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Comment by arethuza | Hacker News Reader

"The total death toll as calculated by the Joint Chiefs, from a U.S. first strike aimed primarily at the Soviet Union and China, would be roughly 600 million dead. A hundred Holocausts.

I remember what I thought when I held the single sheet with the graph on it. I thought, this piece of paper should not exist. It should never have existed. Not in America. Not anywhere, ever. It depicted evil beyond any human project that had ever existed. There should be nothing on Earth, nothing real, that it referred to."

https://apjjf.org/-Daniel-Ellsberg/3222/article.html

He also notes that Finland would have been completely destroyed by the US strike and 100 million would die in Western Europe from the effects of US weapons.

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I think a document like that absolutely should exist, as a part of a larger file titled "Why the US is not going to strike first".

Full terrors should be exposed for MAD to work.

"Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world, EH?"

"It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday. As you know, the Premier loves surprises."

Why even launch the weapons? Have them in beautiful crystal palaces in remote locations. Detonate them on your own soil.

This has been researched; I highly recommend this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_on_Earth_(novel)

Stanislaw Lem fan! Thanks for the recommendation, I haven't read that one yet.

> "The total death toll as calculated by the Joint Chiefs, from a U.S. first strike aimed primarily at the Soviet Union and China, would be roughly 600 million dead. A hundred Holocausts.

In retort - "Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks."

Another scary thing in that book is the delegation of use of nuclear weapons to relatively junior commanders - the public statement that only the US president can authorise the use of nuclear weapons being completely untrue at the time.

That is probably why Ellsberg referred to Dr Strangelove as a documentary...

I wonder if it's still true. I'd assume there still has to be some delegation in order to keep a second strike viable, otherwise the entire nuclear arsenal can be rendered useless with a decapitation strike, or the person with the 'nuclear football' jumps off a bridge or something.

I can only presume there's some delegation of authority still, in case of circumstances like that. The Russians can delegate command authority to a system called "Perimetr" [1], which uses sensors to detect nuclear detonations to ensure a second strike can be (correctly) launched. Still doesn't give me that warm and fussy feeling inside knowing that there's either a rogue system or rogue commander that can launch.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand

What's interesting about that system is the question of the motivation - it ensures a nuclear holocaust even in the event of a decapitation strike, but it also was said that it could give 'command elements' time to consider to not retaliate in the event of false alarms etc. so that "cooler heads" might prevail.

So it goes.

Ellsberg very eloquently articulated the fallacy that juniors were less trustworthy. I don't think their junior status is an issue. I think perhaps the bigger concern is their quantity. I'll leave it to probability and game theory experts to discuss whether it is better or worse to have more people capable of wielding such a weapon.

Were Soviet war plans any different?

Nope, and this fact amplifies the evil of the system, it doesn’t mitigate it.

In the relevant timescale the Soviets were far less of a strategic threat to the US than they would later become. However, they did have lots of weapons pointed at Western Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile_gap

In many respect the Soviet leadership was terrified of the West and a first strike - later it was Reagan who was eventually persuaded of what a risk that fear was and de-escalated.

Different yes, less catastrophic no. Soviet plans (to the extent that they've been declassified) generally assumed that nuclear weapons would be used in support of tank warfare in Europe.

I remember that at least the Seven Days to the Rhine plan assumed NATO launched a first strike and this was the Soviet counterattack.

I read "To win a nuclear war: the Pentagon's secret war plans" by Michio Kaku and Daniel Axelrod last summer. I had thought I was very well-informed on military matters, WW2 history, nuclear strategy and SIOP. After almost every chapter, I would look up at the ceiling or out a nearby window and think that a madness had overcome the US government and military after acquiring and using the atomic bomb against Japan. This weaponry combined with the apoplectic fear of the USSR and communism has shaped the modern world in ways that are hard to overestimate.

I think that it should be required reading at all the US military academies.

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