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Democrats are back in array!

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Elections aren’t won by handwringing, cowering, and/or bashing your own candidates.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Motown is Joe-Town!

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Military / You May Not Be Interested in Nuclear War, But Nuclear War May Be Interested in You

You May Not Be Interested in Nuclear War, But Nuclear War May Be Interested in You

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IMG_1778

I wanted to take a moment to highlight that during the Cuban Missile Crisis, while under bombardment by depth charges, the captain of the Soviet Submarine B-59, exhausted and not understanding that the US was trying to get him to surface, not sink him, ordered one of his nuclear armed torpedoes be made ready to fire on the USS Randolph. Captain Savitsky was, fortunately, overruled by the Soviet Submarine Fleet Commander, Captain Vasili Arkhipov, refused to assent to firing the torpedo. Had he not done so the nuclear attack on the USS Randolph, which was leading the US Naval force, would have likely triggered the Single Integrated Operational Plan; America’s strategic plan for responding to a nuclear attack. Had this happened World War III would have begun and lasted only until the nuclear weapons stopped detonating…

Vasili_Arkhipov*

I bring this up to remind everyone what others have done all day: nuclear weapons are meant as a deterrent and the stability of the global system has depended on all parties with nuclear weapons doing everything they can to not use them. Had Captain Savitsky – tired, overheated, stressed out from the nature and long hours of his operational assignment below the waters of Cuba – fired his nuclear armed torpedo he would not have been acting on orders from the Kremlin. The submarine fleet on station had been out of touch with their higher headquarters for days, but nuclear war would have started any way. Not because the Soviet leadership decided it was their only viable option left (not that that would have been a good assessment of the situation), but because of the misreading of the tactical environment by one worn out submarine commander. Captain Arkhipov based part of his decision to not authorize the use of a nuclear armed torpedo on the fact that they’d been out of touch with their superiors and had exceedingly limited intelligence and information on what was actually happening on the surface above them.

We don’t always realize that for all the grand strategies and carefully crafted policies that events are all too often out of the control of the people we think are in charge and that we’ve entrusted with the responsibility to make the hard decisions. All too often they are in the hands of the tired, stressed men and women – in diplomatic, military, and other service – at the sharp end just trying to make the best decision out of a range of bad options with incomplete information.

For more on Vice Admiral Arkhipov, the man who saved the world, here’s the link to the documentary about what occurred on Submarine B-59. And the embedded video below.

* Official Photo of Vice Admiral Arkhipov found here.

Reader Interactions

77Comments

  4. 4.

    srv

    We would have smoked the Sovs.

    Lemay understood that, which is why the launch code to every ICBM was 00000000 and McNamara was never the wiser.

  6. 6.

    catclub

    while under bombardment by depth charges,

    should this come under the general aegis of white ( or US) privilege?

    How many US subs have been depth charged by Soviet ships?

  8. 8.

    hueyplong

    If only LeMay had had CORPORATE CASH ON DEMAND.

    The 1960s and 970s would have gone very differently.

    But instead, it went to Jeb!, and we know the wonders he accomplished with it.

  10. 10.

    Glidwrith

    The B-59 is docked down here in SD. I walked through the sub just last week. Scary story.

  11. 11.

    Gin & Tonic

    All too often they are in the hands of the tired, stressed men and women – in diplomatic, military, and other service – at the sharp end just trying to make the best decision out of a range of bad options with incomplete information.

    Same with Stanislav Petrov.

  13. 13.

    patroclus

    There were a lot of heroes in the Cuban Missile Crisis in both the U.S. and the USSR that saved the world from nuclear annihilation. That Soviet Submarine commander for sure, but also the Kennedy’s for standing up to LeMay, and also O’Donnell, Adlai and several more for ultimately agreeing to withdraw the missiles from Turkey and to promise not to invade Cuba and Khruschev for sending that first conciliatory message and for standing up to his hawks and accepting the deal (as amended).

    With Trump, it would have to be the military and cabinet standing up to him and his petty thin-skinned urges and his pathological need to assert dominance in the event of a perceived personal slight, which would almost certainly occur – probably many times during his presidency.

  14. 14.

    Adam L Silverman

    @catclub: I do not know. I think what you may have is a US Naval doctrine versus Soviet Naval doctrine issue here. I am not a specialist on Naval doctrine, but it may be that the doctrine for the US using depth charges was to force the opposing submarine to surface, while for the Soviets it was to sink the opposing boat. So from the Soviet captain’s perspective, based on his own service’s doctrine, the US was trying to sink him.

  17. 17.

    wag

    I was reading one for the other threads below, and it struck me. Donald Trump is your worst nightmare road rage fiend, amplified and running for President. Never let’s go of the slightest dis, always ready to toke it to 11 over nothing.

  23. 23.

    Adam L Silverman

    @redshirt: I honestly don’t remember where I found it. A while back, for something else I was doing, I was looking for an image that had the modified Trotsky quote next to an ICBM in flight: “You May Not Be Interested in Nuclear War, but Nuclear War May Be Interested in You”. I can’t find the latter and I have no idea with my copy of it.

  26. 26.

    redshirt

    @Adam L Silverman: This is a real issue for me as well. I have an enormous amount of funny downloaded images, and I can’t credit more than 1% of them, if that, even though I have no intention of stealing other’s work or using without credit.

    I need to come up with a file naming convention which includes the creator’s name as best as can be determined on this crazy internet.

  31. 31.

    Miss Bianca

    @Omnes Omnibus: I like absinthe – back before it was legal I had chemist friends in Toronto who distilled it – always a high point (so to speak) of our gatherings. I’m planning to make a wormwood-infused mead one of these days – I love that slightly hallucinogenic quality it has.

    I bet you would like mead. If I ever make it out to the great state of Wisconsin again, I’ll bring you a bottle. We’ll consider it a belated birthday present, whatever the season! : )

  32. 32.

    scav

    @redshirt: You have to really work to find any with the active wormwood (I’m pretty sure, active stuff starts with a th) anymore, based on conversations with the local liquor store owner that was chasing it down. His experience was spectacular hangovers but otherwise no green fairy. Still nicely botanical, no?

  33. 33.

    liberal

    @catclub: No, the actual “white” privilege is “we can have missiles stationed close to you, but you can’t have them stationed close to us.”

  35. 35.

    Miss Bianca

    @redshirt: Yes. My ex brewed a beer once based on a 14th-century English recipe, that used rosemary, rather than hops, and also wormwood. It was a trippy brew, black as a porter – got you high before it got you drunk!

  37. 37.

    liberal

    @patroclus: who’s going to stand up to Hillary if she wants to declare no fly zones in Syria?

    She’s not nearly as crazy as Trump, of course, but she’s certainly neocon-curious, which at the end of the day might be sufficient to get us all killed.

  38. 38.

    Mike in NC

    srv’s hangover has worn off and the maggot is back to his faux pushing for white supremacist Drumpf. Fuck off, moron.

  39. 39.

    Adam L Silverman

    @liberal: Yes it was an act of war. I don’t do a lot of Sea Power stuff. But we know the USS Beale was trying to force B-59 to the surface. B-59 thought Beale was trying to sink them and had been out of touch with higher command for a prolonged period. So a doctrinal basis for misunderstanding the tactical situation would make sense. Whether its historically accurate, I have no idea.

  41. 41.

    scav

    @scav: Clearly my poor liquor store owner needs better sources: he was cheated!

    14th-century beer with rosemary — golly. I’m probably agnostic on the wormwood, but I do love my botanicals. Had a smuggled in Russian Hunters Vodka once (to work it into theme) on a remarkably still largely memorable evening on a beach.

  42. 42.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @liberal: How do you define neo-con? There is an actual statement of principles that they signed. Show us how she fits those parameters. Being more inclined toward internationalism than you want does not make some one a neo-con.

  46. 46.

    Morat

    @catclub: They weren’t real depth charges with 200+lb warheads, they were hand-grenade sized practice charges, not AFAICT capable of damaging the sub. Which the US had previously informed (pdf link) the USSR was going to be done.

  47. 47.

    Quinerly

    @wag:
    The whole road rage thing would make a great commercial. Little thought bubbles of perceived slights with him behind the wheel. It needs some work, but you may be on to something. Seriously…rage twitters aren’t behind the wheel…but they could be.

  51. 51.

    FlyingToaster

    Granted that I’m a little old, but Trump is older.

    When I started Kindergarten in 1966, we learned “duck and cover” drills, which we continued through 2nd Grade. At which point the addition to the school was finished and our (basement) gym became the local “fallout shelter”. It was mostly used for tornado drills after that :)

    I took my required Civics/Government class in 1976-7 (9th Grade at a 7-8-9 Jr. High), and one of the myriad topics covered was MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) — another being “levels of government” so you knew which office would likely handle which mess you were in, at least in Missouri — so I can’t believe that the Circus Peanut wasn’t taught this shit in his rather more exclusive private school 15 years earlier.

    Presidents aren’t CEOs. They can’t order people about and expect that everyone will just go along. They need an insanely trustworthy staff to follow up on every damn thing going on, and not just their smart daughter and her ex-employees. And the entrenched bureaucracy will do everything in its power to stop a President from capsizing the damn ship-o-state. Yay bureaucrats!

    Trump ought to know better.

  54. 54.

    NotMax

    On the one hand, applaud what this guy Noonan did.

    On the other hand, many moons ago saw a documentary about the training of the guys assigned to sit underground and turn the keys. Suffice it to say that clearly showed the selection process intentionally weeded out critical thinkers and the more cerebrally adept. Was frightening to witness what dense flunkies the trainees who successfully passed were.

  55. 55.

    JCJ

    @Miss Bianca:

    I am a mead maker

    I just told my daughter that you make mead. You have a fan. We had some warm mead in Cesky Krumlov while there on vacation a couple of years ago. On a cold rainy day it was divine.

  56. 56.

    BR

    With all the other nonsense that happened today, I can see that the NYPD commissioner trashing Trump didn’t get play, but it’s big, and it could drag Trump into a bad story. He said Trump probably has never taken a punch in his life, and trashed the way Trump has been acting and talking.

  57. 57.

    NotMax

    @Omnes Omnibus

    Darn good varieties of mead (as well as some real turkeys) available these days at many better liquor stores (not the liquor aisles of the supermarkets).

    A good cyser, though, must be homemade (in my not quite limited experience). Although the terms are often used interchangeably, there’s noticeable differences between sipping a mead and a cyser.

  58. 58.

    Ruckus

    @FlyingToaster:

    Trump ought to know better.

    Ought to. But doesn’t. He really is rather stupid. If his father hadn’t been rich, he wouldn’t even have been the night manager at a local supermarket. And most likely he’d have been beaten to a pulp a number of times or shot, for being such a douchebag. If his dad hadn’t been rich, he’d be an ardent supporter of a politician just like him, a white, male, not college educated, racist asshole.

  59. 59.

    Brachiator

    @wag:

    I was reading one for the other threads below, and it struck me. Donald Trump is your worst nightmare road rage fiend, amplified and running for President. Never let’s go of the slightest dis, always ready to toke it to 11 over nothing.

    The weird, sad thing is that there are a number of conservative media people who insist that Trump is basically a “good guy” who says something dumb every once in a while. But it’s the obviously biased liberal media that magnifies and endlessly repeats his utterances. The liberal media supposedly does this to provide cover for Hillary.

    I most recently heard Los Angeles talk radio personality Tim Conway Jr insist on this. And Conway has been nominated for a Marconi award as radio personality of the year. His fans have to see this as validating his beliefs about Trump and media bias.

  62. 62.

    TheHalfrican

    Saved the world? More like saved the USSR. The U.S had 27,000 warheads then. The USSR had 3,000, mostly short-range. The original SIOP was basically this savage 1950s-overkill curb-stomping where you’re carpet nuking rubble at the end. Moscow alone had almost 200 targets. Depending on the exact timeline of escalation America could either escape with a relatively few casualties or limp forward with half its population gone but Russian is definitely a dead language either way, we’re talking 99.9% kill rate. True M.A.D didn’t exist until the 70s. That’s why LeMay hated JFK, he knew the Cuban Missile Crisis was our last chance to “win” a nuclear war.

    Robert O’Connell did a Alt History essay titled “Second Holocaust” where SIOP gets implemented “by the book” after D.C (and JFK’s restraint) get taken out by a rogue missile commander in Cuba. Everything behind the Iron Curtain basically dies. Cuba too. America becomes a vilified pariah state that dwarf the Nazis in infamy once the world fully processes what happened. Fun times.

  64. 64.

    Brachiator

    @TheHalfrican:

    Depending on the exact timeline of escalation America could either escape with a relatively few casualties

    Define “relatively few.”

  66. 66.

    Marcion

    Long story short: the US would have gotten off “relatively” well in that some of the major cities would probably be standing. That would be more than you could say for the USSR… but also Western Europe.

  69. 69.

    daveNYC

    Nobody’s used “I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed.” yet? For shame.

    Thujone is (theoretically) the active ingredient in absinthe. I’m not sure that the stuff is actually psychoactive. A lot of the historical examples are from people who were either massively shitfaced or potentially had mental issues of their own.

    It is a pretty tasty drink though, and works well in cocktails.

  70. 70.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @redshirt:

    recently learned that it was the proto-X-Men who saved the day.

    If comic books taught us anything it’s creatures with supernatural powers are the only ones who can save us from human created problems.

    And we wonder how we go here.,…

  71. 71.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @srv:

    We would have smoked the Sovs.

    So which two American cities do you want sacrifice along with Western Europe, since that was Soviet nuclear plan? Bonus round: how does a dramatic increase of your personal cancer risk sound since sooner or later that fallout will make it here?

  72. 72.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @catclub:

    How many US subs have been depth charged by Soviet ships?

    It wasn’t depth charges, basically firecrackers, it was a way of saying “we found you, give it up”. And the answer is “every USN sub the Soviets could find”.

    I suggest the book “Blindman’s Bluff” Talks about submarines in the Cold War.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Man%27s_Bluff:_The_Untold_Story_of_American_Submarine_Espionage

    And will note that the US Navy was sold out by some sailor with a copy machine.

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

    Selling secrets to pay off a debt, why that almost sounds like Donald Trump.

  74. 74.

    Miss Bianca

    @NotMax: In point of fact, I also make cyser. I like to use orange blossom honey for that one. Turns out you really *can* mix apples and oranges!

    @JCJ: .Mulled mead rules!

  75. 75.

    Citizen_X

    @TheHalfrican: @daveNYC:

    Depending on the exact timeline of escalation America could either escape with a relatively few casualties or limp forward with half its population gone

    …”no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops! Er, depending on the breaks.”

  76. 76.

    David Hunt

    The Randolph?! That was the ship my dad served on. He was out of the navy by the time this happened which explains why I hadn’t heard about this, but he was on it during operations in the 50s when the Suez Canal situation might have blown up the world. Still, It makes me feel a slight bit more grateful to Admiral Arkhipov. In addition to saving the entire world, he also saved my dad’s ship that was his home for two years. It feels kind of petty, but it personalizes it.

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