The Doomsday Machine.

[ian16th]

Still looking at 100 million dead in Europe- our friends!

Europe 'our friends'?

You're joking ain't you?

[BenThere]

This did turn out to be a quite interesting thread. Regarding the Triad concept, it's like scissors, paper, rock. Land based missiles have the advantage of 30 minutes or so of decision time once a hostile launch is detected and its target determined. Land based bombers have the advantage of recall. Subs have the advantage of proximity and inherently shorter response times from the enemy. They all worked together as a deterrent throughout the Cold War.

The wrinkle in more modern calculations is what sort of ballistic missile interception capability exists and how effective is it? Which of the great powers possess it and to what degree? It follows from those questions who can survive general nuclear warfare? That was always the question but the answers are fluid.

Europe may not even be a major target as it has no nuclear defense other than the US Triad, and possesses a relatively small nuclear offensive capability only under the control of UK and France.

I feel safer hiding out in Mexico should tensions reach the boiling point. In fact I'm heading back down there tomorrow for a few weeks.

Dr. Strangelove gets better every time I watch it, about once every five years. Just like Casablanca.

So what do I predict is coming, you ask? I think the US will continue disengaging from its nuclear umbrella policies of the past; notify its allies that they need to develop and fund their own defense strategies as sovereign nations, and where collective effort is warranted, come to the table with real commitments to agreed doctrine and principles. The politics will always be a factor. A lot of people just don't like Americans, even many Americans, themselves.

Last point: What happens when European nations, especially those with nuclear weapons, become Muslim states?

[Slasher]

I feel safer hiding out in Mexico should tensions reach the boiling point. In fact I'm heading back down there tomorrow for a few weeks.

So what do I predict is coming, you ask? I think the US will continue disengaging from its nuclear umbrella policies of the past; notify its allies that they need to develop and fund their own defense strategies as sovereign nations, and where collective effort is warranted, come to the table with real commitments to agreed doctrine and principles. The politics will always be a factor. A lot of people just don't like Americans, even many Americans, themselves.

Last point: What happens when European nations, especially those with nuclear weapons, become Muslim states?

Good post Ben. I feel me and my family are safe in N Thailand as there's nothing here worth hitting even with a low yield nuke. Plus even if town was ever hit there are a coupla hills between it and our digs. Dunno how we'd cope with the fallout though. Still it's a safe place and well under the radar.

I agree with the USA disengaging from defense policies of other nations unless any threat will directly impact America. Even as a non-Yank I'm fed up with these bastards who when it hits the fan start yelling "where is America to help us??!!" and then abuse the sh!t out of the country when the dust settles. I say fukkem - let them brawl maim and kill the hell out of each other and the US can then open diplomatic ties with whatever rises from the ashes. When you look at it America is very much self sufficient and doesn't really need foreign defence policies to stay afloat. The real enemy of the Republic is within - the damn 'crats and their puppet masters.

WRT your last - and this is rather subjective, but I don't think the European Union of Islamic Republics will emerge in our lifetime. England maybe, due mainly to its horrendously stifling PC policy, as it's exceedingly well on the road to the total surrender of its cultural sovereignty and past the PNR in my opinion. I've stated this before for the past few years.

[John Hill]

Even as a non-Yank I'm fed up with these bastards who when it hits the fan start yelling "where is America to help us??!!"

Can you give a few examples of this please?

[Pontius Navigator]

John, most of Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Probably the Far East too. Pax Americana is a fact. No other country possesses such an ability of power projection.

Russia, undoubtedly capable on land lacks true maritime power projection. The US could probably achieve conventional theatre superiority through naval and air power alone.

[John Hill]

Even as a non-Yank I'm fed up with these bastards who when it hits the fan start yelling "where is America to help us??!!"

Can you give a few examples of this please?

No examples? It really must be bull if it is that difficult to provide just one example.

[Rwy in Sight]

Greece, the left while at the opposition used to protest against the US government but as soon a leftist politician become the current PM he become best pal with President Tramp. I am too tired to look for it but there are pictures of the current PM at a march against some US policy!

[Slasher]

Hill is on my ignore list - but going by PN's reply I have no doubt he wants to know who's thrown sh!t at America after they've been helped. He can do his own perusal starting with Africa and Greece instead of asking to be spoonfed.

[John Hill]

If you post BS do not be surprised if you are asked to at least give an example or two.

[Rwy in Sight]

If you post BS do not be surprised if you are asked to at least give an example or two.

I gave one and please don't forget the line: "Yankees go home and take us with you".

[Slasher]

RiS just ignore him. He picks lines in posts he wants to troll about even if that post is addressed to another poster. That's why I bunged him on the Ignore list alongside his fellow comrade K&C.

I usually write in a form that doesn't insult others intelligence by spelling out and/or belaver the obvious. For kids yes. For older adults no. Nuff said.

Getting back to the topic, during my GA time up in Northern Oz the local FIS guys would tell us about active LJRs and types of aircraft, usually USAF B-52s. The ATC street rumour in CNS at the time was if it was a single 52 it was armed conventionally - if armed at all. Two or more they were armed to the teeth incl nukes. How true that was nobody really knows. That Russian subs used to transit the shallow Torres Strait was well known though.

[John Hill]

If you post BS do not be surprised if you are asked to at least give an example or two.

I gave one and please don't forget the line: "Yankees go home and take us with you".

Greece is not an example of what Slasher claimed.

[BenThere]

One place you might want to look is at UN general assembly voting history, where you will find a plethora of nations receiving US aid then voting against US positions, many of them regrrding Israel, but not all, such as votes concerning US and coalition actions vis-a-vis Iraq.

Additionally, while many US allies have been stalwart partners, they often, as in the cases of UK, Canada, and most of the EU excepting former Soviet satellite states, embed a substantial popular resentment and hostility toward the US. All you need to do is read a few pages of the Guardian 'comment is free' to get my gist. Let me shout out, stand up and applaud UK, Australia, Canada, and lately, Poland and other Eastern Europe stalwart allies, standing with us through thick and thin.

I'm old enough to appreciate that I don't have much to lose. I'd like the world to be better for those who' survive me, but I have severe concerns about that as I see both hatred of President Trump and the increased attraction to Socialism among young American millennials, the next dominant demographic, as players in the not-distant future. I'll be sitting on a Caribbean beach watching it all unfold in 2020, sipping a margarita on the rocks, with salt. I'm spending about half my time in Mexico now and find the more time I'm here (where I am right now) the less animated I am about the politics back home. I'm hoping a majority of Americans will perceive the improvements the Trump administration has brought us all, but the array of academic, entertainment, and news media determined to overthrow it gives me pause. As I've always said, in a democracy you get the government you deserve; in republics as well.

I'm getting better, very good, I'm told, at grilling whole, fresh red snappers and sea bass on my terrace grill , and alternately preparing fine Argentinian beef on the grill with a layer of traditional briquettes and 4 charcoal blocks of mesquite added later for searing. It's an art I'm trying to perfect. I buy beautiful fresh Red Snappers, 4-5 lbs, at the Akumal fish market for around $5 US, which will feed four. Limes are less than $1/kilo. Tequila ranges from $4-80/litre and it all tastes the same to me. I tend toward the lower end. An Argentinian rib-eye steak goes for about $3/pound. All prices US. If you want to go downtown, especially if you go to a dusty cantina away from the beach and tourists, you can get an enchilada dinner with a beer for $3 or so, and it will be just as good as the same thing in Tulum for $10.

There's a market town in the interior of Yucatan called Valladolid. It's an old colonial Mexican marketplace unaffected by the tourism of the Riviera Maya. You go there early in the morning; it's a 45 minute drive for us. This farmers market has everything, a range of peppers that will boggle your mind, and magnificent fruits, avocado, tomatoes, pineapples, beans, meats and tortillas. You fill up a cart full of all the food you think you can eat for a few weeks and the tab comes out to $10 for a careful of fresh food. After a shop there I'm in a much better mood to stop off at the signature hotel at the town center to indulge in the best the town has to offer. The other plus is that when you go to Valladolid, you get real, today, Mexico - a community of great people, hard working, respectful of others, loving and caring for their families, grateful for the business, and a smile on their faces.

[OFSO]

Ben, you describe a country similar to Catalunia when I arrived in 1993. Very much changed now. Coastal towns sold their souls to French tourists and Madrid screwing tax out of everyone and everything. Every little tree-lined road now a dual carriageway for the tourists who come for four weeks from the fifty two each year...

[John Hill]

One place you might want to look is at UN general assembly voting history, where you will find a plethora of nations receiving US aid then voting against US positions, many of them regrrding Israel, but not all, such as votes concerning US and coalition actions vis-a-vis Iraq.

Of course nations will vote as they see fit and one should remember it is very difficult to buy friends. Among the top recipients of US aid are Afghanistan, Iraq and of course Israel. Egypt too although that is a special case as IIRC aid to Egypt was negotiated as protection money for Israel. Afghanistan needs aid but not because they screamed for it but because the US destroyed the country and of course Iraq is in the same category.
Bear in mind what is was that Slasher claimed

"I'm fed up with these bastards who when it hits the fan start yelling "where is America to help us??!!"

Additionally, while many US allies have been stalwart partners, they often, as in the cases of UK, Canada, and most of the EU excepting former Soviet satellite states, embed a substantial popular resentment and hostility toward the US. All you need to do is read a few pages of the Guardian 'comment is free' to get my gist. Let me shout out, stand up and applaud UK, Australia, Canada, and lately, Poland and other Eastern Europe stalwart allies, standing with us through thick and thin.

That's all very nice

I'm old enough to appreciate that I don't have much to lose. I'd like the world to be better for those who' survive me, but I have severe concerns about that as I see both hatred of President Trump and the increased attraction to Socialism among young American millennials, the next dominant demographic, as players in the not-distant future. I'll be sitting on a Caribbean beach watching it all unfold in 2020, sipping a margarita on the rocks, with salt. I'm spending about half my time in Mexico now and find the more time I'm here (where I am right now) the less animated I am about the politics back home. I'm hoping a majority of Americans will perceive the improvements the Trump administration has brought us all, but the array of academic, entertainment, and news media determined to overthrow it gives me pause. As I've always said, in a democracy you get the government you deserve; in republics as well.

I'm getting better, very good, I'm told, at grilling whole, fresh red snappers and sea bass on my terrace grill , and alternately preparing fine Argentinian beef on the grill with a layer of traditional briquettes and 4 charcoal blocks of mesquite added later for searing. It's an art I'm trying to perfect. I buy beautiful fresh Red Snappers, 4-5 lbs, at the Akumal fish market for around $5 US, which will feed four. Limes are less than $1/kilo. Tequila ranges from $4-80/litre and it all tastes the same to me. I tend toward the lower end. An Argentinian rib-eye steak goes for about $3/pound. All prices US. If you want to go downtown, especially if you go to a dusty cantina away from the beach and tourists, you can get an enchilada dinner with a beer for $3 or so, and it will be just as good as the same thing in Tulum for $10.

There's a market town in the interior of Yucatan called Valladolid. It's an old colonial Mexican marketplace unaffected by the tourism of the Riviera Maya. You go there early in the morning; it's a 45 minute drive for us. This farmers market has everything, a range of peppers that will boggle your mind, and magnificent fruits, avocado, tomatoes, pineapples, beans, meats and tortillas. You fill up a cart full of all the food you think you can eat for a few weeks and the tab comes out to $10 for a careful of fresh food. After a shop there I'm in a much better mood to stop off at the signature hotel at the town center to indulge in the best the town has to offer. The other plus is that when you go to Valladolid, you get real, today, Mexico - a community of great people, hard working, respectful of others, loving and caring for their families, grateful for the business, and a smile on their faces.

I am pleased you are enjoying the good life Ben.

[AtomKraft]

The reason Mr. Ellsberg called his book "The Doomsday Machine" is because he wanted to draw attention to the fact that if war breaks out, nearly all of us are getting it.

I don't think Mexico has any chance of surviving at all. Thailand is only a little better off and even if no nukes arrive there, fallout from Russia will kill nearly everyone in Europe.

Probably New Zealand and other islands around that latitude are the best bet.

[Slasher]

Even if not a target, and that a high percentage of detonations would be mostly in the northern hemisphere, the fallout I'd say would eventually kill us all dead in Thailand anyway Atom, and only a month or so later NZ would succumb to the same via upper air winds. All that the Kiwis could hope for really is a lower rad count by the time the muck got there and a high dissipation rate on its way down. That however would only prolong the inevitable.

If longevity was to be sought I'd head for the South Pole. Nonstop flight to NZIR anyone?

[ian16th]

I keep telling people, the so called Cuban Crises wasn't much of a crises.

I was posted from Marham to Akrotiri during it, and all of the paper work was shuffled quite efficiently.

Maybe all of those clerks had nothing else to do?

[BenThere]

I was 11 years old during the Cuban missile crisis, sitting at my single seat student desk at Clark Elementary school in Detroit, which still had ink wells and the desk surface was covered in carved initials, hearts and such. We were trained to dive under our desks when the alert was sounded, a futile but feel-good exercise.

Detroit was a major target back then as America's most productive industrial city. Almost all the automobiles in America at the time were manufactured there. Fifteen or so years later a nuclear attack on it would have been doing everyone a favor, mostly a result of Lyndon Johnson's 'Great Society'.

[OFSO]

Cuban missile crisis - I was an apprentice with the GPO (telecoms) and in a state of terror for a few days. These days at 75 I really can't be bothered whether I go alone or with millions.....the man with the black robe and scythe could be anywhere.