20150929 - Steven Starr - Nuclear War - Live Show Chat Thread

[Jocko Johnson]

I will say this...if we were ever gonna get nuked in NYC from the 1950's until the end of the cold war, they were sure as hell gonna tell us.

Through out lower NY state, NYC and Long Island, which consists of Brooklyn,  Queens, (2 boros of NYC) Nassau and Suffolk county were many defenses. We were always told off the record that all along tbe East river, especially by the bridges, replacing the old shore batterys were underground SAM missiles in bunkers. There was something in the ground along the shore as I saw these large heavy metal doors. I was told that there were Nike/Hercules missiles there at one time. As well they were all along the city's coast line at US Army bases, Ft. Hamilton,  Ft. Totten,  Ft. Tilden and others. Also upstate in Rome NY, at Rome AFB, in NJ at McGuire USAF Base and elsewhere on LI, a slew of the USAF  Century series fighter/interceptor jets were on 24/7 alert and also in the air on CAP, Combat Air Patrol.

As well the air raid sirens I mentioned in another post were all over the place. As well as the fall out shelters and CD stashes of stock piled supplies in almost every basement of every apartment bldgs, schools and hospitals.  If they didn't believe it the government certainly did make a good show of the fact that they felt we would and could survive a nuclear attack.

On every 5th lamp post and or telephone pole and or building were attached these air raid sirens that were tested everyday!

So we really weren't so afraid as we had more to worry about. In the 60's & 70's day to day living was tough enough! We had the gas shortage and odd and even gas days. Terrible hard money times, as the city was bankrupt. Crime was skyrocketing.  Cops were being ambushed. The Vietnam war and protest were everywhere. Two blackouts and riots. So we didn't think too much about being vaporized by the commie reds!!!

The following is from the website, Forgotten NYC;
You heard them go off at noon every day.

They were placed at the height of the Cold War (1945-1990), when there was a communist under every bed and that kid with the beard next door was a Castro-lovin’ red diaper baby. They were air raid sirens; the Cold war legacy can still be seen on myriad apartment buildings around town that still sport Fallout Shelter signs.

In reality, an H-bomb would likely flatten the entire northeast, rendering duck and cover exercises and fallout shelters superfluous. You’d be dead anyway.

Is that era returning post 9-11? Freedom is always under attack from people who don’t believe it’s good for us.

[pate]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpeDO8L0xs8

[(Sandman) Logan-5]

I was in the USAF for 8 years. Several times while at HQ SAQ I was trapped in the underground when they closed the blast doors due to false alarms in the WWMCCS. Pretty unsettling at the time.

I was stationed at "The Rock" 410th Bombardment Wing SAC/NORAD before everything was clumped into NORTHCOM. We were a heavy hitter Northern tier base deploying mainly BUFF's. I saw quite a few "RedTips" in the W.A.A.S.A.(the Mark 61's & 83's). The BUFFs were bad-assed birds. I loved to watch them come in for landing in a crosswind w/ the BUFF sideways and the LG pointed straight down the Tarmac. Amazing. They just seemed to 'hang' in the air floating.
So Gravity, do I need to Salute you the next time I see you in the threads Sir ?     

[(Sandman) Logan-5]

Wasn't there also a Logan's Run show on Saturdays around the same time frame?

Sorry for the late response Shay, Yes there was, but it totally sucked compared to the movie.

[GravitySucks]

I was stationed at "The Rock" 410th Bombardment Wing SAC/NORAD before everything was clumped into NORTHCOM. We were a heavy hitter Northern tier base deploying mainly BUFF's. I saw quite a few "RedTips" in the W.A.A.S.A.(the Mark 61's & 83's). The BUFFs were bad-assed birds. I loved to watch them come in for landing in a crosswind w/ the BUFF sideways and the LG pointed straight down the Tarmac. Amazing. They just seemed to 'hang' in the air floating.
So Gravity, do I need to Salute you the next time I see you in the threads Sir ?     

No salutes nexessary.  I was in Plattsburgh AFB with the FB111s from 75-78. Kickass watching them fly. Not so much when all the alert birds suddenly launched.

[jblank]

Now THIS was an incredible show! Best show since he's been back and I wish he'd do more of these kind of science/realism shows, that deal with tangible threats. Nuclear War, terrorism, geopolitical scenarios, these are, in my opinion, more scary than speculative shows about black eyed children and discussing Bigfoot for the millionth time.

Bravo Art! Excellent show, fantastic guest!

[onan]

This may shed some info:

http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

[SredniVashtar]

I haven't had a chance to hear this yet but it sounds like it is worth listening to. I don't think anything better demonstrated the madness of nukes than Dr Strangelove. I have never understood why we need to spend so much money on something that is only useful when it is not used. The moment someone presses the button then all bets are off and the planet is probably doomed. All the talk there used to be of a 'missile gap' is just ravings from the asylum because any sort of exchange would be tantamount to suicide. Eventually there will be a politician with some balls to say that this is not going to work. Actually, the main  opposition party in the UK has a new leader who has said that he wouldn't use nuclear weapons, and he is being attacked for it by the usual idiots. Nukes are a bluff and a waste of time, and are only around so that right-wing types don't have to resort to Viagra.

[b_dubb]

I have never understood why we need to spend so much money on something that is only useful when it is not used.

It's a great business model.

[nika01]

With all of the mispronunciations by Leo Ashcraft, it is my considered opinion that he is a hubrid. Art , you are helping with the assimilation by employing illegal aliens.

[jblank]

I haven't had a chance to hear this yet but it sounds like it is worth listening to. I don't think anything better demonstrated the madness of nukes than Dr Strangelove. I have never understood why we need to spend so much money on something that is only useful when it is not used. The moment someone presses the button then all bets are off and the planet is probably doomed. All the talk there used to be of a 'missile gap' is just ravings from the asylum because any sort of exchange would be tantamount to suicide. Eventually there will be a politician with some balls to say that this is not going to work. Actually, the main  opposition party in the UK has a new leader who has said that he wouldn't use nuclear weapons, and he is being attacked for it by the usual idiots. Nukes are a bluff and a waste of time, and are only around so that right-wing types don't have to resort to Viagra.

Right wing types? Please. Throughout the post World War II period, outside of the extreme, pacifist left, support for a nuclear deterrent was supported across the political spectrum. If we listened to the peacenik left-wing, the entirety of Western Europe would be under the umbrella of Soviet Communism and it's likely, at this point, that none of us would be alive, as the majority of the world would be a cinder. Nobody is in love with nuclear weapons, nobody wants to use them, but considering their development and proliferation, and WHO it was that was doing it, the West had no choice but to maintain a level of superiority, with respect to nuclear arsenals.

It's easy to Monday Morning Quarterback the issue of nuclear arms buildup, but many forget just how aggressive the post-WWII Soviet Union was and forget their goal was the elimination of influence from the United States and Western Europe. The situation was handled well, handled successfully, and if not for the mistakes made in the later Bush years and the entirety of the Obama administration, with regards to "Russia policy", we could have had further reductions, on top of the reductions both sides agreed to.

Another thing, the modernization program for Nuclear Weapons sounds more ominous than it really is. This isn't necessarily the construction of new weapons, adding to the total, it's a retirement of current stockpiles and replacing them with newer technology and even new missiles. Is the cost outrageous? Certainly, no questions about it, but the arsenal is aging rapidly and can actually become potentially hazardous WITHOUT modernization. In a perfect world, this would be a great time to do another START treaty, but Obama and Putin aren't going to even approach that discussion on a diplomatic level, with the failing of the "Obama Russian relations reset".

[Gruntled]

I too haven't had a chance to listen yet but will tonight.

I was taught to hide under the desk in grade school when the siren went off which we practiced a lot.
This was in the mid fifties. [I'm 65]  I remember telling my parents about the drills and hearing my father say to my mother
" A lot of good that will do" .
I remember Nikita  Khruschev on t.v. slamming his shoe on the podium during a speech at the U.N. saying "we will bury you"
That had a big impact on me.

Now, decades later I have neighbors on both sides of me from Ukraine.
They are the best neighbors we ever had.
People are mostly good., politicians?

[jblank]

The reason that there are more nukes than the world needs to kill itself is because of...

Wait for it...

MONEY.

More specifically, the military-industrial complex as it existed under the REAGAN ADMINISTRATION.  As long as there was more money to be made for him and his friends, Reagan kept ordering the nukes.  And the Soviets responded in kind.

Don't let phony "historians" rewrite history.  Ronald Reagan is one of the biggest reasons the world is covered in nuclear weapons the way it is.

That is 100% bullcrap! Leftist, Mother Jones revisionism at its finest. If you knew history, you'd understand that the arsenal was ignored for many years, many missiles were becoming obsolete and the strategic advantage had evaporated. Many of our missiles were using extremely outdated guidance technology and were in need of replacement. This is why the MX program, which is so frequently used as a means to try to say Reagan was a "warmonger", was started, in 1971, which obviously predated Reagan by nine years. It wasn't until 1979 though, again, under Carter, that the MX program received federal funding. This had NOTHING to do with Reagan having business ties, or any such nonsense. Your timeline and information is erroneous at best, disingenuous at worst.

[lamr]

About an hour into this. I nearly avoided it as I thought it was a show to play off the (noted up thread) doom porn fetishist and grab listeners by poking a hot topic.

Holy sh!t. OMFG. Fascinating, informative, well managed by the host. Hats off to all involved. Compulsive listening.

[SredniVashtar]

Right wing types? Please. Throughout the post World War II period, outside of the extreme, pacifist left, support for a nuclear deterrent was supported across the political spectrum. If we listened to the peacenik left-wing, the entirety of Western Europe would be under the umbrella of Soviet Communism and it's likely, at this point, that none of us would be alive, as the majority of the world would be a cinder. Nobody is in love with nuclear weapons, nobody wants to use them, but considering their development and proliferation, and WHO it was that was doing it, the West had no choice but to maintain a level of superiority, with respect to nuclear arsenals.

OK, you have given me the neo-con view of history there. Fair enough, but it doesn't tell the whole story. I think that view over-estimates the ability of the Soviet Union to penetrate much further than it did, paranoia notwithstanding about 'reds under the bed'. Stalin was busily wiping out as many of his own people as he could, and the system was honeycombed with corruption anyway. Read 'Darkness at Noon'. If anything was likely to leave us a bleeding cinder it was the Cuban Missile Crisis. Can you really live in a system which can fall to pieces and kill us all if someone twitches the wrong way? Or someone has indigestion and decides to light one off because he had a row with his wife? We are talking different systems of varying imperfection here, but advocating something that depends on the threat of total cataclysm doesn't sound like a good bet to me.

It's easy to Monday Morning Quarterback the issue of nuclear arms buildup, but many forget just how aggressive the post-WWII Soviet Union was and forget their goal was the elimination of influence from the United States and Western Europe. The situation was handled well, handled successfully, and if not for the mistakes made in the later Bush years and the entirety of the Obama administration, with regards to "Russia policy", we could have had further reductions, on top of the reductions both sides agreed to.

C'mon, the saber-rattling from both sides was pretty deafening. Don't make it sound one-way traffic. You had two competing ideologies: Capitalism and Marxism-Leninism, and they were both struggling for supremacy. If it worked out in the end, more or less, it had more to do with a moribund Soviet empire needing to give ground to the West. If they had stayed strong, then what would have been the result? More missiles? More three-minute warnings? The fact is, we could have been blown to smithereens, and it was just a set of lucky circumstances that we weren't.

Another thing, the modernization program for Nuclear Weapons sounds more ominous than it really is. This isn't necessarily the construction of new weapons, adding to the total, it's a retirement of current stockpiles and replacing them with newer technology and even new missiles. Is the cost outrageous? Certainly, no questions about it, but the arsenal is aging rapidly and can actually become potentially hazardous WITHOUT modernization. In a perfect world, this would be a great time to do another START treaty, but Obama and Putin aren't going to even approach that discussion on a diplomatic level, with the failing of the "Obama Russian relations reset".

This is my view: If we used that money to actually do useful things like build infrastructure that creates jobs then the appeal of nukes becomes much less. The other countries would see them for the white elephant they are and pressurise their leaders to do the same. Instead, we spend trillions on these bloody sock puppets that threaten destruction and are only useful if they are not used. That sounds like a definition of madness to me. Rivalry between countries these days is much more effectively carried out in the field of economics. Nukes are just a harking back to the stone age. Germany has figured that out at last, and they are hugely important in the world because of it. They have canalised most of their militaristic nature into competing with other nations in industry, and I think we all benefit from that tendency.  Nukes just appeal to our worst natures and it is time to drop them before they kill us all.

[jblank]

LOL....NeoCon? Hardly. I'm actually a non-interventionist Libertarian, with a large amount of knowledge of the subject, but by all means, keep trying to define me. Your replies are simply conjecture, not based in reality or any real historical context. By all means, let me know how you will convince the Chinese and Russians to dismantle their arsenals, and don't say we get rid of ours first, because that won't happen and would be foolish to do so.

[SredniVashtar]

LOL....NeoCon? Hardly. I'm actually a non-interventionist Libertarian, with a large amount of knowledge of the subject, but by all means, keep trying to define me. Your replies are simply conjecture, not based in reality or any real historical context. By all means, let me know how you will convince the Chinese and Russians to dismantle their arsenals, and don't say we get rid of ours first, because that won't happen and would be foolish to do so.

The trouble with people like you is that you only read the bits you want to disagree with and ignore the rest. The history lesson you gave me sounds like just the sort of stuff Wolfowitz and co would nod their heads about. I don't know anything about you, and care even less. Thanks for telling us all about your wide range of knowledge (how Americans love to do that!), which often tends to be a set of assumptions that someone has decided must be true, rather than having much of an idea of a balanced view of the subject. I don't think you have any idea of pursuing any thought that might contradict your own because it is too threatening for you, so you just reiterate the sort of bluster you gave me before. Your first post sounds like the sort of stuff you trot out to everyone, and sounded very polished and smooth. When someone tries to question a few of these assumptions you sound much less confident. I think your analysis is both tendentious and ahistorical, but you probably already know that anyway.

You disappoint me. I had assumed you were reasonably intelligent. I gave you a few points that were fairly worthy of consideration and you waste my time and don't engage at all. That's up to you, of course, but it does prove to me that most people really don't think much about these matters, it is all gut instinct.

[jblank]

Or perhaps I was time limited and didn't have an opportunity to spend ten minutes typing out a reply, at the time. For what it's worth, I work in the aerospace industry and have spent some time, peripherally, on the subject. I have no reason to mislead, nor would I do so.

[SredniVashtar]

Or perhaps I was time limited and didn't have an opportunity to spend ten minutes typing out a reply, at the time. For what it's worth, I work in the aerospace industry and have spent some time, peripherally, on the subject. I have no reason to mislead, nor would I do so.

OK, fair enough. It's all fun on here anyway. 

[ItsOver]

LOL....NeoCon? Hardly. I'm actually a non-interventionist Libertarian, with a large amount of knowledge of the subject, but by all means, keep trying to define me. Your replies are simply conjecture, not based in reality or any real historical context. By all means, let me know how you will convince the Chinese and Russians to dismantle their arsenals, and don't say we get rid of ours first, because that won't happen and would be foolish to do so.

Like it or not, with the nuclear genie out of the bottle, it becomes an ironic situation where a nuclear arsenal is required to deter the use of another nuclear arsenal.  Of course, who in their right mind wants to use such a horrific weapon?  Even countries with a nuclear arsenal don't want to think about using ANY nuclear weapon in a military conflict for fear of the nightmare of escalation.  It is indeed a terrible weapon of the very last resort.   I believe the threat of mutual nuclear destruction has indeed deterred a devastating nuclear exchange.  The real concern, though, is when an adversary is NOT concerned with complete annihilation and may even see it as fulfillment of their destiny.

[ZomZom]

Three people in this thread remember this show.  I loved it too!  This is refreshing to me.  Cheers!  Face to face I've met no more than a dozen people who remember the show.

Make that four. I was a big S:1999 fan. I've got the complete DVD set.

Edit:  Make that five after reading Sandman's post.

[ShayP]

Make that four. I was a big S:1999 fan. I've got the complete DVD set.

Edit:  Make that five after reading Sandman's post.

  I knew there had to be reason I was drawn here aside from the fact that George Noory sucks.   

[VtaGeezer]

Make that four. I was a big S:1999 fan. I've got the complete DVD set.

Edit:  Make that five after reading Sandman's post.

I thought it was an excellent show on a sorely neglected topic.  Perhaps the wrong audience, though, judging by many of the comments. I didn't hear Starr mention much on targeting, but there are so many military and defense industry installations in the US that most of us live only a few miles from a bulls-eye that would be destined for a spread of 800KT warheads.

[ZomZom]

Finished the archive.  It's a testament to how much I appreciate Art's interviewing style that I enjoyed the show despite being diametrically opposed to Starr's disarmament sympathies.  Not sure how he expects to accomplish disarmament without unilateral action, which would indeed be suicide.  This is no different than the nuclear freeze movement when I was in college in the '80s, completely misguided, naive, nihilistic, and depended upon the false moral equivalence of democratically-elected nations with those despotic regimes we appropriately target.

[ziznak]

This may shed some info:

http://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/

thankyou for this kind sir... I've had a lot of fun with it.  Now I know exactly what kind of nuke i need to use when I ............

[Wintermute]

One of the better, more enjoyable guests Art has had so far. Solid show.

[ziznak]

nuke shows are always a good listen.  I really enjoyed how they discussed the "kiloton" measuring system and how it really doesn't give you much of a realistic idea of the damage caused.

[gabrielle]

One of the better, more enjoyable guests Art has had so far. Solid show.

Agreed.  So grateful to have Art back.  He is at his finest. 

[b_dubb]

I think there's a chance for US vs Russian conflict in Syria and that could escalate rapidly.  I don't like the US and Russia operating in the same region. Especially since the US is saying that Russians are targeting anyone who is not pro Assad.l

[SciFiAuthor]

I think there's a chance for US vs Russian conflict in Syria and that could escalate rapidly.  I don't like the US and Russia operating in the same region. Especially since the US is saying that Russians are targeting anyone who is not pro Assad.l

Man, you've called that right. I was reading that there really isn't much communication between US and Russian forces in the area. From what I can see, the whole thing is a recipe for disaster.