Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.
--President John F. Kennedy, September 25th, 1961
What effect does a
"cloud of fear" have on society? I was a small child in the 80s, but I still remember that in those days people believed it was possible that some morning we might all wake up to Soviet ICBMs exploding over major cities. Whether the Russians were ever really that crazy to launch a full scale attack against us is debatable, but for almost 50 years people in this country believed it was possible & lived under that fear...
I sometimes wonder which is worse for society? For people to believe that a terrorist could blow up a plane or fly into a building, or to live in the shadow of a nuclear fireball? To show how crazy the days of the Cold War got, take a look at the "Launch On Warning" nuclear strategy...
With the invention of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System in the early 1960s, the possibility of America detecting launches of Soviet missiles became real. In the 1970's, this technology came to fruition after the deployment of space-based launch detection technology on both sides....The side that launches a well-coordinated first strike can pin down the retaliatory forces of the other country by launching a barrage of submarine based missiles from close range, in a fast "depressed trajectory" mode, and exploding the warheads every minute or so at high altitudes over the ICBM fields of the targeted country, using a technique called X-ray pin-down. This makes it impossible to launch the ICBMs without damaging their navigation systems for as long as the high-altitude detonations continue. This buys extra time for the wave of first strike ICBMs to complete their flights and hit their targets, which are the ICBMs that have been pinned down in their silos.
This greatly shortens the effective warning time for the President to make his decision to launch a retaliatory strike while still under attack. It takes a few minutes to confirm launch detection from early warning systems, and another few minutes for ICBMs to complete their launch procedures, and then a bit more for them to clear the region of X-ray pin-down, and that squeezes the decision time from both ends of the schedule. It means that even if all of the command and control systems are working perfectly in the targeted country, the President of that country still has only about five minutes after being shaken awake in the middle of the night to decide what to do. Five minutes to decide whether to launch thousands of nuclear warheads.
Five minutes to make a decision to annihilate most of the planet. Few people know of how many times the planet has come close to that fate. There are at least
20 incidents where errors might have caused World War III. If you were alive on November 9th, 1979, you came very close to dying because someone left a tape in the machine...
At 8:50 a.m. on November 9, 1979, duty officers at 4 command centers (NORAD HQ, SAC Command Post, The Pentagon National Military Command Center, and the Alternate National Military Command Center) all saw on their displays a pattern showing a large number of Soviet Missiles in a full scale attack on the U.S.A. During the next 6 minutes emergency preparations for retaliation were made. A number of Air Force planes were launched, including the President's National Emergency Airborne Command Post, though without the President! The President had not been informed, perhaps because he could not be found.
No attempt was made to use the hot line either to ascertain the Soviet intentions or to tell the Soviets the reasons for U.S. actions. This seems to me to have been culpable negligence. The whole purpose of the "Hot Line" was to prevent exactly the type of disaster that was threatening at that moment.
With commendable speed, NORAD was able to contact PAVE PAWS early warning radar and learn that no missiles had been reported. Also, the sensors on the satellites were functioning that day and had detected no missiles. In only 6 minutes the threat assessment conference was terminated.
The reason for the false alarm was an exercise tape running on the computer system. U.S. Senator Charles Percy happened to be in NORAD HQ at the time and is reported to have said there was absolute panic. A question was asked in Congress. The General Accounting Office conducted an investigation, and an off-site testing facility was constructed so that test tapes did not in the future have to be run on a system that could be in military operation.
The jury is still out as to whether North Korea actually achieved a nuclear explosion, but in looking for ways to respond to North Korea's actions, some people are advocating
welcoming Japan to the nuclear club by removing the military restrictions from Japan's post-WWII constitution...
With 240,000 troops under arms and a budget of $50 billion, Japan's military outranks Britain's in terms of money and manpower. According to a recent article in Forbes magazine, Japan could produce a nuclear arsenal in just 183 days.
Those proposing this claim two things. One, China might be spurred to put their foot down & demand North Korea stop. The Chinese don't want Japan having nuclear weapons. Second, the Japanese might be able take the lead in defense from North Korea & allow the United States to take a more background role.
However, it would be an unsettling development to most of Asia to see the Japanese becoming a military force again. This could also lead to an arms race between Japan & China. All of the M.A.D.ness above, might be experienced by the people of Asia. Living under a cloud of fear can cause terrible things...