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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."
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.
By the time things escalated that far, the US military in Berlin would probably have already ceased to exist.
> 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.
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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).
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
....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
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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