
Declassified documents show why the US and the USSR came  close to war in 1973 - nabla9
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/09/opinion/stumbling-toward-armageddon.html
======
jsiepkes
> For many years we thought the aggressive Soviet behavior during the war was
> a ploy to undercut American influence, or gain access to oil or warm-water
> ports. The new evidence suggests it was simply a case of bad crisis
> management.

Never attribute to malice what you attribute to incompetence....

~~~
philipov
Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.

~~~
kbenson
I love everything about this sentence.

It also feels very relevant to current events.

~~~
barrow-rider
> It also feels very relevant to current events.

What events are you referring to? Having a heart-to-heart honest communication
isn't going to solve shit if the parties are greedy as fuck, or out-and-out
Nazis.

~~~
kbenson
> What events are you referring to?

A lot of events, all over, but mostly politically and with offenders on both
sides. Neither is interested in even trying to understand the underlying
emotions and reasons for the actions of the other. They're both so bad at
understanding each other that at this point all they see is malice.

> the parties are greedy as fuck, or out-and-out Nazis.

Case in point.

------
duxup
>When Mr. Brezhnev’s message arrived, Mr. Nixon was reported to be indisposed;
Mr. Kissinger and the White House chief of staff, Alexander Haig, decided not
to wake him up. Instead, Mr. Kissinger called together a meeting of principals
to consider America’s response. They moved the nuclear alert level to Defcon
3, the highest since the Cuban missile crisis.

Maybe time to wake the president if you're chaining the defense condition...

~~~
nabla9
Nixon was suffering from mental illness and taking daily mediation without a
prescription. He was under heavy stress from the Watergate scandal.

Schlesinger (Secretary of Defence) ordered military not to react to orders
from the White House unless he cleared them first. Nixon ordered bombing raids
that were silently canceled by Kissinger.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
This demonstrates a break down of democratic order IMO.

If the president is incapable, as Nixon was in your description (and in
[https://www.alternet.org/drugs/huge-role-alcohol-has-
played-...](https://www.alternet.org/drugs/huge-role-alcohol-has-played-oval-
office) linked down-thread), then there's a procedure wherein the VP takes
over, isn't there? Not performing this procedure is deciding to contradict the
democratic will of the people.

Now, I can see how you might not want to publicly remove the president in a
military crisis situation; but the way it was done seems completely wrong,
just assuming power without due process, countermanding the president whilst
they remain the president .. (as Nixon was CinC surely that's reason for a
Court Marshall?)

Did the people ever react to that, have anyone punished? Or are the USAmerican
people happy to have a VP secretly assuming power, a Secretary of Defence that
chooses when to obey orders, etc?

~~~
moioci
Remember that cabinet officers and military personnel take an oath to uphold
the constitution of the US and to "bear true faith and allegiance to the same"
Fealty to country supercedes following orders, always.

~~~
craftyguy
Sure, we on the sidelines remember, but do the current crop of cabinet
officers and military personnel?

------
interfixus
Late 1973 - when I was fourteen - was a seriously scary time. I have a very
clear memory of hearing on the news one Saturday afternoon that Arab forces
were moving against Israel, and of hastening outside to tell my father, who
was mowing the lawn. I still consider it a defining moment in my life: Like
September 2001, or the Kennedy assasination. Always surprised that noone else
seems to recall it like this. To me, that was truly the start of the dreary
seventies, very much the deat knell of the last remaining sixties optimism.
Oil shortage real or imagined, rising unemployment, a crisis spirit that
stayed with us for many years and still cast shadows. And the nuclear alert.
It was known at the time that the US had gone on heightened alert. It scared
me shitless, I remember.

~~~
i_am_nomad
I’m reminded of the lyric, “We haven’t had that spirit here since 1969.” That
loss of optimism is exactly what Henley was singing about.

------
Synaesthesia
Good lord I’ve heard before about how there was a close superpower conflict in
1973. This is very alarming, and it could still happen between the US and
Russia or China.

We’re really playing with Fire if you look at the number of close calls there
have been with nuclear weapons. The only sane way we can carry on guaranteeing
a decent existence for mankind is to work towards a world free of nuclear
weapons.

[https://www.upi.com/Yom-Kippur-Israels-1973-nuclear-
alert/64...](https://www.upi.com/Yom-Kippur-Israels-1973-nuclear-
alert/64941032228992/)

[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/15/cuban-...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/15/cuban-
missile-crisis-russian-roulette)

~~~
WrtCdEvrydy
We actually have slowly begun having less and less nuclear weapons, you just
don't hear about it

[https://fas.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Stockpile-
History...](https://fas.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Stockpile-History.jpg)

~~~
avar
This is true, but once you start looking into it is highly misleading. A huge
(and maybe only) reason for this is advances in targeting systems.

In the 70s and 80s targeting systems were much worse, so you might expect to
send tens of nukes to destroy a single reinforced bunker, since many would
miss by hundreds of meters to kilometers. So often you needed tens of nukes
for a single strategic target.

Nowadays targeting systems are so good and launch / reentry vehicles so
reliable that a single nuke can hit exactly in the right x-y coordinate and in
the exact z coordinate sweetspot to destroy that bunker. So you don't need as
many.

So the number of nukes has gone down, but the destructive power is quite
similar, although I suppose in the event of an all-out war we'll have less
fallout.

~~~
PeterisP
"So the number of nukes has gone down, but the destructive power is quite
similar" is very, very false.

The _military efficiency_ is quite similar, however, the destructive power has
dropped significantly - these targeting improvements resulted in much less
powerful warheads being necessary to achieve the same goal, so not only
there's much, much less warheads (10000 vs 60000 at the height of cold war,
and "only" 3000 of those 10000 are available at short notice) but also each
warhead is much less destructive, the "default" warheads have gone down from
multiple megatons to 100-150 kilotons.

This means that an all-out war will not only have much less fallout than in
70s, but also much less civilian casualties, much less destruction of cities,
etc, etc. In the 70s, if a military base near a city would be targeted, then
the city would be eliminated along with the base; now it'd likely be targeted
with just something like 100kt bomb with much smaller impact; if the target
was in the middle of the city, then most of the city would survive.

~~~
pastage
It is still perverse that we allow some few countries to stockpile 100 of
thousands of Nagasakis. All of the world is held hostage to the whim of a hand
full old men in the US, China and Russia.

~~~
PeterisP
A big reason why this stockpile is considered necessary is to prevent
questions in the form of "why should we allow ..." \- if you have such a
stockpile, then the obvious answer to any such questions is that you don't
have to ask for permission for anything ever, as nobody can force you to do
anything or prevent you from doing what you want, you have the ability to not
care about what someone would "allow" you to do. This is the ultimate
guarantee of "noone orders me around" sovereignty; if it was technically
possible for the world to disallow USA, Russia or China "to stockpile 100 of
thousands of Nagasakis", then it might become possible for the world to
disallow USA, Russia or China some other actions against other countries or
their own people, and that's not acceptable to their leaders.

~~~
pastage
It's good that you make the distinction between leaders and population,
because when it comes to nuclear weapons we are all losers.

------
workmandan
The mixing of sleeping pills and alcohol causing poor decision making reminds
me somewhat of Elon Musk's recent outbreaks. I believe I read somewhere he is
currently taking lots of Ambien.

~~~
tabtab
Maybe we need 3 Presidents for each shift. If you woke me up at 4am, I'd be so
grouchy I'd press every button around me.

~~~
novia
This is actually a brilliant idea

~~~
maxxxxx
Just the fact that someone went through the hassle of a presidential campaign
indicates that whoever wins will have way too much of an ego to share his job
with others :-)

------
gukov
Stanislav Petrov single-handedly prevented an all-out nuclear war in 83:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incident)

~~~
thansz
Vasili Arkhipov also helped to prevent nuclear war in 1962:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov)

Boris Yeltsin also had enough presence of mind not to launch a counter-attack
to what was presumed to be a US first strike in the Norwegian Rocket Incident:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_rocket_incident)

Unfortunately, there are too many close calls involving large scale nuclear
conflict that are publicly known:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accid...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_military_nuclear_accidents)

Who knows what the actual number is. Now throw in the ramifications of climate
change like political instability, infrastructure strain, resource scarcity,
and refugee migrations into the mix. Not blowing ourselves up will really be a
challenge, something we as a species have to get right every single
day...forever. Let's hope it's not our Great Filter.

------
empath75
The interesting thing to me in this article is that basically the equivalent
of ‘the deep state’ — the intelligence services — acted to control the worst
impulses of the leader, something that I sincerely hope is also happening in
both countries right now.

~~~
rrggrr
Which "worst impulses" are you concerned about controlling "right now"?
Because the only impulse providing a check against Chinese and Russian
national interests globally, is the current administration's readiness to go
to war - if necessary - to preserve a semblance of rule-of-law. US soft power
hegemony was spent, utterly depleted during and after Gulf War II. Rebuilding
it requires a hard power economic and military commitment no other
candidate/administration was willing to undertake.

~~~
macintux
It's remarkable how different people can read the same actions in very
different ways.

"Rule of law" is not something I would ascribe as a high priority to the
current U.S. administration.

~~~
rrggrr
Really? Because the South China Sea dispute is an excellent example. Nobody
supports China's sovereignty claim over the disputed islands. International
law and custom does not support China's claim. Who is standing up for rule of
law? The current administration. The same can be said of chemical weapons use
in Syria, and Russian assassinations in the UK, trade manipulation by China,
etc. Rule of Law isn't what you think it is, and it doesn't work in the manner
you assume.

~~~
empath75
Lol, most of the republicans in the administration don't believe that
international law even exists.

------
jumelles
Here's a direct link to the archive:
[https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/collection/505/yom-k...](https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/collection/505/yom-
kippur-war)

------
kposehn
> If there is a lesson today’s leaders should heed, it is that in the end,
> luck always runs out.

The good ‘ol hot-hand fallacy in action. It surprises me how easily otherwise
intelligent people in positions of significant power (in regards to their
situation, such as an unchallenged boss at a small company all the way up to
national leaders), forget that what they believed to be true yesterday could
easily not be tomorrow.

Challenge your assumptions constantly.

------
bunderbunder
If you're interested in this sort of thing, check out the book _Essence of
Decision_ , by Graham T. Allison.

It analyzes the Cuban missile crisis under three different models for
understanding how organizations make decisions, and talks about how one might
make sense of the facts in light of those models.

It's a fascinating read. The situation comes out feeling like a particularly
operatic Kurosawa movie. Only the whole thing actually happened.

------
jld
If anyone is interested in reading a modern, hopefully fictional take of a
similar situation, I recommend the 2020 Commission Report by Jeffery Lewis.

[https://www.amazon.com/Commission-Report-Nuclear-Attacks-
Aga...](https://www.amazon.com/Commission-Report-Nuclear-Attacks-Against-
ebook/dp/B079VDR6HM)

~~~
equalunique
I wouldn't. Seems to me that the author is cashing in on his ability to fear-
monger rather than providing something of substantial value.

~~~
jld
I found value in understanding how disconnected chains of command/advising can
impact decision making, as well as lessons in assuming how your adversaries
will interpret your actions is not always correct.

It certainly is an approachable layman's novel, not an academic piece.

Definitely worth the few hours it took to read.

------
PhasmaFelis
> _Declassified documents show why the US and the USSR came close to war in
> 1973_

I read that and immediately thought "probably because their leaders were
goddamn idiots," then chastised myself for being so reductionist.

Then I read the article and the answer is, literally, "because Nixon and
Brezhnev were blasted on booze and pills."

------
sailfast
This author suggests the lesson is that a leader’s time always runs out. What
I took out of this history (as a student of it) was that if something crazy
comes across the wire, be patient. Sometimes ignoring the cable / letter that
doesn’t fit is the right call.

------
sAbakumoff
>> Mr. Brezhnev had developed an addiction to sleeping pills that, combined
with alcohol, was undermining his ability to think straight.

And this person was the leader of evil empire for 18 years!!! How lucky we are
that he hasn't started the nuclear war.

------
mrleiter
What a fitting article on #worldmentalhealthday.

------
kop316
"A nuclear standoff. One leader is drunk. The other is delirious. The
underlings scramble to avoid the worst. This is not an end-of-the-world
Hollywood thriller, or an episode in President Trump’s erratic diplomacy."

No matter you're opinion of Trump, I find it extremely off putting when you
are reading an article and the author feels the need to get in a jab like
that, on either side of the political spectrum. I have seen that in other
lectures before, and I feel it undermines the credibly of the author.

~~~
dsr_
Upvoted because you're making an actual argument.

I couldn't disagree with you more, though. The comparison is precisely between
major world leaders who are either insane or evil -- it wasn't clear back
then, and it isn't now.

~~~
kop316
I would agree more if there was an actual juxtaposition in the article between
Nixon and Trump, but after that, Trump was never mentioned. I interpreted it
as the author wanted to take a free jab just because they could, and that is
the part that is off putting to me.

~~~
jacobush
Now you are not just making an argument, but a convincing one. As much as I
enjoy jabbing at our fearless leader of the free world, cheap shots are
boring.

------
40acres
Two things strike me after reading this.

1: How much conflict has been spawned due to the UN Partition plan which
created Israel? I haven't dug deep into the factors that led to this decision
(I'm sure the aftermath of the Holocaust was understandably huge) but the idea
that a new sovereign nation would be created catering to individuals who don't
currently live in the land which consists of that new nations borders just
seems absurd to me.

2: Maybe this is ageist on my part but after watching hours of Senate
committee hearings this year (Zuckerburgs testimony and the Kavanaugh
hearings) I would not be against a mandatory mental health check up for our
highest officials which includes some sort of mechanism to remove them from
office if they are determined mentally unfit to serve. I can't imagine the
pressure that government officials deal with everyday but I don't think its
safe to assume that the levels of bureaucracy are enough to contain an
individual who is mentally unfit from making rash decisions that can affect
the nation.

~~~
rrggrr
>1: How much conflict has been spawned due to the UN Partition plan which
created Israel? I haven't dug deep into the factors that led to this decision
(I'm sure the aftermath of the Holocaust was understandably huge) but the idea
that a new sovereign nation would be created catering to individuals who don't
currently live in the land which consists of that new nations borders just
seems absurd to me.

Okay, so why not do some reading on it before deciding its absurd? Tens of
thousands of Jews were displaced during and after WWII and no country would
take most of them, period. Go back, get educated, and then post the less
"absurd" alternative.

>2: Maybe this is ageist on my part but after watching hours of Senate
committee hearings this year (Zuckerburgs testimony and the Kavanaugh
hearings) I would not be against a mandatory mental health check up for our
highest officials which includes some sort of mechanism to remove them from
office if they are determined mentally unfit to serve.

The 25th Amendment and Congressional Impeachment power provide such mechanisms
for removal. As for diagnosis, and similar to your prior comment, you really
need to understand how politics works before you propose candidates submit to
psychological evaluation prior to assuming elected office. In other words...
who then is going to evaluate the (unelected) evaluators?

~~~
mtrovo
I agree that the argument of Israel created all the conflicts on middle east
is a little bit lunatic but I disagree with you with the rest, forcing the
choice of where to put the displaced Jews after WWII on Palestine's shoulders
was a little bit unfair at least.

And it's not that they chose Palestine as a destination, nobody of the allied
forces had a plan to offer asylum to the ~6mi jewish population in Europe and
they didn't want to stay in Europe. UN forced his hand on making the
immigration official (which was til that moment mostly illegal because it was
surpassing quotas established by Britain/Palestine government). Imagine today
if the ~1mi Syrians in Germany went to UN and ask for part of Germany
territory just because they cannot mix nicely with the local population and
the UN agreed, how fucked up it would be.

It's like stealing your neighbor money and donating to a good cause, is it
wrong: yes, but are you going to make the world a little bit better: also yes.
It also puts your neighbor in a very bad position, if he let it goes he loses
his money, if he fight for it he's the guy who doesn't share his money for
good causes.

~~~
jacobush
A better analogy would be if the UN carved out a new state for 1 million of
New England refugees.

A new state carved from the old Anglo-Saxon homelands in present day Germany.

(You have arabs and jews, two semitic peoples, once closely related but in
recent times highly antagonistic. In a similar way you'd have the English,
largely a germanic people, but with a strong hailing from the same Germanic
ur-tribes.)

------
FahadUddin92
Both have been fighting proxy war since then in Afghanistan and other
countries. Pakistan fought proxy war against USSR for US and has since been
bearing the loss. And now Trump says Pakistan doesn't do much efforts. US used
Pakistan as their scapegoating.

------
anon49124
I was listening to a podcast about a Scandinavian sounding rocket causing
Boris Yeltsin to insert the key/codes in the nuclear briefcase and _nearly_
pushed the button to launch a counter attack if that rocket were a surprise
American attack. Apparently, it was proactive readiness and the Russians only
disclosed week/s on to not alarm people unnecessarily.

