23rd March 2015, 9:58 PM
I don't think it is necessary for any further demonstration of what nuclear weapons can do. Anyone who becomes familiar with the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki won't soon forget what they learn.
We were all born in the early 1980s, into a world which lived in constant fear of global nuclear annihilation. There is some debate as to just how close we got to the end of the world, but within a span of two months in 1983, there were two events that brought NATO and the Warsaw Pact to the very brink. One was a false launch detection from a Soviet satellite that led to nothing only because of a Soviet colonel named Stanislav Petrov, who kept his cool and reasoned his way to the truth (this in a time when Soviet nuclear doctrine was to launch a decapitating first strike in the event of a detected launch). The second was the ABLE ARCHER 83 exercise, which was only an exercise, but it was so elaborate and realistic that it thoroughly spooked Moscow, which was paranoid about a NATO surprise nuclear attack.
We were born into the most dangerous few years in human history. Imagine how either of these scenarios might have played out differently if not for the first-hand knowledge of the consequences.
We were all born in the early 1980s, into a world which lived in constant fear of global nuclear annihilation. There is some debate as to just how close we got to the end of the world, but within a span of two months in 1983, there were two events that brought NATO and the Warsaw Pact to the very brink. One was a false launch detection from a Soviet satellite that led to nothing only because of a Soviet colonel named Stanislav Petrov, who kept his cool and reasoned his way to the truth (this in a time when Soviet nuclear doctrine was to launch a decapitating first strike in the event of a detected launch). The second was the ABLE ARCHER 83 exercise, which was only an exercise, but it was so elaborate and realistic that it thoroughly spooked Moscow, which was paranoid about a NATO surprise nuclear attack.
We were born into the most dangerous few years in human history. Imagine how either of these scenarios might have played out differently if not for the first-hand knowledge of the consequences.
YOU CANNOT HIDE FOREVER
WE STAND AT THE DOOR
WE STAND AT THE DOOR