
The Soviet Union's nuclear war computer - vinnyglennon
http://www.businessinsider.com/soviet-nuclear-war-computer-cold-war-2015-10
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John_KZ
It's deceiving to say that a US-led attack on Soviet Union (even a nuclear
one) was out of the realm of possibility at the time. The author forgets about
the nuclear weapons race, and the fact that most people in power were very
much alive and kicking when the US used 2 nuclear weapons on Japan, as a first
strike, and not even out of necessity. Also the influence of the computer is
probably exaggerated.

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ggm
I'm not trying to evoke the 'whataboutism' general response, but don't you
think that automatically generated command decision systems might exist inside
the US defence model at this time? Am I alone in wondering if the western
threat analysis method was necessarily any better throughout the sixties,
seventies and eighties. Demonstratably neither side launched, so at some level
of MAD the system 'worked' but I'm less confident the risk exposed here could
innately not have existed inside NATO.

For instance.. the process which led to CBW risks being inflated in the
decision logic to invade Iraq. Was that not machine assisted?

