Cooperation with evil - nuclear weapons

[JimG]

The whole thing (Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962) seems indefensible to me. Why is it wrong for Russia to have missiles near the US, but it is not wrong for the US to have missiles near Russia?

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In 1962, the U.S. primary deterrent force was B-52 bombers on alert status constantly. They would have had a several hours flight time to hit targets in Russia. The Minuteman I ICBM had just come on line, with only one launch control center operational. It takes two LCF’s to insert a launch command into the system. (One of the issues in the 1960 presidential campaign was the alleged “missile gap” with the USSR.) Russian had land based ICBM’s. Any attack by ICBM’s would have given us about 30 minutes warning time. When the USSR placed intermediate range nuclear missiles in Cuba, their flight time to DC or NYC would have been five minutes, and Russian commanders did not need prior Moscow authorization. It was considered a serious imbalance of deterrence which could not be allowed to stand. And it didn’t.

Now, of course, both sides have submarine based nuclear missiles.

 

[GKMotley]

We started that sub stuff with the USS GEORGE WASHINGTON, operational late in 1960. Overlooking the various Loons and Reguluses, preceding it…

Soviet equivalent boats followed 3 years later.

 

[AlNg]

AlNg:

You might try reading:

The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (New ed.)

by Gar Alperovitz

and

Hiroshima Nagasaki: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath

by Paul Ham

and

Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman, and the Surrender of Japan by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa.

and

Hiroshima in America by Robert J. Lifton and Greg Mitchell.

Challenge accepted- I’m not afraid to be proven wrong. Which one would you suggest first?

How about you? You gonna study Downfall?

So, AINg, no comment? You don’t have the nerve? Figures…

Downfall is a good book with a whole lot of details. However, I disagree with his conclusion that it was the atom bombs which forced the surrender.

 

[edwest211]

Your reasoning is unclear. Have you read anything about biological weapons? Or nerve gas? Three types were developed during world War II by the Germans. Of course, the British, Americans and Russians got their samples. Gas like this is rather indiscriminate, and deadly in a way you don’t want to know.

 

[edwest211]

The fact is President Kennedy agreed to remove Jupiter missiles stationed in Turkey and Italy. Nikita Khrushchev accepted the deal.

The Pentagon complained about a Bomber gap. There was no Bomber gap. They complained about a Missile gap. There was no Missile gap. ICBMs were deployed by both sides in 1959. I watched an interview with a former commander of Soviet Rocket Forces. He explained that in the late 1960s, they received a full launch alert. The US had apparently launched a first strike. Agents on the ground in the US saw nothing. Their fastest jets were sent to undisclosed locations as observers, but saw nothing. From the moment he received the alert, he had 15 minutes to launch a full counterattack but reports were coming in that still reported no launch had taken place. As his deadline approached, he ordered all units to hold. Then he learned that sunlight bouncing off high altitude clouds had been picked up by Russian satellites and that started it all. He then ordered all units to stand down.

 

[StarMapp]

We should not blame military people whose only goal is to serve and protect for the jobs they are assigned to do.

Provided he does not disagree in conscience with what is being done or he is asked to do. A serviceman may still be called to plead conscientious objection. There is also a level of common good higher than one’s country, and that is common good of all humanity.

 

[edwest211]

I read it as well and came to the same conclusion.

 

[Curious11]

So Hiroshima and Nagasaki are unjustifiable to the Catholic Church?

 

[GKMotley]

What, specifically, do you find at fault in the concluding para, p. 348?

 

[GKMotley]

Same question as above.

 

[Curious11]

Then what forced the surrender?

 

[GKMotley]

It is not a reductionist point. Both the bombs ( and that does mean both bombs) and the Soviet declaration of hostilities had an impact on the statement the Emperor gave at the 9-10 August gozen kaigan, that the Potsdam Declaration should be accepted, Based on the Enmperor’s later comments, reflected in (inter alia) Frank’s chap. 20, the bombs were the major factor. Both played a part in the termination of the war…

 

[Curious11]

I truly doubt the soviet declaration had any impact. Japan was about to face the largest invasion in military history, and already knew no one was getting out of there alive, much less victorious. They were ready to arm everybody in Japan with anything remotely suitable to inflict harm on other humans. What’s an extra bully to you if you already have 6 guys punching you?

 

[GKMotley]

The group within the Saiko Senso Shido Kaigi,(the inner cabinet who were nominally advisors to the Emperor, on the conduct of the war, but who were the de facto decision makers on the subject of the war), who were opposed to accepting the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, and held out for a minimum of four specified conditions, under a negotiated peace settlement, looked on the idea of the American invasion as the best method to achieve that end. By employing the Ketsu-go (decisive operation) defense plan, they anticipated causing such a bloodbath that the Allies would negotiate for their softer terms. It was the realization that the bombs made such an invasion unnecessary, and the Russian declaration of war, which ended the last hope that the peace faction had to enlist the Soviet Union as a go-between to negotiate a more favorable end to the war, that caused the Emperor to declare in favor of the Potsdam terms, leading to the surrender. Anami and his group realized that there would be no invasion, just continued devastation from the air. The Emperor spoke, the cabinet ratified the surrender, the war ended.

Both the Soviets, not by what they did militarily, but by what they removed from the Japanese attempt to mitigate the surrender terms, and, more decisively, the bombs, ended the war.

 

[mkoopman]

You really missed my point?
I am lumping nuclear arms with the other weapons of mass destruction.
Is the cuss attitude about how helpful the Klan was in U.S. germ warfare and chemical weapons development skewing your radar?
I guess you never watched the cage wrestling with Biden?
Unfortunately the national socialist reserve officer I grew up with who had verifiable data on specifics of Klan involvement on germ warfare involving war crimes was drowned. A silver chord for that green beret.
So did Haig make us lose Vietnam and was Beria the only reason for Soviet germ warfare programs? I just love watching myth busters.