The Doomsday Machine.

[AtomKraft]

Come on Fox. The purpose of a decapitating strike is to 'win' the war. Always has been.

For years we were all told we are only armed to deter the Russkis. In fact it was the other way round, the Russkis were afraid that we would attack them.

And as for nuking China, who had split from the USSR, just because they had been the recipients of nuclear tech, and been on the other side in Korea? That's laughable.

The rest of your post, and pretty much all your others, I agree with.

If you think about it, and I'm sure you have, the current state of affairs is indefensible.

One human error, or miscalculation and we're all a goner.

A large scale disarmament is long overdue. Sure, you can't uninvent the things, but there are far too many on both sides.
Ellsberg advocates removing the ICBMs first, and there are a few good reasons for that.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

My apologies, I was unclear.
My reason for maintaining a decapitating strike capability is..
I agree that the reason it was introduced was to try to win a nuclear war.
The reason for nuking China was because it was communist, and therefore believed to be intent on world domination, which would entail the removal of the US Republic as a political entity. The evidence given were examples, not justifications in themselves for a nuclear strike.
The current state of affairs is neither defensible or indefensible, it is reality. Even God cannot change the past. Arguing the morality of it is pointless. The question is, how do we get from where we are to a safer world? I have yet to see a plan that does not involve going through a more dangerous state during any reduction of warheads or launch systems. The UK is not a good example - whilst it would be difficult, only one submarine need be disabled to remove the UK's immediate independent nuclear deterrent, and give sufficient time for the others to be destroyed at relative leisure.

[BenThere]

I can only speak for the B-52 execution of SIOP. I wasn't privy to any SIOP orders for sub-launched or ICBM execution orders, so can't comment on that. The manned bomber missions I am familiar with had either a China or Russian option, defined by the coded messages launching the alert fleet. I never saw a both China and Russia option, it was always either but never both.

I didn't find a citation for the book you are referencing, AtomKraft. Can you post a link? You did reference Daniel Ellsberg who was a famous leftist who revealed top secret Pentagon information to the New York Times and Washington Post among others for general publication. He was the Manning/Snowden of his day, what I would characterize as a traitor.

Another thought is that by August, 1945 the Allies had liberated many areas conquered by Axis armies and discovered the horror of how brutally they had treated their victims. Summary executions, torture, starvation, genocide, slave labor and other atrocities were the rule. No wonder there was little sympathy for compassion at that point among the Allies. MacArthur's humane occupation of Japan after surrender was his crowning achievement. The Marshall Plan in Europe, including the stabilization and rehabilitation of Germany also was remarkably humanitarian. I've always found it amazing that after the war both Japan and Germany became pacifist paragons, each of them totally repudiating their inhumanity within only a few years. On the other hand, Stalin's Russia and Mao's China assumed the mantle of all-time world's greatest murderers with tolls in the tens of millions - gotta love them Socialists, eh?

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

The first SIOP, SIOP-62, had both, Kennedy changed it a year later.

[BenThere]

That could very well be. I wasn't exposed to SIOP until 1977. In addition, at that time China and Russia were seen as allies to each other against the West. They fell out in the mid-60s.

[AtomKraft]

Ben.
The thread title is the same as the book, and yes, it's the same Ellsberg.

I agree he's a bit of a lefty, unlike you or I or Fox3.

Still, the access that he had was unparalleled, and makes his book very readable. Its stuffed with factual information and although there are bits and pieces where his lefty viewpoint diverges from my own, there's little in it to disagree with.
I'd be interested in hearing from anyone else who's read it.

I learned a lot.

Btw, China and the USSR fell out in the mid 1950s, but as of SIOP-62, the Chinks were still getting it, even if they had no part in an attack. Madness.

Also, the trigger for the implementation of the SIOP was remarkably low. This because the US recognised they hadn't the numbers to win a conventional war. So the SIOP was set to kick off very early in any confrontation.

[BenThere]

Actually the Sino-Soviet split occurred in the 1960s. US strategic doctrine was slow to adapt to the landscape, probably due to bureaucratic inertia. Further, China didn't emerge as a strategic threat until much later.

I should also add that my view of SIOP was highly compartmentalized. I stated above that we were tasked with either/or China or Russia missions. I have no idea what the tasking structure was for other bomber wings. For all I know they could have been tasked with both.

Last point, SIOP could kick off manned bomber sorties and have 15 or so hours to recall them, allowing for more of a hair trigger. If someone knows better, correct me, but my perception was that US ICBM launches would only occur on detection of incoming missiles, subject to the US president holding sole authority to launch otherwise. Submarine launches, again in my perception, were held back for launch only after the balloon had gone up. It wasn't madness at all but it was a carefully thought-through strategy in a world gone mad.

[AtomKraft]

Ben.
That split started in 1956.
You are right of course about the manned bombers, but the Minuteman missiles cannot be recalled so easily.
The SLBMs role has changed over the years. Initially they were quite inaccurate, so only really worked on cities. Now of course, they are very accurate and can be used to hit hardened targets like silos, etc. Their short flight times work well if a decapitating strike is attempted.
Really the SLBMs are all that's needed for deterrence today.
Of course the Hawks will say that they might become easily detectable some day, so not safe to count on them alone.

I disagree about the madness. A series of well intentioned events led us to where we are now, but there's really no need for the amount of nukes in either sides arsenal.

The Russkis 'perimiter' or dead hand system shows how near to madness we have come.

If the balloon ever goes up, it's unlikely any of us will live through it. If that isn't mad, I don't know what is.

Edit to add: the question of authority to launch is a subject of its own. We all know about the football, and the way that the man carrying it switches his eyes from the old POTUS to the new one on inauguration day. Turns out that the subject of who has a finger on the 'button' is a little more complex. Ellsberg quickly discovered that pilots of single seat jets could easily start WW3, and there were hundreds of them.
Delegation. Necessary, but it went a lot deeper than you'd think.

[ian16th]

That split started in 1956.

Yep, the 'Suez Crises', when Ike said he wouldn't support the Anglo-French-Israli efforts.

I was jabbed up for that, but didn't get lumbered.

If the balloon ever goes up, it's unlikely any of us will live through it. If that isn't mad, I don't know what is.

It was about 1960, when GCT* became GDT*!

The simple message that came from the new GDT syllabus, if it happens, you see off the big white birds and put your head between your knees and kiss your ass goodbye!

* GCT was Ground Combat Training
* GDT Was Ground Defence Training

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

The problem with relying on any one system is that should a vulnerability be discovered, one is stuffed in the short or medium term with replacing it.
An example would be drone torpedoes. Successfully developing a drone torpedo that could follow boomers around and strike on command would render SLBMs useless, and getting manned bombers and ICBMs back on station isn't going to happen overnight. Note that the history of warfare has seen every weapon system eventually neutralised.

[AtomKraft]

Fox.
Sure. And I referred to it in #128 above.

So we need manned bombers, ICBMs, SLBMs, cruise missiles, IRBMs, nuclear artillery rounds, pack charges, nuclear depth charges, nuclear torpedos, and so on, and we won't be SAFE without them?

Really?

What could the enemy do to us politically, economically or ideologically that's worse than the death of all of us?

Btw, the Cold War has been over for thirty years. A little racking down, of the tension, could possibly be in order?

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

You could get rid of the artillery rounds and the pack charges.
What could the enemy do to us? Have you read The Gulag Archipelago? Totalitarian regimes don't give a d@mn who they annihilate, as history has shown, in fact they often see it as a mission.
You are presenting the situation as an oversimplified choice. It might better be presented as the possibilities of the death of most of us by one means or another. Every major western country sprang from the rejection of totalitarian rule through violent action. The cause of the tension is always there. Personally, I'll take freedom and the risk of thermonuclear war over totalitarian rule. That freedom includes religious and political freedom; we might remind ourselves of the religious wars in the Middle Ages, where the laying waste of vast areas caused major deaths when nature turned nasty.

Can we reduce the risk of substantial nuclear conflict? As I said before, I await a workable plan.

[Undried Plum]

Submarine launches, again in my perception, were held back for launch only after the balloon had gone up.

That's one of the absurdities of the Brit nuke force. It can only really ever be used when it has already failed as a deterrent. As the opponent was/is very extremely unlikely to ever do a first strike, and as as our number one ally is very likely to do so, a 'retaliatory' counterstrike by Pusser's bombers is completely redundant and a total waste of money (quite apart from being the ultimate war crime).

One of the first things a new PM has to do is sit down and wrote a personal letter to each of the Commanders of the V-boats giving an instruction as what to do in the event that the UK is obliterated in a nuke strike. The First Sea Lord gives the sprog PM the few choices s/he has, eg: choose your own targets and let loose; surrender your boat to the Murricanes; bugger orf to Pitcairn Island and shag goats for England until Nuclear Winter sets in. I know what my instruction would be.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

I think the actual shagging choice is sheep in Australia, but point taken

[BenThere]

Israel, too, relies heavily on its nuclear SLBM capability as the key component of its nuclear deterrent. Not having the luxury of a large territory, Israel relies on subs to deliver carnage on the various forces arrayed against it. One nice thing about SLBMs is that they are globally mobile, difficult to target as they are constantly in motion, and they pack a mighty wallop, difficult to defend against as their time to target is the shortest of all nuclear weapon delivery systems when properly deployed.

The thing that worked with MAD was that each adversary knew that initiating nuclear conflict would result in unthinkable losses. I like to think that if the US came under a total war nuclear attack, and as far as I know Russia is still the only power that can pull it off, there would still be a cadre of survivors, maybe out in Wyoming, Nevada or New Mexico that would survive and start rebuilding.

There has long been a movement of what have become known as 'preppers' in the US and elsewhere. They stockpile food, water, ammunition, and embrace survival strategies should the world one day go to hell. They build shelters with earth layers able to withstand radiation and blast. I suspect many of those totally committed to that idea will likely survive, at least for a while, and there are tens of thousands of them out there in the hinterlands.

As for me, if the worst ever does come to pass in my lifetime, just give me a damn good bottle of scotch and let me go happily into the abyss. I've enjoyed a very good life. I'm incessantly approaching the autumn of my years anyway.

[Slasher]

Mind you there are some places worth nuking as a service to Mankind.

Calbloodycutta for one.

[AtomKraft]

Well Fox.
Getting rid of some of the damn things should be possible, so why not at least try?

What's actually happening is that the ABM Treaty has been abandoned.
The IRBM Treaty is being abandoned.
The US is spending billions of dollars upgrading their nuclear forces. Started by Obama.
No doubt the Russkis will spruce theirs up too, and crack on with new IRBMs

President Trump said "let it be an arms race".

So yes, disarmament is difficult, but we are moving in the opposite direction!
We all have a moral responsibility to do what little we can to change the situation, even if the prospect of success seems distant.

(Did you check out 'Dead Hand btw? I'd never heard of it before I read this book).
Yes, I've read the Gulag archipelago, or most of it anyway. I actually live in a former Soviet country these days, and there were several gigantic camps right here.

[ian16th]

One country, and only one, has got rid of all its nukes.

That country is South Africa.

Mind you, this was before the ANC were elected.

[AtomKraft]

ian16th
Well, that's certainly worth a mention.

I'm not a proponent for uni-lateral disarmament, but nobody needs a doomsday machine. Numbers should be reduced, and the Russians auto launching dead hand system deactivated.

The Cold War is over, and a start should be made on getting rid of some.

The IRBM treaty is what led to the removal of the cruise missiles and Pershing from Europe. Molesworth and Greenham Common were their UK bases.

That treaty, is the sort of thing we should be looking at now, instead we are resiling from it.

[John Hill]

I think Ukraine gave up theirs also Kazakstan and Belarus.