person in power here in the US didn't retaliate with nukes I would be willing to bet they would be ousted and replaced with someone who would. An event like that as you mention would change US foreign policy, and even world opinion instantly.
With that being said, I hope it never happens.
However, some insight on things. Everyone believed that Saddam had WMDs prior to our invasion of Iraq. CIA, MI6, Mossad, etc all were in agreement. Well, Saddam couldn't get a nuke to the US, but he might could get one to Israel. As you said Israel has stated many times in the past few years that they are prepared to defend themselves and retaliate mercilessly at any aggressor regardless of world opinion or US intervention.
If you remember just prior to our invasion of Iraq N Korea unplugged the cameras inside their nuclear reactor and began to fire it back up. N Korea is under heavy heavy sanctions and needs crude oil. Iraq needed nuclear fuel for a hydrogen bomb. I suspect they were either about to make a trade, or they had already made the trade.
This is why we invaded Iraq in my opinion; Saddam was trading oil for processed uranium with North Korea, and he would then be a direct threat to Israel if he had a working nuke. The US knows that if Israel is attacked there is no holding them back so we decided to take out Saddam and make the whole situation go away before the entire MidEast was turned into glass. Invading N Korea wasn't really an option as we didn't want to deal with the Chinese aspect of that equation. Also logistically and practically Iraq was a much eaiser target at the time. Iraq had no major allies or at least none that would stand up to a US invasion. Their business partners (France/Germany) were not willing to go to war with the US over the invasion of Iraq, but they did voice loudly their opposition because they were selling a great deal of arms and technology to Saddam.
Libertas in infinitum
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."
The first reason for a nuclear war would be desperation. The reason the US and the USSR never had a ground war and kept their proxy wars limited was that neither wanted to push the other to the edge.
The other reason to start a nuclear war is that you might think you could actually win. This was one if the reasons anyone with a brain was so against star wars (No not the prequels the space defence program of the reagan era) as it could make the US think it could win a nuclear war or even worse make the USSR think it had no choice but to strike before the US became invulnerable.
Now lets look at the world today. US still working on Star Wars. A reaganite in the white house. USSR collapsed and in huge uncertainty of what is going to happen next with the US doing everything it can to upset the russian goverment and people.
China is still there with the old goverment possibly feeling attacked by the capatalist west.
The rogue nations don't matter. none of them are capable of triggering the lethal mutual exchange of weapons. Even as you suggest a dirty bomb in NY would cause the US to whipe muslims from the face of the earth, so what? No rogue nation has the capability to retaliate in force.
Only the former USSR and china and of course the US got the arsenal to create this end of the world scenario. Right at this moment it seems unlikely to happen BUT then again the same could have been said at the hight of the cold war.
The greatest threat I can see if russia/USSR continues on its slide to a 3rd world nation. Their is already a lot of sentement in russia to go back to a communist goverment. The whole collapse of the USSR rested on the believe that it would bring better times. So far this has not happened in fact the majority of the citizens have never had it so bad. A reforming of the USSR itself would be no threath (why should they reform just to commit suicide) but the reaction of the US might bring us right back to the days of the cold war with one tiny difference. This time the russians would have a lot of resentment. Think germany pre-ww2.
No, I don't think world war 3 The nuclear edition is going to happen but it is not impossible either. If anything the collapse of the cold war has made a World War 3 more likely. The world has lost a lot of stability while the US has gained a lot of perceived invulnerability. During the cold war the US more or less behaved because it did not want to push the russians to far. Will the US be so restrained? The war on terror would suggest not (perhaps this is World War 3? Remember WW2 had a longer pre-history then the invasion of poland.). The US can't even be bothered to be nice to its NATO allies anymore.
Strangely enough I do not think the risk comes from N. Korea or similar directly. To strike would be suicide. You do not commit suicide unless you think there is no other choice. The real threath is the rest of the world mostly the US pushing these nations into a corner.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It won't help, but nor will anything else.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
The War Game made in 1966 by the BBC shows what would have happened and have been done in the event of a soviet nuclear attack, although it was banned from TV for being too graphic. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059894/ You can probably get it on bit torrent somewhere if you want to watch it.
Rock is Dead! Long live Paper and Scissors!!
To give you some idea of the mindset of these people the following instructions were actually included in the plans.
"In the event of a nuclear strike on the City of London transport links will almost certainly be disrupted and many commuters will be unable to get home. Tea and biscuits will therefore be served on tressle tables in Hyde Park to those requiring refreshment"
Now I know why my Grandfather dug a bunker in the back yard.
Ed Almos
The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. - Tacitus, 56-120 A.D.
Yeh, saw this film again a year or so ago - Its not lost any of its power - shocking film.
Fortunately in this case the stream can be played with
u dio/9012da6800315e8/nb/09012da68003170d_16x9_nb.ra
mplayer rtsp://rmv8.bbc.net.uk/news/media/avdb/news_web/a
without the need for any evil binary-only dlls.