Posted on 10/25/2015 6:26:44 PM PDT by sparklite2
A nuclear weapons command exercise by NATO in November 1983 prompted fear in the leadership of the Soviet Union that the maneuvers were a cover for a nuclear surprise attack by the United States, triggering a series of unparalleled Soviet military responses, according to a top-secret U.S. intelligence review that has just been declassified.
“In 1983, we may have inadvertently placed our relations with the Soviet Union on a hair trigger,” the review concluded.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
“During my first years in Washington,” Reagan said, “I think many of us in the administration took it for granted that the Russians, like ourselves, considered it unthinkable that the United States would launch a first strike against them. But the more experience I had with the Soviet leaders and other heads of state who knew them, the more I began to realize that many Soviet officials feared us not only as adversaries but as potential aggressors who might hurl nuclear weapons at them in a first strike; because of this, and perhaps because of a sense of insecurity and paranoia with roots reaching back to the invasions of Russia by Napoleon and Hitler, they had aimed a huge arsenal of nuclear weapons at us.”I wonder how Reagan squared this with what the Soviets actually did. The Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty of 1972, signed by Nixon, limited each side to one installation of anti-ballistic missiles. Moscow put the Soviet ABMs around Moscow to protect from incoming US ICBMs. The US put ABMs around our nuclear missile silos.
The Russians don’t have to worry about the US attacking them now, do they?
Right.
There’s an old documentary, at least a decade old, on it. The Soviets refused to believe their NATO headquarters-based spy that told them it was only an exercise.
No, as it is understood in DC and Moscow that an attack on one another would lead to an all out nuclear war.
Supposedly our ICBMs are retargeted away from any Russian site. Don’t know how long it takes to put them back to where they were.
I want to live in a Fallout: New Vegas world
I was going to say the same thing. I thought this way widely known.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83
Able Archer is hardly news, German television even had a drama mini series about it called Deutschland 83
“It is a shame we never had that nuclear war.”
You would have been able to buy Manhattan real estate for a song.
I read the article and am not sure what was recently declassified, so whatever information is new eludes me.
Just two weeks until Fallout 4!
Fears are not always that rational. Like Reagan said, they (Reagan Admin.) thought what you thought UNTIL they talked to these people and realized a different assessment. They (Russians) thought anything showing we were not seeking a first strike was a lie.
I think some of these fears linger — on both sides. Whether they are rational or irrational fears depends on which “experts” you ask.
If we are ever to actually realize lasting improved relations, we are going to have to address these fears. That is what Reagan did. He said something like, “We do not distrust each other because we are armed, we are armed because we distrust each other.” It is a fundamental truth that there are two realities — the actual one and the one people believe. They will act according to their belief whether it is rationally based on truth or whether it is based on a manufactured reality. To resolve conflicts, you had better have a good understanding of both “realities.”
Given the enormous losses that they had taken within living memory, extreme paranoia from our perspective might have seemed like common sense from theirs.
That was a joke. It was a funny joke that was not suppose to be aired.
:Fears are not always that rational. Like Reagan said, they (Reagan Admin.) thought what you thought UNTIL they talked to these people and realized a different assessment. :
That is the point of my comment #1. Regardless of what we think they may or may not have felt, their decision to ring Moscow with ABMs rather than protect their missiles for use in a counter-strike is pretty persuasive of a first strike mentality.
That is a good point in post 15. It looks irrational to me, still. But it is hard to entirely see things from a completely different perspective. It is vital to know the perspective exists or nothing can get resolved.
The Russians believed that a key ally, fellow Socialist Adolf Hitler, would invade them, surely a philosophical enemy would.
Oh I see. Good point. I think many of these same fears linger there, and some similar fears linger here.
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