
Almost Everything in "Dr. Strangelove" Was True - route66
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2014/01/strangelove-for-real.html
======
sehugg
The arguments are the same as today: We don't want more controls and
oversight, because our enemies could use our limitations against us to
neutralize our capability, and in any case strict military discipline and
comprehensive personnel screening will eliminate abuse. Sound familiar?

~~~
jarrett
There is one very significant wrinkle, though: The difference between ongoing
practices and hypothetical, emergency actions.

In the former case--ongoing practices--it is hard to make a credible argument
against oversight.

Some details may need to be withheld from the public to protect basic
operation security. For example, the identities of overseas informants ought
not to be disclosed, lest they be immediately imprisoned or executed by their
governments. Nor should there be a Twitter feed giving up-to-the-minute
location data on US special forces teams. These examples seem farcical, but
they illustrate the point that at least _some_ operational details genuinely
deserve secrecy. (Unless you reject the underlying premise that the United
States should conduct intelligence and military operations overseas at all.
But that's a very different discussion.)

But even though specific details may need to be kept secret--for a reasonable
amount of time, until they're no longer actionable by enemies--the _nature_ of
the government's ongoing practices ought to be disclosed.

The latter case--wherein lower-level officials are permitted to make judgment
calls in time-sensitive emergencies--is rather different. This is the
situation contemplated by the White House during the Cold War.

As the reasoning went, the American nuclear deterrent must be credible, or
else the Soviets would seize the opportunity and launch an unprovoked attack
on the US, Germany, or both. If a communication breakdown between the White
House and the military could render the nuclear arsenal unusable, that would
tend to diminish the credibility of the deterrent. On the other hand, the risk
of a lower-level official making the wrong judgment call and starting a world
war is appreciable.

Given these considerations, reasonable people could disagree on what the
optimal policy would be. It is not unreasonable or morally repugnant to
conclude that certain trusted military officers should be granted the
authority to make a judgment call when a) the situation is an emergency, and
b) the chain of command has broken down.

Again, the key distinction here is between _ongoing practices_ and _emergency
measures in a hypothetical, worst-case scenario._ That distinction must affect
our moral judgment of the respective policies.

~~~
mikeash
In addition to that, I think it's also important to understand exactly what
the realistic worst-case scenarios actually are for any given situation.

For the nuclear deterrent, the worst-case scenario was basically the end of
the world as we know it. Either the USSR takes over the world, or global
civilization is entirely wrecked. I'm not sure which one would have been
considered worse. Either way, hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, die.

For counter-terrorism operations, the worst-case scenario is orders of
magnitude smaller. There appears to be no credible threat of any terrorists
obtaining WMD, so they're pretty much limited to casualties in the thousands.

I think that much of our current woes come down to applying cold-war thinking
to terrorism. The situations just aren't comparable. We were facing a true
existential threat from a powerful enemy that outclassed us in many ways. Now,
we're facing a minuscule threat that can, at most, kill a small number of our
citizens from time to time. There were realistic scenarios that end with, "and
the US was destroyed/defeated by the USSR", but there are none that end with,
"and the US was destroyed/defeated by al Qaeda".

~~~
skywhopper
> For the nuclear deterrent, the worst-case scenario was > basically the end
> of the world as we know it. Either > the USSR takes over the world, or
> global civilization > is entirely wrecked. I'm not sure which one would have
> > been considered worse.

I personally don't find this a difficult question. A half-destroyed world
controlled by the USSR would have been far better than a full-destroyed world.

~~~
bcoates
The point of the entire US atomic weapons arsenal was a murder-suicide pact
against International Communism. If you don't burn the planet after a Soviet
victory you may as well have not built it in the first place.

~~~
skywhopper
MAD was/is all a mental game to avoid a first strike. But once that happens,
the calcuation is moot. In the event of a surprise attack by the USSR, the
better result for the planet and humanity would have been for the US _not_ to
fire its own missiles.

~~~
arethuza
"In the event of a surprise attack by the USSR"

I find it interesting that everyone always talks about surprise attacks by the
USSR - in reality the USSR spent most of the Cold War terrified of a strike by
its enemies (both the West and China). Indeed, as far as I know only one side
in the Cold War had military leaders who _wanted_ to start a nuclear war -
guess which one?

NB The only possible exception to this was the Able Archer 83 incident when
the Soviets thought the US was going to conduct a first strike ("Evil Empire"
rhetoric etc.) and they almost pre-empted this with their own strike - but
that was the terror of senile geriatrics, not a deliberate plan.

~~~
KMag
> as far as I know only one side in the Cold War had military leaders who
> wanted to start a nuclear war - guess which one?

I'd be interested in seeing a citation for this fact.

Edit: Curtis LeMay secretly advocated preemptive strikes if it became clear
the Soviets were preparing a first strike. This is different from "wanting"
nuclear war.

~~~
arethuza
The reference I specifically remember (although I have read others) is in
"Dark Sun" by Richard Rhodes. LeMay ordered overflights over the USSR and
commented:

"Well, maybe if we do this overflight right, we can get World War III
started."

I don't have my copy of _Dark Sun_ handy, but there is a reference to the
incident in this review:

[http://www.geoffwisner.com/index.php/book_reviews/article/?t...](http://www.geoffwisner.com/index.php/book_reviews/article/?t=other&f=darksun)

LeMay's belief in a "preventative" war was oddly rational - he believed that a
conflict between the US and the USSR was inevitable and that therefore that US
should strike before the USSR posed a strategic threat to the US (which it
didn't really do until the mid 60s at the earliest).

Rhodes writes about the Cuban Missile Crisis:

 _" If John Kennedy had followed LeMay's advice, history would have forgotten
the Nazis and their terrible Holocaust. Ours would have been the historic
omnicide"._

------
timr
The book from which this is adapted (Command & Control) is fascinating and
terrifying. Everyone should read it. You'll wonder how it is that we've
managed to escape truly catastrophic accidents with these weapons.

~~~
aaronem
I don't wonder. It's simply that, while certainly no one is perfect, almost
everyone is better than almost anyone imagines that anyone could possibly be.

~~~
mildtrepidation
I think you have a very, very optimistic view of humanity. It's entirely
possible you and I have completely opposite experiences, because while I've
known plenty of good, decent people, I've known more that fell somewhere
between mediocre and horrid.

I'm also not sure how you could consume any sort of news for any period of
time and still hold on to this belief. Of course we hear about the worst, and
it's put as shockingly as possible, but with all the terrible things that
happen every day, "almost everyone" just doesn't seem to me to work in your
statement.

~~~
aaronem
> I think you have a very, very optimistic view of humanity.

Indeed, very much so! Having once lost my faith in progressivism, I found
myself no longer wedded to the peculiar species of pessimism, regarding
humanity and human affairs, which is part and parcel of that strain of
political belief, and I further found myself capable for once of considering
the possibility that for someone's politics to disagree with mine, however
fundamentally, did not necessarily make that person a horrible human being.
This discovery came as no small relief to me, in that it brought to swift and
successful conclusion what had theretofore been a decade-long and losing
battle against an increasingly black and pervasive depression.

> I'm also not sure how you could consume any sort of news for any period of
> time and still hold on to this belief.

Granted, and that's precisely why for the most part I _don 't_. News that's
local enough or big enough to matter in my life, I will hear about soon
enough, and that's the only sort of news with which I choose to concern
myself; as far as I'm concerned, everything else can go and whistle. What,
after all, is the point in flagellating myself with a litany of trumped-up
disaster stories regarding matters over which I have no power or influence in
any case? Such obsessive behavior does no one any good.

> with all the terrible things that happen every day

Oh? This seems to me a rather lopsided view. What of all the terrible things
that _don 't?_

------
sroerick
I think we're well overdue for a surveillance DrStrangelove.

Is it impotence that causes people to surveil? Some other voyeuristic impulse?
Could be fun to explore.

~~~
arethuza
Are there any contemporary figures as "interesting" as Curtis LeMay, Herman
Kahn or Thomas Power - the latter being the man who said _while head of SAC_ :

 _" Restraint? Why are you so concerned with saving their lives? The whole
idea is to kill the bastards. At the end of the war if there are two Americans
and one Russian left alive, we win_"

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_S._Power](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_S._Power)

~~~
Zigurd
Dianne Feinstein is way over on the side of the surveillance state, while the
BRIC market share withers out from under her constituents' companies. You have
to wonder where that is coming from.

------
vaadu
Our Looking Glass aircraft(EC-135C) flew 24x7 for many years with 2 launch
officers. They could launch the minuteman missiles from the air and didn't
require NCA approval. It also could contact the subs via LF/VLF and tell them
to launch.

Their mission assumed DC and SAC HQ were already taken out.

~~~
arethuza
Sounds very like the UK Trident submarines which couldn't be dependent upon
explicit authorization from a central authority.

In a very British way, our ultimate deterrent relies on hand written letters
from the serving PM carried by each sub:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort)

~~~
Nursie
And surfacing every so often to see if Radio 4 is still on the air :)

~~~
arethuza
The end of Radio 4 would indeed be the end of civilization.

------
vezzy-fnord
The Cold War in general was full of all sorts of insanity no one would ever
imagine to be possible. Prime example of truth being stranger than fiction.

That and all good satire has truth in it. The more truth and the better
illustrated, the better the satire. Kubrick was a visionary for a reason.

------
JoeAltmaier
I dunno - I think we were safer with dedicated airmen manning Minuteman silo
switches. Morale dropped after the PALs were installed. They disrespected the
whole idea - entered a launch code of 0000-0000. Still they knew they'd become
administrators (alcoholism, spousal- and drug-abuse etc) and not the last link
in the chain preventing nuclear war. How was that an improvement?

~~~
aaronem
In 1983, Gospodin Colonel Stanislav Petrov saved the world.

Somehow I don't see the value of a system which would've made it impossible
for him to do so.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Confused; Petrov was a human in the loop, thus saved the world? I agree with
that view.

------
hexagonc
Problems with poor morale on missile bases? The second in command at
Stratcom[1] with gambling problems? Looks like we need to take humans out of
the loop when it comes to nuclear decision making. We need something that will
not be subject to emotions. Something that makes decisions based only on cold
hard logic. . .

[1] Strategic Command - in charge of, amongst other things, global strike and
strategic deterrence.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Strategic_Command](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Strategic_Command)

~~~
nathos
Then you read about men like
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov)
and
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov)
and are are somewhat comforted that cold hard logic doesn't launch nukes.

------
phaus
They lost me at this:

>Force pilots were allowed to fire their nuclear anti-aircraft rockets to
shoot down Soviet bombers heading toward the United States.

Nuclear anti-aircraft rockets?

~~~
arethuza
During the Cold War there were nuclear anti-aircraft missiles, nuclear anti-
missile missiles, nuclear depth charges, nuclear artillery shells, nuclear
torpedos, nuclear man-portable demolition charges, even nuclear recoilless
guns:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_Crockett_%28nuclear_device%29)

Crazy times....

~~~
phaus
>During the Cold War there were nuclear anti-aircraft missiles, nuclear anti-
missile missiles...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-26_Falcon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-26_Falcon)

I guess it wasn't the author's fault, but that's the one of the most
ridiculous things I've ever seen. Until about 1990, anti-aircraft missiles
were horribly inaccurate. I read somewhere that the chance of scoring a hit
with a korean-war era air-to-air missile was about 5%. Why would anyone want
to launch a nuclear missile that's pretty much guaranteed to not his its
target?

~~~
dragonwriter
> I read somewhere that the chance of scoring a hit with a korean-war era air-
> to-air missile was about 5%. Why would anyone want to launch a nuclear
> missile that's pretty much guaranteed to not his its target?

Because with a nuclear air-to-air missile in its intended role, you don't need
to "hit the target", you just need to detonate somewhere in the general area
of the bomber formation that you are trying to whittle down.

~~~
phaus
I should have kept reading the entire article, I hadn't noticed that it used a
proximity trigger. That makes more sense.

------
tfigueroa
I think it's heartening, in a sense - and this goes beyond nuclear weapons -
that as close as we are to danger, dangerous events are pretty rare.

Of course, whenever I have that thought, part of me fears that I'll ironically
be vaporized by an errant nuclear weapon, moments later. I reassure myself
that, at least, it will be a quick end.

~~~
throwaway_yy2Di
Not at all! Most deaths would be slow and horrific, from radiation burns
(thermal or ionizing), radiation sickness, or blast effects like being crushed
in a collapsed building. Only a lucky few would be vaporized instantly.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_bombs_and_health](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_bombs_and_health)

And you haven't considered the risk of not dying!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MCbTvoNrAg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MCbTvoNrAg)
(" _Threads_ redefines the word grim...")

~~~
fennecfoxen
This is also why the old advice of "duck and cover" was _actually very
relevant and good advice_. If you're not vaporized, you'd prefer to avoid the
oncoming blast as much as possible (and yes, even the flimsy newspaper-over-
the-head helps reflect thermal energy and could seriously mitigate your
burns).

------
josefresco
How about "Everything in Dr. Stangelove was Plausible in Hindsight"

Less link-baity of a title but much more accurate.

------
jamessb
There's an interesting chapter on Nuclear Command and Control in Ross
Anderson's _Security Engineering_ :
[http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/SEv2-c13.pdf](http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/SEv2-c13.pdf)

------
asgard1024
Sounds like DRM (Digital Rights Management) problem. We have these locks on
things so you wouldn't do anything questionable, but of course we can't send
MPAA representative everytime you try to watch a movie, so here are the keys
as well..

------
GarvielLoken
And how was it on the Sovjet side? The article failed to explore that part.
Genuinely asking.

------
coldcode
Except of course dropping a bomb on Russia (with a guy riding it).

------
bananacurve
Hopefully Russia doesn't have a doomsday machine.

~~~
arethuza
Bad news I'm afraid:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_%28nuclear_war%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_%28nuclear_war%29)

------
Nursie
You can't fight in here, this is the war room!

------
daveslash
Colonel Batguano - man, that guy was crazy. Like, seriously bat-shit crazy!

~~~
mrspeaker
I'd like to hold off judgement on a thing like that, sir, until all the facts
are in.

~~~
arethuza
Gentlemen. You can't fight in here. This is Hacker News.

------
fuckpig
I used to use this movie to test out prospective girlfriends. If they found
humor in it, they were worth a second look. If it was WTF face all the way,
there was never going to be any compatibility.

