U.S. Nuclear Weapons Target List from the Cold War Declassified for the First Time | Hacker News Reader

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Target List from the Cold War Declassified for the First Time

foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com

53 pointsourmandave16 comments

One of the most unintuitive concepts in thinking about Cold War strategy is the assertion that explicitly targeting the opponent's civilian instead of military targets was morally superior: targeting military first (counterforce targets https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterforce) would potentially prevent retaliation and thus allow an aggressive first strike. Targeting civilian (countervalue targets https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countervalue) would ensure destruction and thus be inherently defensive.

It makes my head (and heart) hurt to think about it and I'm glad that I didn't have to make those kinds of decisions. I can see how it can (and did) lead to madness and the kind of irrational thinking satirized in Dr Strangelove and other stories.

I think the US command was still very aware of the lessons learned from WWII and particularly, those of how the Soviets defeated the Germans in Operation Barbarossa. The Soviet army might have pulled the triggers, but it was the Soviet people who ultimately won the battles and the war for them. They were resolute and could not be broken, even in facing the most daunting of environmental, emotional, and physical challenges. The Soviet army was largely a joke at the start of the war due to Stalin's purges of the military. They were soundly beaten time and time again by the Nazis. It was the sieges of Stalingrad and Leningrad where the people, ordinary citizens, made the difference. This bought the Soviets enough time to properly regroup, retrain, and rearm to end up fielding the largest, and later one of the most effective, armies of all time. If the people had given up or evacuated, the Soviet Union probably would have collapsed or been beaten back too far into Siberia to matter. The civilians were their ultimate weapon. I think the US command still remembered this when picking targets. You can shroud that however you want in terms of moral superiority -- a quick blow to the populace vs long years of sieges and urban warfare.

Aside: The excellent documentary "The World at War" is available on YouTube. Especially check out episodes 5, 9, and 11 to see how the Soviet people, not the army, beat the Nazis.

Stalin's military lacked in organization, tactics and strategy due to the purges and was surprised by Operation Barbarossa's timeline, but it was well armed and well equipped. Case in point being the Soviet tank forces, which were much more numerous and advanced than German intelligence had suspected.

The population's ability to bear sacrifices and Stalin's willingness - matched by Hitler's - to sacrifice millions of civilians alongside the soldiers were instrumental, but it certainly was the military - rather than civilian resistance - that ultimately broke the German war machine.

Your ordering is off. Their initial tanks were old and ineffective. It was after the sieges that tank production in the east ramped up with T34's. If the civilians had not taken the brunt and fought back, there wouldn't have been enough time to produce any tanks on the other side of the country. The Soviet tank forces of 39-40 couldn't hold a candle to the later version.

> Especially check out episodes 5, 9, and 11 to see how the Soviet people, not the army, beat the Nazis.

It's worth noting that the DVD release of The World at War starts each episode with some remarks from the series producer about its production, and for those episodes he alludes to them having to agree to soft-soap parts of the story of the USSR at war that skewed against the regime's approved line in order to get access to interview subjects and rarely seen archival footage.

Which is not to knock the series in any way, it's a fantastic work of documentary filmmaking -- just to note that the episodes dealing with the Soviet war experience should be approached with a skeptical eye.

They couldn't have found someone better for the camera than moustache lady?!

too bad the cold war isn't over: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34797252 (2015)

The threat of nuclear weapons is still very much alive, with intercontinental missiles being upgraded and maintained.

I'd be curious to know if the Soviet Union's target list has ever been released to the public.

There is a list of what the British government thought would be likely UK targets (pretty much anywhere populated).

[0]http://robedwards.typepad.com/files/probable-nuclear-targets...

I remember seeing one set of probable targets I think our house was close to 3 targets within 3-10 miles.

Observer Corps Bunker RAF Twinwoods Cranfield

Chicksands (aka the USAF spook base) would have got one but that's almost 15 miles away

Better link: http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb538-Cold-War-Nuclear-T...

The last paragraph is a bit dramatic while a nuclear exchange would've killed many people it would not come close to destroying the plnanet.

The map is also a good reminder to why Russia is so paranoid.

Russia is like a larger Seoul for all intents and purposes everything of any importance is a stone throw away from its borders.

On the side note its interesting that Russia concentrated its nuclear arsenal in its populated areas while the US did the exact opposite, I wonder if that's is the case or did this list did not included first strike targets or did the US had gaps in its intelligence as locating a launch site in the Siberian tundra is quite hard to do.

That map is interesting. There are fewer targets on the middle and eastern part of the country than I imagined. For whatever reason I figured we would have just carpeted the entire country with nukes, but I guess that doesn't make sense now that I think about it.

Just a usual all-inclusive war plan. Both sides were producing them prolifically.

What on earth does that site try to do with JS? When I open it in Firefox (43) on an old low end laptop running Ubuntu (15.04) it completely freezes the whole system (had to shutdown with the power button). With NoScript on it works fine.

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