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Cold War Nuclear Target Lists Declassified For First Time (gwu.edu)
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."
And the US military posts in West Berlin were OK with that?
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
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.
> 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.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
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?
....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.
In the fascinating and disturbing BBC documentary "The Trap: F**k You Buddy", 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.
The BBC documentary series "The Trap" 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.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
....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.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
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.
But we were expecting the soviets to target cities in late 50s with bombers and missiles, hence the Nike Hercules program
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.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
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.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
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.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
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..
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.
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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.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
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.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
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.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
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
-------
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, 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 up for "around the clock" bombing, but it was the British that concentrated on "area" bombing at night while the Americans strove for precision bombing during the day. RAF Air Chief Marshal "Bomber" Harris was a key driver in planning bombing campaigns. RAF bomber command attacks often dwarfed the associated American attacks in size. For bombing Hamburg during Operation Gomorrah the RAF typically sent 780-790 +/- to bomb at night, and the USAAF managed 100-150 to bomb during the day (although it attempted more). For Dresden it was RAF 722 and USAAF 527.
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.
The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki broke the Japanese will to continue the war. As to Hamburg,
"It was quite a surprise to us when the first Hamburg raid took place because you used some new device which was preventing the anti-aircraft guns to find your bombers, so you had a great success and you repeated these attacks on Hamburg several times and each time the new success was greater and the depression was larger, and I have said, in those days, in a meeting of the Air Ministry, that if you would repeat this success on four or five other German towns, then we would collapse." – Albert Speer – The Secret War
The carpet-bombing of Hamburg killed 40,000 people. It also did good
But however terrible Operation Gomorrah was, it did serve a purpose in the end. It changed the attitude of many Germans, who may hitherto have been unaffected by the war, discrediting a leadership which was unable to ‘protect’ the population. As tales of the bombing spread throughout Germany, it provoked something called the ‘November mood’ of growing antipathy to the regime. Operation Gomorrah and the devastation of German cities meant that there could be no ‘stab in the back’ myth, as there was after 1918 when it suited people to believe that Germany had not lost the war fairly, but had been betrayed by their own home front. In this sense, Germany’s modern democracy was built on the rubble of its cities.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
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 magnitude less atrocious than a nuclear bomb.
I'm not sure if there is any way to put large numbers of soldiers in such a stressful situation and never have them act out. Civilian deaths, and soldiers treating civilians as combatants, becomes far more likely during guerrilla wars like Vietnam. I doubt any advancements in society will stop these minor atrocities from happening in warfare until warfare is done away with all together.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
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
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.