Calling a film about nuclear war âbestâ seems odd, because this is a sobering topic. Many of these films and documentaries are quite entertaining, while others are so bleak and horrifying that one viewing is enough. I hate nuclear weapons and wish I could wave my magic Harry Potter wand and make them all disappear, forever.
This list concerns movies, movie-length documentaries, and films that dealt with the immediate consequencesâor pending eventsâof nuclear war. Therefore, I donât include such post-nuclear holocaust movies as Nausica or The Planet of the Apes. It was also hard to narrow it down to even 15, so T2, Akira, Wargames and several others didnât quite make the cut. Also, please note that this list is about TV and theatrical movies (with one exception), so please, no cries of âWhat about Jericho??â
May the days depicted in these films never come (again).
A virtually unknown and unsung movie, Miracle Mile stars Anthony Edwards as a young man who receives a panicked phone call that warns him WWIII is less than an hour away. He spends the rest of the movie trying to find the love of his lifeâwhom he recently metâbefore the end comes. Some parts are just plain silly, and parts of the movie scream 1980s schlock, but the build-up works well. The clip is the trailer.
This animated picture shows an elderly English couple slowly dying of radiation poisoning following a nuclear war. In the clip, the couple â a product of an earlier age â donât fully understand the extent of the devastation that they initially survived.
This 1986 John Kessel play was made into a 1-hour show as part of the short-lived Masters of Science Fiction program. Sam Waterston plays the president, who has lost all memory of the day the world diedâor did he? (One of the finest roles Waterston has played.) The clip looks like a promo for the program.
Sure itâs satire, and the picture of Slim Pickins riding a nuke like a bronco is ridiculous â but thatâs the point. The clip is that famous scene.
This sober Japanese movie shows how the atomic attack on Hiroshima affected one fictional family. (This is the only movie on the list I havenât seen yet, but it is highly praised and won/was nominated for several awards. I may move it up after viewing.) The clip is from the Siskel and Ebert review. (I miss Gene Siskel.)
What would happen if the president and much of the government were gone and an unstable man in the chain of succession decided that the only response to a mistaken nuclear attack was to win WWIII? The clip is the last 10 minutes, so donât view it if you want to see the whole film.
An American bomber squadron receives mistaken orders to bomb the Soviet Union, and all âfail-safeâ methods to turn the back arenât successful. George Clooney directed and starred in a terrific live broadcast version of the original movie. The clip is from the DVD release.
Although the science is more suspect, I like the original Gregory Peck version better than the updated Armand Assante version. In both, nuclear war has devastated the northern hemisphere, and the fallout cloud is heading to a doomed Australia. An American nuclear submarine tries to find survivors. The clip is a rather silly trailer for such a grim subject.
This documentary, narrated by William Shatner, traces the development of nuclear weapons from the very first in 1945 through the first Chinese test in 1964. Most of the major test explosions are shown. The clip shows several test explosions set to the music of William Stromberg, which gives a hauntingly beautiful veneer overlaying the true horror beneath.
A Californian small-town family survives a nuclear exchange, only to experience the decay of everything that once was. Their desperate attempts to return things to normal of course fail miserably. The clip is from a movie review from 1983. It starts about 1.35 into the clip.
This HBO documentary features interviews with survivors of the attacks as well as a few Americans who were in/with the bomber crews. Would that in another 60 years, we wonât be making another documentary with survivors from another nuclear attack! The clip is the trailer.
This BBC documentary uses CGI and more to recreate the attack. Very hard to watch. Even Malcolm McDowellâs notation is chilling. The brief clip is of the black rain that fell on the devastated city, which was horribly lethal to the parched survivors.
Though not as strong as the previous films (and definitely weaker than the next two), The Day After is high on this list because of its impact. The horror portrayed is tame compared to things that make their way on TV and in the theaters today, but this film remains an important cultural milestone. When it was first on, my Dad sent me to bed just after the nuclear attack, and I never saw the rest until 2 decades later. The clip is the attack scene.
This superb Japanese animated film follows a family in 1945 Hiroshima. The tension of the buildup to the bombing on Aug. 6, 1945, is chilling and incredibly done. The attack itself is slowed-down to show gruesome details as only anime can do. Horrifyingly unforgettable. (Think Grave of the Fireflies for emotional impact.) The clip is the attack scene.
This is the bleakest and most depressing movie ever made (outside of, perhaps, Grave of the Fireflies). The BBC made this TV movie that depicts Sheffield, England, just before, during, and well after the nuclear war. There is absolutely no hope or happiness in this movie whatsoever. All is destruction, death, and terrible decline of what remains. The clip is the attack scene.
Buy the DVD at Amazon [Non-US version]
Contributor: STL Mo
#110 Lucien
“From your arrogance I guess your either American or Australian…”
As a human being, I take offense at that statement. Are all Irish people drunks or all Polish people stupid or all Jewish people misers? Bigotry is a sure sign of ignorance and only adds fuel to the fire that causes war and the use of nuclear weapons. You need to broaden your horizons and to just grow up. An intelligent “general scientist” would know that you can’t make qualitative conclusions based on such spurious assumptions. You, sir, are a bigot.
And by the way, the correct word after “I guess” is “you’re,” not “your.”
Getting back on the topic, could people really be able to walk around with their eyeballs hanging out like that or was that just an anime touch? I’m talking about Barefoot Gen, of course.
Lucien (50)
But many nations wouldnât even been have hit and at least half the worlds population wouldnât even be threatened.
Lets see, All of Europe, All of North America (don’t think that Canada can escape the collateral damage to the US), Russia, China, then just because they also have nukes, India, Pakistan, Israel (which means most of the middle East as collateral or retaliatory). Please where are the remaining three billion people?
As for nuclear winter its all a bit of a fantasy – 100 years ago Mt Krakatoa put 10 cubic kilometers of ash into the atmosphere, as much as thousands of nuclear bombs, and the Victorians survived.
Lets see comparing a singular event on the opposite side of the world at a time when the majority of the world’s dominant technological civilization was on the opposite side of the planet to a widespread event that will cover not only the technological centres but most of the major agricultural areas of the world. Hmm?
(110) *all ICBMs are orbital weapons*
More semantic obfuscation Lucien as your original statement (78)was * orbital space born ICBMs*
*To me and my generation MAD appeared in the 80âs and at about the same time as all the stuff about Nuclear winter. *
Maybe to a youngster like yourself, however your friend Wikipedia has the following to say about Mutually Assured Destruction *This was not fully understood until the 1960s when the strategy of mutually assured destruction was first fully described, largely by United States Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara* ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction )
*a 5-10 megaton warhead weighs at LEAST 10 tons *
Really? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B53_nuclear_bomb
8136 lb = 4.068 US tons
I must say that for a Scientist you really are much looser with your facts than our resident *braniac*
Cheers
Lee
Pray not to be in any kind of these. If these happens, may God, if there is God, Bless your souls, you have a soul.
Have to disagree with your choice of On the Beach .
It’s on my list of worst movies ever. How many times can you listen to Waltzing Matilda ? Yeah I get it already they’re in Australia !!
Just a little correction Japna did not surrender because of the Hiroshima nad Nagaskai bombings. Contrary to western historians Japan surrendered because the USSR declared war and the invasion of Japan by them was seen as something much worse then surrendering to the US and beging nuked.
On August 10, 1945, after the invasion of Manchuria by the Soviet Union AND the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States, Japan’s leaders at the Imperial conference (gozenkaigi) decided, in principle, to accept the uncompromising terms the Allies had set down for ending the war in the Potsdam Declaration. It was after several more days of behind-the-scenes negotiations and a failed coup attempt that Emperor Hirohito gave a radio address to the nation, the Imperial Rescript on Surrender, announcing the acceptance on August 15. On August 28, the occupation of Japan by Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers began. On September 2, the Japanese government signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender, which officially ended World War II.
Lucien:
You’re unbelievable. I’ve met a lot of disingenuous, squirmy, amateur polemicists on the internet over the last 15 years who thought they were hot ***** and could dazzle the gullible with their bull*****… but you are the first one to ever make such incredibly retarded and utterly senseless assessments of my political leanings on the basis of not only NO evidence whatsoever, but the also get it SO outrageously wrong–when if anything MY statements regarding nuclear weapons policy would have probably been taken, by the average NORMAL person, to support a more or less “liberal” view on the subject—while yours, if anything, could easily be characterized as vaguely supportive of whacko right-wing (or at least ultra-hawkish) views that nuclear war was “winnable” and suchlike.
But let’s get this straight, Lucien, since your logic is so hard to follow (apparently I’m not the only one to think so, gauging from the response you’ve had from some of comrades and friends here) …so it’s your argument that only Americans and Australians can be “arrogant?” Arrogance is a vice confined only to these nationalities eh? Interesting, if only for the absurdity value of the whole thing. The French alone are conspicuous by their absence in your declaration for who is “arrogant” in the world and who isn’t, but that’s just pure comedy, after all… the fact is that arrogance is a failing all humanity can lay claim to, but the fact that you attribute it solely to Americans and Australians says more about YOU than me, sir. I’d almost be interested to hear what axe you have to grind against Yanks and Aussies, odd coupling that they are… but my interest in you is, I’m sad to say, severely limited by the lack of respect you engender in me due to the poor quality of your arguments. Frankly my judgement is that you’re just another blowhard on the internet who has bizarre opinions most likely based on some personal/cultural grudge or bias, rather than on historicity or science… a deplorable matter since you claim to be a scientist yourself. But then, working in the academic world myself, I’ve seen this kind of thing before. Some people are smart enough to stick to their field of expertise, and on other matters are willing to admit that they’re really not much smarter or better informed than the average person, and speak accordingly, and are accordingly careful with their opinions. Others have just enough specialized focus on a single subject to assume that they are wiser on ALL subjects than anyone else they could possibly talk to. I have a strong sense this is you.
It’s amusing that you’ve once again attempted to saddle me with accusations of gullibility (i.e., that I have swallowed some kind of “propaganda”–presumably of a right-wing, kooky American variety) when I am clearly no such lightweight. You, on the other hand, are quick to blunder into shrill pronouncements (the usual error made by people who dislike being challenged by someone they can’t bull*****) of this nature with nothing to back it up. It’s laughable, in fact, that you accuse me of swallowing propaganda when I very helpfully suggested you read up in “Foreign Affairs” and “The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists”… two entities that are A) not known for “propagandizing” and B) are not associated with “right wing” idiocy, nor are they cited by people who truck regularly in nonsense.
In short, your opinions about ME are as lunkheaded and off the mark as your statements about nuclear weapons policy and Cold War history are. You’re an admitted generalist (one wonders if you in fact even possess an advanced degree in any particular topic—you were careful not to admit to one) which ordinarily is a fine thing to be, I think—too many specialists in this world, particularly in the world in which I move—but as occasionally happens, it seems like you’ve come to respect only your own voice and those you hearken to, rather than listening to others.
“all ICBMs are orbital weapons since they put their warheads in an orbital trajectory”
And again, this is more of your (repeated) squirming around a subject. As someone else already pointed out to you–this is not what you had originally referred to (seemingly). Either you express yourself very poorly… or you are shamelessly disingenuous. I suspect it’s quite a bit of both.
“Secondly the thing about nuclear attack was that both America and Russia only ever had few actual functional long range missiles.”
This is just ridiculous. You are attributing a state of affairs that was extant during a PART of the Cold War to the Cold War OVERALL. Missile technology during the Cold War certainly evolved, and you cannot play the game of trying to push your argument by skirting around this fact. You very conveniently bring up titanium nitrate fuels, (as if to impress us) and then speak dismissively about the technology… clearly an attempt at a shell-game form of argument in which you’ll leave the impression that the ICBM capabilities of the US and USSR remained primitive throughout the entire period of the Cold War.
“The real killer for you though is the warheads 100 kilotons is 50 times smaller than 5 megatons.”
This is no “killer” at all, Lucien, as I never maintained that ALL warheads possessed by the US and USSR were thermonuclear in nature (and were thus in the 5 megaton rage). (I believe I said ON AVERAGE or something similar). Again, though, this is entirely disingenuous of you… you are simply attempting to push your flawed reasoning and ill-conceived argument by playing another shell game. Certainly, yes, there are great differences in degrees between the damage and destruction level wrought by an ordinary fission weapon, on the one hand, and a thermonuclear one on the other. But hundreds or thousands of “ordinary” atomic weapons will still devastate and destroy at an untold and unprecedented level, and few cities or infrastructures will survive such destruction without outside help in the aftermath. And the point *I* was making was that in a general, widespread nuclear exchange, the OVERALL infrastructre and support system in the target countries would have been SEVERELY and horrendously compromised–almost certainly to the point of general and total collapse. (And this doesn’t even take into account the effects of fallout, etc. which would further hampen matters). YOU were making the ridiculous claim that a general nuclear exchange wouldn’t have done that much damage and that the world would have easily recovered. This is the statement, quite simply, of someone who doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about… but is convinced he does.
“But more than that the small modern warheads use a different technology that canât be scaled up.”
This is simply not so. Though it depends, I suppose, on your definition of “scaled up.” In any case you’re being loose with it and loose with the facts.
“Like I said a 5-10 megaton warhead weighs at LEAST 10 tons”
WRONG. Your information is ridiculously out of date… clearly what you’ve done is read about the ORIGINAL stats on the first thermonuclear weapons, and have made the mistake of believing that this remained the state of affairs throughout the cold war. The FIRST hydrogen bombs were, yes, hugely complex and heavy affairs–the very first, I believe, was in fact a “wet bomb” using liquid hydrogen fuel. But this primitive technology was quickly superseded and improved, and by the 1970s had been perfected. You obviously don’t know this and are simply raising the curtain on your ignorance—which is okay, everybody makes mistakes–but you’re doing to support your own bullheaded belief that you are RIGHT and simply cannot be wrong–the very kind of arrogance which you accused me of so blithely and clumsily.
“To me and my generation MAD appeared in the 80âs”
I can’t help your mistakes and misperceptions. The fact is that MAD as a policy can be traced back at least the Nixon administration, if not earlier. This is, as I say, a fact. It is one of the very REASONS that sparked attempts at Detente and the SALT talks in the first place, Lucien.
Again, you don’t know your history. But you’re all too ready to spout off at the mouth about it.
And I’m not clear… were you denying Nuclear Winter now, as a concept? Or what?
“I am a âfuturistâ so a lot of the work I do is speculative.”
Which is also, by the way, a good way to describe your grasp of history and policy. I suggest you look more to facts and open up your mind to them.
Lucien:
I also note that you admitted to Dischuker that some of your facts are “flaky.” Yes, they are. But one would think you’d ask yourself WHY you would rely on “flaky” facts and then pretend to speak with authority on a subject… and then ADMIT to it!
Well of course the atomic bombings also played a huge part in the japanese surrender but not in the way it is shown in the west. With the possibility of invasion by the SU, the Japs where afraid that the atom bombs would leave the country defenseless against the commies and sought peace to what was in their eyes much more favorable (surrendering to America – can’t say I blame them) conidtions.
I just always feel so bitter that Poland despite being an allied nation from the start, was betrayed and sold for the peace of mind of the west. Japan despite all its done went on to become an economical superpower and everyone knows the bombings. Rarely anyone has heard of the Warsaw uprising and even then it is commonly mistaken with the Jewish Gehtto uprising (a beautiful tale in itself too). It hurts my national ego, we won the war, were on the good side yet – lost polish territory and polish cities, lost 6 million citizens, our cultural diversity, our capital and on top of that were subject to 50 years of communist oppession. Japan was on the wrong side, killed millons of people, commited countless atriocities yet everyone feels compassion for Hiroshima and Nagaski and now are a global power. It just makes one wish that we could have lost the war the same way.
But like i said the list is very neat and I did enjoyebarefooted gen. I didn’t like grave of the fireflies or fail safe so much. I also remember when I was little I cried for an hour after wtaching a show on Nostradamus that showed world war III which was supposed to last for 27 years and be filled with nukes flying left and right.
Randall, I’ve been following the Randall/ Lucien “debate” with interest for some time now. I have come to the conclusion that you have as much chance of getting through to him as you would cutting a cube of Iridium with a butter knife.
And welcome back. I missed you.
Yeah, but it was really, really funny to hear Lucien a conservative. I shat myself on that one.
#132 Lucien call Randall a conservative, that is.
segue:
Thank you. It’s nice to be missed. Missed you too.
Randall you call me disingenuous and arrogant – I will admit to excessive of the later but not the former. and I admit I play a bit wide with the facts and make use of guesswork. But you’re hardly shy of that yourself -
“nuclear war would devastate upwards of 80% of the habitable areas of our worldâweâre ”
(I suppose the ‘habitable’ world doesn’t include Africa, South America, Large parts of Asia and rural China, etc. There are even large parts of the US that would be very hard to hit – including most rural populations.)
“âweâre not talking about the dropping of a FEW bombs here, but THOUSANDS. Thousands of thermonuclear weapons, the average yield of EACH of which is about 5 MEGATONS.”
(No modern missiles carry such large warheads, if 5 megatons was the average how big were the biggest?)
This answers the questions on size -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_yield
“I also note that you admitted to Dischuker that some of your facts are âflaky.â Yes, they are. But one would think youâd ask yourself WHY you would rely on âflakyâ facts and then pretend to speak with authority on a subject⌠and then ADMIT to it!”
And you could say exactly the same about yourself 10 times over. (BTW I was being lazy, but I still stand by the assertion that ‘MAD’ was at least partly a lie.)
The first rule of military strategy is ‘lie to the enemy’, if you can convince you enemy you have over 1000 missiles ready to fire when you have 100 then you win both ways. In an actual war you can still completely devastate them, but far better you win the peace. By not building all those missiles and keeping them on alert you save tens of billions, while your enemies go to the wall trying to compete.
And Randall its just your huge self satisfaction that makes you sound like a Neocon. As for nationality, you speak English to well to really be anything else except English, American, or Australian (a far smaller choice). No one French would speak as impolitely as you.
And segue, all he has to do to get through to me is speak with sense and logic and intelligence and politeness, so I guess you were right about that iridium cube.
buc, thanks for keeping me up to date on the state of your digestive tract.
lucien (135)
I admit I play a bit wide with the facts and make use of guesswork.
So in essence the reader can not take any of your Statements at face value?
Cheers
Lee
Thank you, Randall.
In the words of joshcka fischer “Russia?? please, they dont even have money for the fuel”.
An excellent list, perhaps inspired by the recent “Your View” topic comments about the worst human invention?
I have not seen the full film of any of these shorts, but the shorts themselves were powerful enough. I am also too young to have lived during the Cold War, but I imagine that for those who did these films have an even greater impact.
Well done STL Mo
Dr. Strangelove should be #1.
By the way, there is another s(S)hadow commenting on this site.
I am shadow, the other Shadow has done nothing to denigrate my name, but his opinions are slightly different than my own.
I hesitate to interject on the Lucien/Randall debate, but here goes. Both sides have an opinion and I believe they are both supporting it with facts. The idea of MAD is highly complex and highly political. There are numerous sources to support both sides of this argument. Most of the information is (or was – some may now be de-classified under the Freedom of Information Act) Classified, so many of the sources are an opinion based on what was thought at the time. I was involved in this MAD situation while it was occurring the early 1980′s(an officer on a ballistic missile sub). There were many personal and moral issues involved in this. I believed I was supporting my country and peace (MAD was creating this false – or maybe not – sense of peace). I was privy to what was classified and I believe that both sides had enough weaponry to ensure the other would not risk a first strike.
This argument is about what would happen if this weaponry was used in a first strike scenario. Would all weapons be delivered immediately upon a first strike – I think not. Would both sides immediately use all weapons and strike against all targeted opponents as Randall proposed. I Quote:66. Randall -
“WRONG. You clearly know nothing about the established policy of both nuclear superpowers towards the end of the Cold War period. The fact is that Mutually Assured Destruction meant just thatâthat a war between the US and the USSR was going to be considered a war between the free West and the communist totalitarian states, and if such a war began (with the expected nuclear exchange between NATO and the USSR and/or the Warsaw Pact) then ALL associated countries were going to be considered viable targetsâand WERE in fact targeted. This meant that the myth of Australia, for instance, being spared destruction, was just thatâa myth. In such a war, all the countries of Europe, Japan, China, Australia, all of Southeast Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and much of Africa were going down with the two superpowers. The Soviets had ALL western nations targeted, as the US had China, Cuba, North Korea, etc. etc. targeted along with the Warsaw Pact nations. In a full nuclear exchange, there is no question that no major city or military installation anywhere in the world was going to be spared. Part of this also had to do with the fact that western installations were all over the planet, and allies of both nations were in each hemisphere.”
I agree this is one scenario, and a great portion of the civilized world would be affected. Even if only major populated areas were targeted the effect on the world economy would be disastrous.
I enjoy the debate and personalities involved in this discussion. Please continue this discussion and try not to make it an argument.
Sorry about the second post, but I had to look up the Neocon reference used by Lucien in post 135. Don’t like comments made just to get under someones skin, but I am sure this comment surely will get Randalls’ ire.
Hi shadow Re :143 I should point out Randall’s insults were far stronger than mine and he threw first, and I get the impression thats pretty normal for him.
As for your post, you are far more reasonable and logical and I am sure you are right MAD as a threat was a very effective way of stopping war. Part of the reason I have such a different opinion to others is that I did something of a workup from a green perspective to try to build up a comparison between having a war and continuing as we are now. I was looking at various catastrophic last ditch methods of population control including various types of war. My *****ysis was very crude in many ways but even so it showed a lot. Nuclear war didn’t actually kill enough people (1 billion) to hugely affect long term population but it would do so much damage to infrastructure that it would have brought society to its knees. If that sounds vicious climate change is predicted to kill up to 2 billion people, while eco-collapse is capable of killing all of us (about 6.5 billion)
I was never saying nuclear war would be fun, especially for those living in cities – but even in Britain today 50% of the population live in rural areas. In America its more like 60 – 70% live in small towns and probably half of them are more then 50 miles from any city. Ironically for Japan its the opposite and Japan is one of the most vulnerable countries on Earth.
i hate wars…yet people create wars to make wealth. How can we justify the killings of fellow human beings?
Lucien/Randall: There is a branch of Economics called Game Theory popularised by John Nash which was able to interprete the MAD. In Game Theory, there are what we call zero-sum games and non-zero sum games. I think reading this would help sort out a few points.
Lucien:
Again, it’s statements like this one below where you show your failure to grasp the science behind collateral damage from nuclear explosives:
“I was never saying nuclear war would be fun, especially for those living in cities – but even in Britain today 50% of the population live in rural areas. In America its more like 60 – 70% live in small towns and probably half of them are more then 50 miles from any city.”
This statement is so rife with things to pick at that I don’t know where to begin.
First of all, you evidently believe that when talking about a full nuclear exchange, the main targets we have to concern ourselves with are cities. Wrong. Yes, most–if not all–major cities were targeted, and thus millions in these cities would have died. But in point of fact, the foremost target were those of military consequence, and in particular nuclear missile silos and air bases from which attacks could be launched. And all of these were located and are located in the very rural areas you dismiss. Now, yes, fewer people are going to be vaporized in Nebraska, for instance (location of not only nuclear missile silos, but a key command center of the American military) than in Washington, D.C. and New York, both of which would have surely been targeted as well. But there were still going to be multiple strikes in the rural areas and near the smaller cities and towns of the west and midwest of the United States (same goes for the vast tracts of the USSR, for the same reason). Moreover, it was known that while the US had strived for precise targeting to “ensure” destruction of Russian nuclear missle sites and bases (how precise has remained largely classified), the USSR, with less sophisticated technology to work with, had instead headed in the direction of overwhelming force to destroy the American counterparts–therefore, warheads with larger yields, and multiple strikes on single targets.
The result, then, would have been multiple and high-yield strikes on targets scattered around the American hinterland… Nebraska, Montana, Arizona, Utah, etc. with attendant damage not only to infrastructure, but also producing great clouds of fallout, the hypothetical tracks of which were plotted numerous times over the years, and were considered certain to bring about the slow but misery-laden deaths of many, many more people than the explosions themselves would have originally killed, and over a MUCH larger area. Fallout, it’s true, is a factor much dependent on the weather–the most dangerous and most highly damaging particles would fall to earth closer to the site of the original explosions in low or light winds, naturally. But we’re also not talking about one or even a handful of nuclear detonations here–but *hundreds* at least. I’ve seen multiple studies of potential fallout damage caused by multiple strikes in the US, and no matter how conservative the estimates, the bottom line is that additional thousands, perhaps millions would have died from the attendant fallout. Add these figures to the counts of those who would be suffering from the near-total destruction of infrastructure that supports civilization (which is a fragile thing indeed) and the picture is OBVIOUS that a full nuclear exchange would have killed an enormous segment of the population but even more would have left the survivors living in a very bleak world with little chance of anything even remotely like short-term recovery. Naturally all of this would have been true in the USSR and Europe as well, and in large parts of Asia and in other parts of the globe to a lesser extent. Add in the possible dangers of nuclear winter, famine, disease and other horrors that would accompany the collapse of infrastructure and civilized life, and it’s easy to see that it’s even possible it could have led to the extinction of our species eventually. Yet YOU were the one who started all this argument with your nonsensical pronouncements about how nuclear war wouldn’t have been so bad and how most of the world wouldn’t have even been affected.
Blast damage isn’t all there is to nuclear weapons, not by a long shot. And while radioactivity and fallout are wild cards (the effects and spread of alpha, beta and gamma particles being very different) the simple fact is that no matter what, the cumulative effects add up to near total disaster for the entire world any way you look at it.
The fact that you dismissed this truth, known for decades, shows right off the bat that you don’t have a grasp of what you’re trying to talk about.
Lucien:
Another point. You were, again, being fast and loose with figures. It all depends on how one defines “rural.” The truth is that at present about 20% or so of the US population is what we would call “rural.” These are people living in country settings or in towns with populations up to about 2500. I do not have figures for the former USSR, but one can imagine that for Europe the figures for rural population are in fact even lower.
It’s been known for quite some time now that the population of the globe overall has been becoming more and more urbanized. While this was somewhat less so during the Cold War, it’s also true that the Cold War encompassed a period from roughly 1948 – 1990 or so. A period of some 40+ years, during which the move to urban areas was happening at a pace in the US as well as Europe.
Bottom line: the destruction of the major cities in the US, Europe and the USSR alone would have meant the instant or near-instant death of very significant chunk of the global population. And as I already pointed out, the eventual policy that reigned was that cities in other nations were to be targeted as well. The death count, then, would have risen even more steeply.
You also expressed doubt that these other locales were, in fact, targets. But what you also failed to consider was an additional piece of logic behind it: namely, that it was fully expected that a full nuclear exchange between the superpowers and their allies would have done extensive damage to both sides, leaving each extremely vulnerable. The assumption being that one is going down hard along with one’s opponent, you aren’t going to leave yourself open to attack from other enemies who would view this as a possible opportunity. Moreover, it could never be reliably guessed as to who would attack whom, and when, once the heated stage of war would have reached the point where it was beyond control. Hence it was considered foolhardy to not pre-emptively deal with the possibility, once it was clear that we had started irrevocably down the path anyway.
Lucien:
I note with interest, also, that you actually failed to answer ANY of the salient points I raised in opposition to your earlier pronouncements.
“I admit I play a bit wide with the facts and make use of guesswork. But youâre hardly shy of that yourself”
How so? I began this entire thing because YOU had made ridiculous pronouncements about not only the survivability of nuclear war, but also how (evidently this is your belief) the threat of it was vastly overplayed and exaggerated all throughout the Cold War. To support this absurd view, you then brought up out-of-date data and facts which did NOT reflect the state of events throughout the ENTIRE period of the Cold War–and tried to make it sound as though they DID remain the state of things throughout. A totally disingenuous tactic OR a grave and glaring error. There is no third choice here.
“I suppose the âhabitableâ world doesnât include Africa, South America, Large parts of Asia and rural China, etc. There are even large parts of the US that would be very hard to hit – including most rural populations.”
AND AGAIN, as I’ve already pointed out, you are conveniently ignoring the FACT that damage from a full nuclear exchange is NOT confined only to immediate BLAST damage. This is, on your part, quite simply and purely IGNORANT.
Yup, in a total, global thermonuclear war, I’d rather be living somewhere in Peru than in Manhattan. But that is slim consolation if a large chunk of the world has been reduced to radioactive wasteland, and the world’s infrastracture has been severely damaged. AND possibly with clouds of fallout from upwards of THOUSANDS of nuclear detonations waiting to drift down god knows where. (Not to mention attendant disease, etc.) The point is that we DON’T KNOW fully or surely what it would have meant, in the end, to the world as a whole. YOU, however, were dismissing the dangers, recklessly and stupidly. The policy makers and *****ysts, both military and civilian–on both sides–did not, in large measure, agree with you. Rather, what WAS assumed was that the dangers would have been disastrous and, yes, global.
“No modern missiles carry such large warheads,”
Wikipedia is a dangerous source to rely on, Lucien. The recommended path of action is to always verify what one reads on there.
Now, in point of fact the USSR DID maintain, for a time at least, missiles with warheads of large yields. But we are ALSO not ONLY talking about MISSILES here. YOU are stuck on missiles. American military planning, however, was based on a triad, as was the strategy of the USSR to a similar extent. This means not only missile-based warheads on ICBMS and submarine ballistics, but carried by aircraft as well.
But then all this is immaterial. What exactly is YOUR point? What difference does it make if it’s hundreds of multi-megaton warheads and hundreds of lower-yield bombs, vs. thousands of multi-kiloton warheads with a few larger yields accompanying? Between the two, what ARE you getting at? What’s evident is that, again, you were dismissing the effects–a gross and ridiculous error.
“I still stand by the assertion that âMADâ was at least partly a lie.”
When one stands by assertions, one ought to have logical and factual support for them, otherwise one looks foolish. I suggest you get some then.
MAD was NOT solely an American concept. While it was not CALLED that, it was just as surely a view of Soviet policy and planning as well. Now yes, during the time of the Cold War there was disinformation, misinformation, errors and even propanganda about “missile gaps” and such. But all of this largely centered around DELIVERY of nuclear weapons. And the clear result is that, in the end, no one could be sure, precisely, of what would happen and what could be prevented from happening should war erupt between East and West. The bottom line is that there is no mistake about the number of nuclear warheads possessed by both sides–which if memory serves exceeded some 25,000 (and I can’t recall now–the figure may even have been much higher) with rougly 5000-6000 considered “deliverable” at any given time, on either side. That’s around 10,000 warheads (both sides combined)that could be reliably considered as capable of being brought to a target. Given a slow buildup to conflict, one might assume even more would have come into play.
“The first rule of military strategy is âlie to the enemyâ,”
You’re speaking like a child. The “enemy” strives in every way to gain intelligence on your capabilities and is often successful in obtaining said intelligence. There’s no way for the US or USSR to have “fooled” the other in any long term sense as to the strength of each side’s nuclear arsenal.
sugen:
A friend and colleague here where I work (university) is, in fact, an expert on game theory. So I have some idea of what you’re referring to.
I’m very tired of this debate, and I point out again that I’m not the one throwing insults like I’m in a school yard.
Firstly on death by fallout I have one word for you ‘Chernobyl’. At some estimates Chernobyl produced some TEN THOUSAND times the radiation of a nuclear bomb – that is why it killed some 2 to 5 million Russians and up to 100,000 Europeans. Oh no! hang on it killed almost no one. Your fear science has been dead for over a decade Randall.
And I know you don’t really read what I am saying but 5 megatons is still fifty times bigger than 100 kilotons.
And you keep bringing up the number of warheads as 10,000 but this ignores the actual number that get through.
(this is based on a war with todays tech) For America missile reliability is roughly 50% to 70%, but then each missile releases multiple reentry warheads to maximize the number of incoming targets. Individual bomblet warhead reliability is only around 20% but that is the price of extreme miniaturization. Now assume the Russians destroy 5 to 10% with anti-missile defences, that gives an overall penetration ratio of approx 10% so out of 10,000 launched 1,000 get through.
For the Russians the figures are much worse, even if they achieve 10% – 20% reliability their technology is more primitive and far more vulnerable to being shot (by Americas far more advanced missile defences), so the final figure might be below 1% and will approach zero. Like I said Russia’s only real chance of hurting America is with short range sub-based missiles, and even then their tech is far behind. Think of Patriots vs Scuds.
Planes Randall? America wouldn’t need to send planes while Russia’s planes wouldn’t stand a chance, if you can shot a missile at 1500 miles an hour you can shoot a far larger plane at 200.
As you finally asked about what the point was I was trying to make – I could ask the same of you. I agree, no one sane thinks they would have, or will fire. It was always more likely that some kind of EM accident or an unknown object could trigger something – what would have happened if there was another Tunguska event (15 megatons).
Today even that wouldn’t push the red button.
Lucien:
Lucien, surely, you are to bull***** what Coke is to addictive carbonated sugar-water beverages.
“Firstly on death by fallout I have one word for you âChernobylâ.”
And in response I have four words for you: Grow The ***** Up.
You claim to be a “scientist,” Lucien, but my doubts about that are even more strongly ensconced now. No scientist would make the gravely stupid error of trying to equate the accident (as bad as it was) at Chernobyl with an ACTUAL FREAKING NUCLEAR DETONATION.
To begin with, what happened at Chernobyl was a mass release of radiation and a radioactive cloud, the impetus of which was an explosion caused by, to grossly simplify, a massive buildup of heat and steam within the reactor core, in turn caused by a loss of control over the reactions in the core. This was, yes, a big boom—that can’t be underplayed. But as “booms” go it was nowhere near the explosive power of an actual NUCLEAR explosion via a “runaway” chain reaction, such as what happens in the detonation of a nuclear warhead. The fact that you are trying to compare the two, as if they have ANYTHING to do with one another, is either more of your shameless disingenuousness, or you are simply a flat-out moron whose mouth is way bigger than his brain.
Have you ever read the well-established and published blast studies on nuclear weapons detonations, Lucien? Clearly you haven’t. Let’s just talk about one factor touched upon in those studies: blast force and how it relates to the production of fallout.
Fallout, Lucien, is not simply quantified by the amount of radioactive particles released by an explosion–it is quantified also by how those particles are transported and find their way into the biomass. A multi-megaton blast–or even a more sedate multi-kiloton blast–say, along the lines of the standard “boosted” fission weapons of the US or USSR–is going to produce (primarily out of the blasted and vaporized soil and other debris from the blast zone) a cloud of ultra-fine particulate matter of immense quantity. This is to be expected in an explosion that we’re measuring in the equivalent of thousands of tons of TNT.
Chernobyl, on the other hand, while a terrible disaster, did not produce an explosion anywhere near comparable. (Yet it still released a radioactive cloud which some studies have established as having travelled around the world). As such we wouldn’t EXPECT a fallout production anything LIKE an actual nuclear detonation–and in fact that is not what we got.
“At some estimates Chernobyl produced some TEN THOUSAND times the radiation of a nuclear bomb”
WHERE are you getting this? I have NEVER heard such a figure, and I’m growing more and more suspicious of the “facts” you’ve peddled around on this site. It’s funny, Lucien… a mere cursory glance around the net, and I find this:
“The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) alleges that, while the Chernobyl disaster released as much as 400 times the radioactive contamination of the Hiroshima bomb, it was 100 to 1,000 times less than the contamination caused by atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in the mid-20th century.”
This “400 times” estimate is larger than the ones I’d seen elsewhere, which alleges it to have been no more than 200 times that of BOTH atom bombs dropped on Japan combined. As far as I can tell and as far as I’ve heard, there hasn’t been much consensus on just how much radiation Chernobyl actually produced. But the idea that it caused 10,000 times the radiation of a nuclear bomb is just ridiculous. I’ve never heard this in all the years since Chernobyl happened, and in fact I can’t see how it would even be possible for Chernobyl to have produced that much radiation.
The pattern I see with you, Lucien, is that you obfuscate and distort things you’ve picked up here and there so that they will support your claims, and it seems occasionally even make ***** up to make yourself sound more authoritative.
In short, Chernobyl had neither the blast force or the radiation-production power of a nuclear weapon. Hence its effects are not at all comparable.
“Your fear science has been dead for over a decade Randall.”
Afraid not, Lucien. Truth and facts aren’t “fear science.” But at least I AM dealing in science, where you, on the other hand, are dabbling in… something else. The question is why—but only you know the answer to that.
“And I know you donât really read what I am saying but 5 megatons is still fifty times bigger than 100 kilotons.”
And again, WHAT OF IT? What IS your point? We are NOT talking about SINGLE detonations of single nuclear or thermonuclear devices but MASS detonations of the same. You keep wanting to downplay these as though the effect of hundreds are equivalent to one. It’s ridiculous.
“And you keep bringing up the number of warheads as 10,000 but this ignores the actual number that get through.”
THAT, Lucien, was the number of DELIVERABLE warheads (which as I said, may even have been far higher given time and preparation). There has never been a way to shoot down a ballistic missile reliably, though supposedly these days we’re now there.
“For America missile reliability is roughly 50% to 70%”
AGAIN–where do you get this figure? You throw things like this out there as though no one is supposed to question them. What time period is this drawn from? Where’s the support for it? Where’s the science to back it up?
“Now assume the Russians destroy 5 to 10% with anti-missile defences”
To my knowledge, the USSR had no such anti-ballistic missile defenses. Our own, here in the US, has not been even remotely reliable until just very recently.
“For the Russians the figures are much worse, even if they achieve 10% – 20% reliability their technology is more primitive”
This is amusing. Two countries that routinely fired rockets into space–with a small percentage of failures once the technology was perfected–and you maintain the missiles of both countries–the ones reserved for MILITARY purposes–which are FAR more serious–were in fact not worth *****, in essence. Rubbish.
I have been looking around on the net for a while now, trying to find anything even close to these figures you’ve spat out, and I can find nothing to support them, even remotely. The picture I’ve seen, rather, supports what has been known for quite some time–that through the 60s and 70s, missile technology was improved and perfected on both sides… certainly not to 100% reliability, but nothing like the dire and pathetic figures you’ve tossed out here. Such miserable performance would have in fact negated the entire strategy! What’s the use of a core component of your defense if it’s guaranteed to fail most of the time, and possibly fall back on your own territory? Ridiculous. There’s clear evidence, rather, that missile technology of both sides was, while not foolproof, more than adequate to the task set to it—and that, despite American prattle about “star wars” in the 80s, there was little progress made towards RELIABLE anti-missile defense systems until just recently. Bottom line: most of the missiles on both sides WERE going to get through, and most would have. Add to that the number of bombers and other delivery means, and it adds up to the very kind of devastation that every defense expert I’ve ever read about has attested to.
I can’t fathom what problem you have with this, Lucien, or what your agenda about it is. Apparently, from what I’ve gleaned from your statements, it’s to paint the entire arms race of the Cold War as largely some kind of American plot to demonize the Russians, who, in your view, were technological clods who couldn’t put a missile up, or on target, to save their lives. According to you, American technology was little better, but both sides colluded to maintain the illusion—apparently so that they could build more of these useless weapons systems. Theories like that usually come in tandem with tinfoil hats.
Whatever else could be the axe you have to grind here, I don’t know.
Lucien:
“Planes Randall?”
Yes, Lucien, planes. Don’t even start with me on this. I am the son of a military pilot. If you think none or very few of the planes within the fleets of aircraft maintained by both sides wouldn’t have gotten through, you’re sadly mistaken. Now I’ll grant you, under good conditions, more American planes would have found their way to their targets than Russian planes–probably a lot more. But there is no way to reliably shoot out of the sky whole fleets of aircraft hell bent to get at you. If you’re lucky you’ll get most, but even that isn’t certain.
“if you can shot a missile at 1500 miles an hour you can shoot a far larger plane at 200.”
AGAIN… who SAYS ANYONE could reliably shoot at a missile going that fast and hit it? It has only been done RECENTLY, after all the years of experimentation and hard work.
Not to mention the fact that aircraft are piloted and can employ various countermeasures which missiles are not, to my knowledge, usually equipped with.
“As you finally asked about what the point was I was trying to make – I could ask the same of you.”
You first, Lucien, since you spoke first. MY point is simply to respect the facts and the truth and to make sure they’re conveyed accurately. That is all. So what’s yours?
And it’s nice that you’re so confident that no incoming large meteor or other could trigger a nuclear war today. Given the lowered tensions in the world, it’s a safe bet. But again—you speak CERTAINLY, which is crude and ill-considered. The fact is that even now things still come in from space and are not seen until they’re upon us–it’s happened more than once even in the last year–though admittedly nothing very large, certainly nothing to rank with the Tunguska blast (though such a blast did apparently occur off the coast of South Africa in the 80s). But it isn’t hard to imagine it happening, and in a period of high tension which we can’t foresee right now–but could easily imagine–such a tragic accident could still occur.
You like to dismiss these things out of hand. I keep wondering why. But again and again, it seems to come down to bad science on your part, and a poor grasp of the information and the facts.
That`s it.I want Randall for my lawyer !!
Hey I was not criticizing either the US or Russia, the technology to put even a primitive ICBM into service is pretty steep.
As for reliability even normal space launches are not 100%. NASA (and all maned) launches achieve nearly 100% reliability but only by following extremely elaborate careful safety protocols and their launches are hugely expensive and take months of preparation.
ICMBs do get care and attention but they can’t do engine tests and the like. They use solid rocket motors so launch is a one-off do or die thing. Given all that and that they are stored for years before use 60% to 70% is pretty good, it is only a guess because the real figures are classified.
As for Chernobyl the comment about that was only repeating what I had heard and read, my original source was New Scientist. You mentioned university, well they should have a New Scientist database so why not look it up.
Unlike you I don’t dismiss anything out of hand rather I am simply arguing that the common perceived wisdom may not be 100%. No real scientist likes 100% answers, especially in an environment of high variability, or where there is contradiction. A rule of thumb in science is that answers perceived as certain have a very long habit of being wrong.
I suppose I should apologize for writing a few lazy posts without checking facts adequately or tying in the time-line precisely but I had no idea I was facing a board of enquiry.
Lawyer? No.
I wish I’d had him as a history professor in Uni. I’ve always loved history, and had to teach myself more than half of what I know because the prof in American History couldn’t be bothered most of the time. I was luckier in Russian History, but I’ve spent all the years since Uni reading American History to make up for the idiot who couldn’t be bothered to teach!
What, no Quiet Earth?
What kind of list is this!
How do I get the list to STOP sending me notifications of followup comments?
“As for reliability even normal space launches are not 100%.”
I never said they were. I also never said that nuclear-tipped ICBMs would have achieved such reliability on either side–in fact, I went out of my way to say that surely the reliability WASN’T anything like 100%. AGAIN, you are the one who made these wild statements of certainty about percentages of success and so on, and apparently without any basis in fact. Particularly when such data is still classified.
“Unlike you I donât dismiss anything out of hand”
Lucien, I don’t mean to keep picking on you, but I swear sometimes you sound delusional. *I* have not dismissed anything out of hand except your tendency in this thread to blithely throw around data and “facts” which it evidently turns out you had no support for in the first place. I think you didn’t expect to get challenged on the stuff you *assumed* but didn’t KNOW to be fact, and when you WERE challenged, you’ve shifted and backpedaled and skirted around the questions.
You, in fact, began all this by dismissing out of hand the the potential for global devastation of a full nuclear exchange between the US and the USSR–something for which, it turns out, you had no real evidence to back up your opinions. Now, I don’t know what it is you feel *I’VE* dismissed “out of hand,” because I’ve certainly never made any statements to indicate that I believed that global destruction was CERTAIN, nor have I said that the Cold War went down precisely as our governments and military would have us *believe* it went down. In fact, I have no doubt that in many instances our governments and military (in both the western nations AND the east) not only misled us, but also deluded *themselves* on this or that point or other. But YOU were making much broader and more sweeping statements, the nature of which was, it seemed, that you believed the Cold War to have been nothing but some kind of propaganda scare engineered by the United States, and you accused ME of buying into it. And then you proceeded to burp out all this faulty information to support your stance.
Again, I don’t know what your agenda on this topic is; I can only assume, as I said earlier, that given some of your statements, you have some kind of axe to grind in general against the US. If this is not so, then it’s your own fault for leaving such an impression, because some of those statements were pretty clear. And while you made the ridiculously mistaken assumption that I was some kind of jingoistic right-wing cheerleader for American policies (I am not and am far from it) neither do I ignore facts and truths, something which all too many people in this world–including apparently yourself–find all too easy to do. I consider that to be a very bad intellectual habit which poses a danger for our civilization, since a respect for the truth is one of the pillars that supports it. The US was FAR from squeaky clean during the Cold War (or for that matter, is it today) but the idea that it engineered the fears and terrors of said Cold War on the basis of some hidden agenda is quite simply absurd.
“rather I am simply arguing that the common perceived wisdom may not be 100%. No real scientist likes 100% answers,”
I agree. And yet the point is, you spoke repeatedly in terms of certainty without a basis of support.
“I suppose I should apologize for writing a few lazy posts without checking facts adequately or tying in the time-line precisely but I had no idea I was facing a board of enquiry.”
I don’t know what you’d think you WOULD face, when you openly and freely offer up your opinions on matters in public, and present figures and data to support those opinions, which in fact turned out to be challenge-able and in many cases distorted or flat-out wrong.
Sorry you feel defensive about this, but when you present yourself on a public forum like this, I think you should expect it. Personally, I invite it. I’ve learned a lot from discussions and debates with many interesting people on the net over the years.
Sigh, I’m new on this site so I don’t want to go stepping on any toes, but I’ve been reading the arguments for a while here and I feel I need to just say something. My age is in the upper 20′s and my background is in engineering, that’s all you really need to know because what I’m about to say education and age doesn’t matter, just simple common sense.
Lucien:
“Planes Randall? America wouldnât need to send planes while Russiaâs planes wouldnât stand a chance, if you can shot a missile at 1500 miles an hour you can shoot a far larger plane at 200″
I guess first I want to start off with what you said about aircraft. If what you said about aircraft being able to be shot down so easily were true, we wouldn’t be using them in war today would we? Ok, done with that because it needs no further comment cause it’s just so stupid for you to have even said that.
“Such arrogance the ignorant have, you sound like a Wikipedia editor.”
You just denounced your own source here, a *****ty one I might add and just single handedly proved your own stupidity and inconsistency with your argument.
Next, using Chernobyl as a basis for a nuclear bomb attack is rediculous. Chenobyl was an accident. It’s not like it was planned to have a meltdown and they did everything they could to stop it. True, nuclear chemicals did get into the air, and fallout did occur, yet the death toll was still low. Why? Because they evactuated everyone within a 30km radius. Some people were affected mostly clean-up workers and a some towns people however most did survive. But this does not prove the idea that if there were a global nuclear war with GUIDED BOMBS (NOT ACCIDENTALLY EXPLODING REACTORS WITH CLEANUP CREWS)hitting multiple cities people would survive and only a small percentage of the world would be affected. That’s just stupid.
“The point is that we DONâT KNOW fully or surely what it would have meant, in the end, to the world as a whole. YOU, however, were dismissing the dangers, recklessly and stupidly. The policy makers and *****ysts, both military and civilianâon both sidesâdid not, in large measure, agree with you. Rather, what WAS assumed was that the dangers would have been disastrous and, yes, global.”
Randall:
I couldn’t agree with you more here. I read both your arguments and the main point it comes down to is that Lucien is down-playing the truth of what could really happen in a global nuclear war. If what we are saying here, just ot be clear, if country A and country B were to destroy each other would the end of the world come about. If they were 2 super powers like the US and USSR (was), yes there’s a high chance. For arguments sake you guys listed thousands of bombs, lets reduce that to every major city in the country and every state capitol. That’s about 100 to 150 give or take:
1. The global economy would be crushed. Contry’s that rely on either country for trade, allied support, whatever are either gonna hurt or be finished.
2. Any neighboring countries will feel the effects; Canada, South America, Europe, Asia.
3. Any surving family members with realtives in the countries destroyed would be devestated greatly decreasing human morale and with a country as large as the US or Russia you can only imagine how many people we’re talking not to mention those who just feel bad because of the loss of human life.
4. The fallout danger won’t be just from radiation, water can be contaminated, the earth’s climate, and who knows what else.
So again Lucien these are just some simple facts, nothing crazy. No one really knows if the world the full effects of a nuclear war, but it’s hard to argue that it would not mean the end of the world. I’m not claiming to be a scientist and I didn’t get my facts off of Wikipedia, it’s just common sense.
Mike D – Um, It’s a list about nuclear war movies. The Quiet Earth movie and book were not about nuclear war, but a disaster from a scientific experiment.
“Special Bulletin,” a 1983 TV Movie, was a fairly interesting movie about nuclear war. It’s entirely from the point of view of a local news station and is done in the style of a “breaking news” segment. The plot concerns a group of anti-nuclear activists who hijack a boat and threaten to blow up a nuclear bomb in Virginia.
Peter:
I remember that one. Another one that scared the poop outta me.
I can’t recall now if it was really any good though. Have you seen it recently?
Thanks for the list I watched The Day After & Threads one after the other. Interesting films realistic and frightening.
I preferred threads as I felt it best demonstrated what “after” could be like
Paul
History repeats. The real deal will probably be the packys. Not to long ago US intell found one of their planes with a nuke waiting on the tarmack for India. Somehow they listened an didn’t. Threemile Island and other Nuclear accidents help define domestic saftey,surly it’s been along time since the WW2 generation. Will anyone be around to make a documentary of the next nuclear statment?
By the way anyone know where I can find Threads? All the DVD versions say U.K. players only and I don’t have one.
Thanks
when the genie gets out of the bottle, it’s often impossible to get him back in…such is the case with nuclear weapons.
J. Robert Oppenheimer seemed to understand what he helped to unleash, he’s quoted as saying “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”.
A “full” nuclear exchange between the superpowers would not involve thousands of warheads. There would likely be several hundred fired from each side, probably no more than four or five hundred, because they’d have to take into consideration their future defensive capablilties.
Then you’d have to figure that maybe 5%-10% of the exchanged ICBM’s probably wouldn’t detonate due to technical malfunction. Remember these rockets and their aging warheads have been maintained (but not tested) for decades.
Nonetheless, it would be a horrific turn of events, with hundreds of millions of people being killed outright, and hundreds of millions more dying of radiation sickness and disease for decades afterward. Then you have to consider reproduction and the problem of sterility.
The question is, would humankind survive such an insult? Probably, although not unscathed. Genetic mutations would ensue and change the DNA of humans forever. Let’s hope we never find out the truth.
WoW! I remember the first time I has seen the movie “Threads”.
It was back in high school. Couldn’t be leave they would show that movie in school.
I am also surprised nobody had bothered to memtion this movie.
A documentary called “Countdown To Looking Glass” 1984
As someone who used to be in the ‘delivery business’ – I found “The Day After” particularly hard to deal with. I used to drive by the missile silos in North Dakota, and wonder what I would do if I saw the door slide away and the missiles arc over the poles. This is the single most horrifying image that “The Day After” portrays, IMHO. Everytime I see that movie, I have nightmares for days afterward.
For the idiots who believe that we would have won in a general nuclear exchange, I offer this observation. I live near the site of the recent railroad accident in Chatsworth, CA, just north of downtown Los Angeles. About 50 people were injured in this accident, and they swamped the hospital facilities for miles around. Instead of 50 people, try to imagine how any city might handle 50 thousand people, with injuries ranging from minor cuts and bruises on up through severe radiation poisoning and burns. There is no way in the world we’d be able to deal with that, our system would collapse completely. Not discounting of course, that many of those hospitals themselves would be destroyed/damaged in the exchange.
We’d also have to deal with the loss of infrastructure. The boards for “Jericho” tried to discuss some of those problems, based on the target list that the series generated. Look for any city greater than maybe a hundred thousand people, and you are looking at a target for at least one weapon. Big cities would get more. Where would our economy be without Boston, NYC, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, LA, New Orleans, San Francisco, Seattle/Tacoma…
Short answer: There are no winners, and there would be precious few survivors. Those that did survive, would be so busy trying to stay alive that they’d hardly have time to do anything else, except maybe to tear the government fools who allowed this to happen limb from limb once they come out of their secret mountain redoubt at Mount Weather, West Virginia.
To go back to the list. “On the Beach” definitely belongs on the list. The rest? Hit or a miss, none of them had the impact of either of those two movies.
I always believe to logic and to scientist way of thinking.
Randall here and of caurse Jongleur were absolutely wright.
What is my ideological behavior has nothing to do with the subject.
The two super powers , because Russia is still super power and only idiots they dont understant this, are far from the all the others in nuks and can destroy airth not ones bt several times.
They never stop to dvelop their nuks and their boosters.
They have absolutely perfect booster rockets now with perfect targeting systems.
Both.
Read about at some very good astronaftik sites.
There isnt a possibility even one to million for war bet. this two countries.
all the dargets they could hit both sides.
There isnt so perfect antimissile system for both.
Nearly 100% of the war heads they ll hit.
And we speak for thousents of warheads.
Read read..and learn about the Soviet space systems and war stations and the anericans also.
Very acurate and precise hits going with Lazer targeting systems and other high energy particle weapons.
Learn about Velihov and the real monstrews experimental of Soviets in Surry Sagan Region and KaPUSTIN Yar and many other regions in former big soviet territory, the bigest in the world.
Learn about POLYOT sytem with lazer and nuk weapons.
The superpowers have the ability to put now if they want about 200 tons in LEO.
No other nation can do this for the moment.
Because no other nation or country gave these trillions for space and weapons.
And blood…..to much blood both.
In my belief nuclear weapons are one of the great ironies as I truly believe if they had not existed then the US and Russia would have gone to war and causes WW3. As it is no state would dare ever use them. Why? Because if they do then their dead too.
I do however fear that a terrorist organisation may get hold of one for they donât have a state to bomb and are mad enough to do it.
sweet!!!!! death, destruction and mayhem! What more can you ask for in a movie! Does anyone recall a movie about poeple in a bomb shelter made in the 70′s or 80′s it was good just can not remember the name!
I’ve seen “When the wind blows” and “Threads”.
I recommend people watch When the wind blows as a powerful yet managable to watch film. Showing the life of an elderly/retired couple really brings an endearing and positive outlook when all hope of survival is lost.
Threads, on the other hand, is a very real interpretation of this grim subject. It’s the film that the powers that be should watch. I’m sure it would prevent a nuclear war because Threads holds no punches. If you really want to see the effect of a nuclear war, then watch Threads. I’ll warn that Threads is not for the faint hearted. Very powerful and very sad.
Let’s hope it never happens.
I just saw Threads, a truly ‘warts and all’ view of the cold war. I was particularly impressed with the folowing of the Protect and Survive leaflets on how to build a bomb shelter in your house, I remember those, also remember the leaflets coming through the door with the post codes of cities and the estimated damage from nuclear attack, and finally I joined the military working in communications against the Soviet Union. This film only seen today re-awakened these memories. When I was a child, during the late 70′s I remember also the air raid sirens going off across the whole of wakefield (UK) and we were stood in the streets, other groups stood there all silent apart from the sound of the sirens…. middle of the night with the sirens going…. scary… the closest thing to that feeling was Threads.
Just one more thing, I have stood at Ground Zero Nagasake, and looked up at the sign that shows the original ground level. I will not throw facts and figures around like some, but it is a matter of a few moments to consider how much lower the new ground level is…… Where did it go? fall out is the answer… so how much fall out would be created from a larger device? I have walked the peace park and spent time in the bomb museum at Nagasaki and would say to those people here who are arguing over the facts and figures Nuclear War would not be good! It needs to be avoided at all cost. And finally M.A.D. exists / existed. Not Propaganda not a lie, it was real. I Know this for a fact, not because I read it in a book, but because I was there and lived it and followed orders. Thank god I never had to follow that order!
Superb list–though surely the 1965 BBC film “Wargame” goes in there with its progeny “The Day After” and “Threads.” Growing up from the late 1940s through the whole Cold War time, there was never relief from the nuclear terror hanging over us; only antiwar activism in the late 1960s shelved it for awhile, and 1989-1991 finally put it . . . well, away, but for how long? Perhaps most frightening is how close we came; some of us drove up the coast, one of those mid-October nights in 1962, not knowing when the Polish ships would, outside Cuba, meet the U.S. blockade, or what would happen when they did. No one knew; it was not decided, until it happened. Sometimes I wonder if the Kennedys had seen and been affected (Navyman that JFK was, after all) by On the Beach. And whether The Day After was, to some extent, as a friend said of it, “the film that ended the Cold War.” People who see these films as “depressing” perhaps don’t get their purpose, or don’t care. But the reality would be, for the few surviving it, considerably more depressing.
I meant, of course, by “Sometimes I wonder if the Kennedys had seen and been affected (Navyman that JFK was, after all) by On the Beach,” that perhaps the Kennedys saw this film and were appalled enough to seek harder to avoid a shoot-out confrontation over Cuba. As for those of you less concerned how nuclear war might affect humanity and, indeed, the world, there is an excellent sci-fi book, “Evolution,” by Stephen Baxter. Makes Threads, and perhaps even Planet of the Apes, look nearly hopeful.
One more–a question. A film, in the form of live television news being broadcast from a studio, in which an alien attack is met with four or five attacks on their spaceships, which they then meet with ten or twenty attacks, to which the “hardhitting” generals reply with maybe 100 missiles, at which the aliens’ missiles are found to be coming in from everywhere, and the woman newscaster turns to the screen and addresses her kids. I don’t remember if the missiles are nuclear bombs, though, or asteroids. I’m very anxious to find the name of the film (or television film).