
Dodging Armageddon, the Third World War That Almost Was, 1950 (2000) [pdf] - PLenz
https://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/cryptologic_quarterly/Dodging_Armageddon.pdf
======
PhasmaFelis
> _" With the comfort and hindsight of a half-century, President Harry
> Truman's decision to commit American power to save South Korea from
> Communist aggression in late June 1950 stands as perhaps America's finest
> moment of the Cold War. [...] By dispatching the 24th Infantry and 1st
> Cavalry Divisions from comfortable occupation duty in Japan to death and
> destruction in Korea in mid-summer 1950, the United States actually did
> nothing less than save the world from a global conflagration."_

I spent two-thirds of the article waiting to find out how, exactly, the Korean
War prevented Armageddon. TL;DR: A squabble between Communist states was
looking likely to come to open war, and my countrymen planned to respond by
nuking the Soviets and starting World War III for some fucking reason.
Fortunately, our strong defense of South Korea convinced Stalin that we
actually _were_ crazy enough to start WW3 over Yugoslavia, so he backed down.

Further TL;DR: Fifty thousand red-blooded American soldiers nobly laid down
their lives to protect the world from the psychopathic nuclear aggression
of...America. This was clearly one of America's finest moments.

~~~
acqq
> my countrymen planned to respond by nuking the Soviets and starting World
> War III for some fucking reason

That there was such kind of thinking is supported by other sources, not as the
response to the situation in Yugoslavia but to Korea, at the same time, here's
from RAND:

"when the Korean War began in June 1950, the question of whether to launch an
atomic offensive against the Soviet Union resurfaced within the Truman
administration. Seeing the North Korean aggression as an act prompted by
Moscow, U.S. officials met with their British counterparts in July and
discussed whether, if the Chinese intervened, the United States should respond
with an attack on the Soviet Union.28 Receiving no support for such a move
from their principal ally, they quickly dismissed the notion; yet when the
Chinese did cross the Yalu in November, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Director Walter Bedell Smith asked his NSC colleagues “to what point will the
U.S. be driven [before it will] attack the problem at its heart, namely
Moscow, instead of handling it on the periphery as at present,” and on January
3, 1951, the JCS issued a paper arguing that it was “militarily foolhardy” to
fight a land war against China while the “heart of aggressive COMMIE power
remained untouched.”29""

But you are right that the claims in the article appear unbalanced, writing
just about Yugoslavia and then claiming something like "but the US actions in
Korea changed everything."

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DoctorBit
On downloading a pdf from nsa.gov - what could possibly go wrong?

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ChuckMcM
Let's hope we can dodge it again in the middle east.

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PLenz
Originally published in 2000 in Cryptologic Quarterly, the NSA in-house (and
classified) journal. Declassified 2010.

~~~
irl_zebra
I had no idea this was even a thing. It already looks interesting,
unclassified archives:

[https://www.nsa.gov/public_info/declass/cryptologic_quarterl...](https://www.nsa.gov/public_info/declass/cryptologic_quarterly.shtml)

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curiousjorge
fuck man, wish you'd upload this to a website or dropbox, now NSA is all up in
my bugger. I feel violated just by visiting the domain

~~~
exabrial
hopefully you were ipv6 enabled that way they can track it to your individual
device.

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empressplay
...and there's still long blocks of text censored. What could've happened in
1950 that's still "top secret" in 2000?

