Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to The History Guy podcast Counterfactuals. What is a
counterfactual in the context of studying history, It is a
kind of analysis where we examined what might have happened
had historical events gone differently as a thought experiment. The
goal is to learn and understand history as it is
by talking about what it could have been as a
(00:27):
twist on the historical stories that we tell on the
History Guy YouTube channel. This is a series of podcasts
that dwell on that eternal question what if. I'm Josh,
a writer for the YouTube channel and son of the
History Guy. If you're a fan of the channel, you
already know Lance the History Guy himself. To liven up
our discussions on what might have happened, we have invited
(00:48):
Brad wagnan history officionado and a longtime friend of The
History Guy, to join us. Remember that if you'd like
to support us, you can find us on Patreon, YouTube,
andlocals dot com. Join us as we discuss what deserves
to be remembered and what might have been. On today's podcast,
we talk about the year nineteen eighty three, called by
(01:10):
some the most dangerous year in modern history. In the
fall of that year, western and communist powers may have
nearly stumbled into the one thing that neither side wanted,
all out nuclear war. How might the world be different
if that close call went another way? Without further ado,
let me introduce the history guy.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
National Geographic described the decade of the nineteen eighties as
a decadent, disastrous, and innovative time in American history, and
it is somewhat difficult to explain to younger generations why
we so enjoyed listening to Madonna on our Sonny Walkmans.
Perhaps imbomatic of the decade was the year nineteen eighty three,
when Star Wars Return of the Jedi was the number
one film, and many of we original Star Wars fans
(01:57):
wish that they had stopped there. In nineteen eighty three,
no one could not sing along with Bonnie Tyler's Total
Eclipse of the Heart, and pretty much we still can't.
In January, the Washington Redskins defeated the Miami Dolphins in
Super Bowl seventeen, mercifully putting an end to the notorious
strike season. And in October, the Baltimore Orioles defeated the
Philadelphia Phillies four games to one in the World Series,
(02:19):
and then in November, the world was nearly destroyed in
nuclear armageddon. Because, while many of us did not realize
it at the time, nineteen eighty three has been described
by some historians as the single most dangerous year in
human history, its history that deserves to be remembered. During
(02:39):
the nineteen seventies, the Cold Warsaw period of relative thaw,
called the era of Detante de Tante, was largely driven
by the foreign policy of the Nixon administration and promoted
by his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Soviet Premier
Leaned Brezhnev. Detant was characterized by a number of summits, agreements,
and treaties in an overall attempt to reduce the risk
of confrontation between the two superpowers. Dietant certainly never eliminated
(03:04):
the conflict, and the two still engaged in proxy wars
an espionage. There's some disagreement of when the era of
duetant ended. Some say when Nixon left office in nineteen
seventy four, but others see the nineteen seventy four Vladivostok
summit between President Ford and Breshneff as a continuation of detante,
and the framework of that meeting resulted in the salt
Or Strategic Arms Limitation Talks to agreement signed between Bresneff
(03:25):
and President Jimmy Carter in June of nineteen seventy nine.
In any case, the period of duetant was certainly overwin
six months after the Salt To agreement, the Soviet Union
intervened to support the Communist government in Afghanistan, precipitating the
Soviet Afghan War. In protest over what he described as
an invasion, President Jimmy Carter called for a boycott of
(03:47):
the nineteen eighty Summer Olympics to be held in Moscow,
and de Tante became just a distant memory. The same month,
the Solidarity Union was formed at the Linen Shipyard and
the Dance Poland, a movement that would challenge Communists rule
in Poland. The Soviets in the West perceived these two
events very differently. The US and NATO allies in Europe
(04:08):
saw the two movements as freedom movements and a rebellion
against what they saw as serial violations of human rights
in the Soviet Union. The Soviets, on the other hand,
as described by then, headed the KGB Yurion dropoff to
KGB members in March nineteen eighty one saw the defensive
communist regimes in Poland in Afghanistan as the justified struggle
of nations for their national and social liberation against attempts
(04:30):
at exporting counter revolution. What Endropov described as Soviet military
support for a justified struggle against Western counter revolution. Carter
called an invasion by a powerful atheistic government to subjugate
an independent Islamic people, arguing that one lesson learned by
the world at great cost is that aggression unopposed becomes
(04:50):
a contagious disease. The US and the West fundled money
to both the Mushadin opposition in Afghanistan and the Solidarity
Union in Poland. Cold War tensions grew more strained by
changes in leadership. In May nineteen seventy nine, Margaret Thatcher
became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. She come to
power in part on a platform of opposition to the
(05:10):
Soviet Union, arguing in the speech in January of that
year that the Russians are bent on world dominance and
they put guns before butter. She concluded they are a
failure in human and economic terms. The following year, Ronald
Reagan was elected President of the United States. Detant had
deteriorated under Carter, but Reagan was more forceful in his
(05:31):
opposition to the Soviets. In a famous speech in nineteen
eighty three, he referred to the Soviet Union as the
evil Empire and the focus of evil in the modern world.
Both Thatcher and Reagan significantly increased defense spending, something that
Uriantropoff called imperialists waging an arms race on an unprecedented scale,
and both East and West participated in that unprecedented arms
(05:54):
race with weapons both conventional and nuclear. In the Soviet Union,
Leenid Brezhnev died in November nineteen eighty two and was
succeeded by Andropov. Andropov was particularly distrustful of the West.
Part of this was likely derived from his rise through
the Soviet intelligence services, but historian Christopher Andrew notes the
significance of Andropov's experience during the nineteen fifty six Hungarian uprising.
(06:18):
Andropov was Soviet ambassador to Hungary at the time. He
was said to be shocked at how quickly what seemed
to be an all powerful, single party state could collapse.
Andropov was central to the Soviet decision to intervene militarily,
playing a role that earned him the nickname the Butcher
of Budapest. The experience, according to Andrew, left Andropov with
what was called a Hungarian complex that it convinced them
(06:41):
that military force was necessary to ensure the survival of
the Socialist Revolution. This combination of leadership was dangerous, as
Ola Gorievsky, a KGB officer who affected to the West, noted,
was a potentially lethal combination of Reaganite rhetoric and Soviet paranoia.
One consequence was that Breshnev and then Andropov became convinced
(07:02):
that the United States was preparing for a nuclear war
and was planning a first strike with the intent of
decapitating Soviet leadership. The perception was enhanced by the fact
that both Brezhnev Andropoff were old fashioned Soviets and they
believed in Soviet dogma, including the belief that Western capitalism
was on the brink of failure and that Western nations
would become more desperate and dangerous as it did beyond
(07:25):
Hungarian complex. In nineteen seventy nine, NATO decided to deploy
US made Pershing two intermediate range nuclear missiles into West Germany.
While NATA saw the Pershing as a response to the
Soviet ARESD ten natodesignation S S twenty intermediate range missiles,
the Soviet saw the Pershing two is a first strike weapon.
The Pershing two was deployed from a mobile launcher, making
(07:47):
it quick to deploy and difficult to target, and was
designed to destroy hard targets like Soviet missile sites. The
Soviets were afraid that the Pershing two could be deployed
so quickly that the attack would not be detected until
the Soviet returned strike capability was destroyed. The deployment of
the person iiO was characteristic of the nature of the
conflict and mistrust of the era. Both sides offered arms
(08:08):
limitation solutions to deal with the tension of the missile's deployment.
NATO offered a so called zero option, where they would
not deploy the Pershing two if the Soviets would dismantle
their SS twenties. The Soviets, hoping to influence peace movements
in the West countered by offering to cap missile launchers
at three hundred, including the existing two hundred fifty British
and French nuclear weapons. The NATO offer was not acceptable
(08:30):
to Moscow because it essentially required the Soviet Union to
dismantle weapons that were already deployed in exchange for NATO
weapons that didn't yet exist. The Soviet offer was not
acceptable to NATO because it left them no counter to
the Soviet SS twenties. Neither side budged, but both blamed
the other. This was characteristic in their rhetoric. Both sides
claimed they were still committed to detant but blame the
(08:51):
other for threatening peace. The Soviets were also concerned with
reagan support for the Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI. In
a speech to the nation in March nineteen eighty three,
Reagan said, I call upon the scientific community, who gave
us nuclear weapons to turn their great talents to the
cause of mankind and world peace, to give us the
means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete. SDI
(09:14):
was intended to develop a ballistic missile defense weapon using
advanced weapons concepts such as lasers and particle beams. Reagan
saw the proposal the means to free the world from
the dangers of nuclear weapons, but the Soviet SID is
a method to protect the US from retaliation, allowing a
first strike in nineteen eighty one and dropoff. Then still headed,
the KGB announced to KGB agents a creation of Operation Ryan,
(09:37):
which was an acronym for the Soviet words for nuclear
missile strike. Operation Ryan was a directive for the KGB
to covertly collect information regarding contingency plans for a US
nuclear first strike. This perception created a dangerous situation out
of the Reagan administruation. The US military was regularly testing
(09:58):
Soviet defenses. US bomber a craft wei flied to the
edge of Soviet airspace and turn around the last minute
to test Soviet radar in response times. In April, the
Navy participated in an exercise called Fleet X eighty three.
The exercise included three US carrier groups operating off the
coast of the Aleutian Islands in the largest fleet exercise
in the Pacific since the Second World War. In addition
(10:19):
to the normal goals of practicing actions with integrated forces,
Fleet X eighty three had the mission to intentionally provoke
the Soviet Union into responding so that the US forces
could study their response and tactics. The Navy saw Fleet
X eighty three is a great success. They did not
realize that the Soviets were on a hair trigger anticipating
a US first strike. What the US was seeing as
(10:40):
a normal Cold war operation and even to terrents the
Soviets in Operation Ryan were perceiving as a prelude to war.
In nineteen eighty three, war tensions were thrown into the
atmosphere of distrust. On September first, Korean Airlines Flight zero
zero seven was flying from Anchorage, Alaska to Seoul, South Korea.
An error in the autopilot system caused the plane fly
(11:00):
over restricted Soviet airspace. Soviet fighter interceptors, apparently mistaking the
plane for a US spyplane, shot down the commercial aircraft
with air to air missiles. Two hundred and sixty nine
passengers and crew were killed. Realizing the significance of their mistake,
the Soviet Union at first denied all knowledge of what
happened to the plane. The US, sensing a propaganda advantage,
(11:20):
released classified intelligence and communication intercepts to implicate the Soviets.
Once they finally admitted the action, The Soviets argued the
plane was on a spying mission, but the US was
able to leverage the incident to show up wavering Allied
support for the deployment of the pershing iiO On October
twenty fifth, an internal conflict in the tiny Caribbean nation
of Grenada, an island of just one hundred thirty five
(11:41):
square miles, it became the next flashpoint. The island government
had been overthrown by Marxist revolutionaries in nineteen seventy nine,
and the United States saw an invitation to intervene by
the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States as an opportunity to
claim the island from Marxist rule. The resulting US invasion
involved more than seven thousand US se troops, and the
US is able to defeat local and Cuban forces in
(12:03):
just four days, returning the island to democratic elections the
following year. Public approval for the invasion in the US
was high, but the act was decried by the United
Nations General Assembly. US analysts concluded that the island was
of little consequence to the Soviet Union, but that analysis
was optimistic, as later evidence suggested that the Soviets feared
the Grenada invasion was practiced for a larger exercise of
(12:25):
even more concern. Operation Ryan analyst noticed that there was
a large spike in ciphered communications between London and Washington,
d C. Following the invasion of Grenada, a sign that
they took as evidence of an impending nuclear attack. In fact,
Andrew Garland of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas notes
that what these communications were were complaints from Margaret Thatcher
and Queen Elizabeth the Second, who were furious that the
(12:47):
United States had invaded a Commonwealth nation without either informing
or involving the United Kingdom.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
With the Soviets.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
Increasingly convinced that the US and the UK were preparing
a nuclear first strike, and with the US unaware of
the extent of the Soviet concern, NATO was planning in
November to simulate NATO procedures during a nuclear war. Able
Archer was the name for an annual NATO exercise replicating
the outbreak of hostilities in Europe. Was a command post
(13:16):
exercise as on to test procedures more than actually moving troops.
Able Archer eighty three had been intended to be more
robust than in recent years, and keeping with Reagan's gold
making exercises as real as possible as a means of
preparation financial security adviser Robert MacFarlane realized that the action
could be provocative and had limited the scope of the exercise. Still,
the exercise simulated things like seiphered communication and command procedures
(13:38):
as a conflict escalated from conventional to nuclear. These are
exactly the sorts of things that Project Ryan was intended
to detect. The Soviets began to suspect that able Archer
was a cover to facilitate an actual first strike, assuming
that the spike in ciphered communication after the invasion of
Grenada represented planning for the attack. The US and NATO
(13:59):
remained oblivious, despite several deviations from previous able Archer exercises.
They did not perceive that the exercise could be perceived
as a threat by the Soviets. Unaware of Project Ryan,
the NATO exercise was mirroring exactly the scenario that the
Soviets had assumed would lead to a preemptive nuclear strike.
Convinced their only chance for survival was to strike before
(14:20):
NATO could, the Soviet Union readied its nuclear arsenal for attack.
While CIA intelligence noticed activity at Soviet air bases, the
US did not realize the extent of the Soviet response
that turns out to have been lucky, as US commanders
decided not to increase US alert levels. Able Archer eighty
three ended on November eleventh, with NATO apparently unaware that
(14:40):
the exercise had brought the Soviets to the brink of
nuclear attack. We still don't know exactly how serious the
Russians took the threat or how close they came to launch,
while intelligence assets at the time and documents that brewin
Ree's sense show us that the Soviets certainly took the
activity far more seriously than we once realized. The general
(15:02):
consensus is still that they didn't think an attack was imminent,
that their figure was not really on the trigger, but
some historians disagree, including Cold War historian and former CIA
agent doctor Peter Pry, who argues that had Able Archer
continued even for as little as another twenty four hours,
that the West might have unwittingly stumbled into nuclear holocaust.
(15:23):
To this day, we do not know how close the
call was in the world's most dangerous year, but there
are other historians that argue that this was the event
that changed everything. Ronald Reagan was said to be very
unnerved when he found out that the Soviets had taken
the exercise seriously. It seems to be the first time
that he realized that the Soviets so mistrusted us that
(15:45):
they thought that we would do the unthinkable and start
a nuclear war. He wrote in his memoirs, I became
more anxious than ever to get a top Soviet leader
alone in a room and tried to convince him that
we had no designs on the Soviet un Union and
Russians had nothing to fear from us. Reagan started nineteen
(16:06):
eighty four with a softer tone, saying in an address
on January sixteenth, neither we nor the Soviet Union can
wish away the differences between our two societies and our philosophies.
But we should always remember that we do have common interests,
and foremost among them is to avoid war and reduce
the level of arms and Dropoff died the following February,
(16:26):
and Konstantin Schernyenko spent a year as General Secretary. He
was ill throughout and turned out to be only a
brief caretaker. In nineteen eighty five, Michael Gorbacheff became General Secretary.
In Gorbachev, Reagan and Thatcher found a man with whom
Thatcher said, we can do business together. In nineteen eighty eight,
Reagan and Gorbachev signed the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which,
(16:48):
among other things, resulted in the decommissioning of both the
Pershing iiO and the s S twenty. By the end
of the nineteen eighties, the cassette playing Walkman had largely
been replaced by the CD playing disc Man, and mister
Reagan had convinced mister Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
Now for the fun part, where I the History Guy
himself and longtime friends of the History Guy Brad Wagnan
talk about what might have happened if it all went
a little differently.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
Yeah, So I'd like to start out this particular episode
with an observation, and that is this is one. This
is the first topic that I've been able to deal
with where I can actually say I was alive during
this point and time in history. And it's interesting. I
(17:43):
think that you know, Lance and I are up that's
of this generation. I think that we can add some
anecdotal material based on our experiences at the time, some
of our outlook at the time, and you know, just
the fact that you know, we in a sense, though
not direct participants, were alive and you know, very much
(18:06):
seeking knowledge and interacting with the world at a time
when this particular incident takes place.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
I mean, this was this was interesting because you know,
we didn't you know, America to even though this was
going on. But I mean it's the same year as
the KA I'll shoot down, which I mean was which
is a much more direct, you know, provocation, and so
it wasn't the only time that we were pushing it.
Almost nineteen eighty three almost shows us that there really
couldn't have been a nuclear war, because if there could
have been, then in nineteen eighty three there would have been.
(18:36):
And that's a scary thing when you look at it
into these sort of cold war you know, I mean
we used to I mean, Brad and I were in
collegiate debate at the time in nineteen eighty three, or
we've done it in high school, and we were doing
in college. And you know, every back in the day,
every argument y with global thermonuclear war, that was you know,
whatever the you know, the other side was doing, that
was going to cause war, and that was more important
(18:56):
than anything else. And that was so you know, that
was the that was debate at the time we lasted.
It was into the world as we know it. So
and you tie everything, you know, through some argumentative chain
to global through a nuclear war. But how close were
we really How if the Soviets really could think that
the US was actually preparing a preemptive strike and we
don't end up going to war, If the Americans could
(19:18):
really think that the Soviets had deliberately shot down a
civilian flight and we didn't go to war, then could
we really have gone to war? I mean so, I
mean part of the counterfactual here is maybe, you know,
maybe all our fears of nuclear war weren't were as
real as they are. But it's also easy to look
at the counterfaction here and say, well, actually they were
(19:38):
that close. And the first counterfactual and able archer is
we're all dead, you know, or we're we're now living
with Europe is uninhabitable, but maybe parts of North America
still are. And you know, we're literally competing with the
Bigfoots for the amount of food that's left on.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
The earth, and whatever mutant preach, whatever it is.
Speaker 4 (20:00):
Living in This.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Is when we talk about post apocalyptics.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
This is exactly what.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
We mean, you know, and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah,
that's the of course, the easy thing to talk about
is that someone just does press the button and it
feels like there were moments, There were certainly moments in
there where people got at maybe as close as we
ever got to pressing that button.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
It's different maybe next to maybe next to the Cuban
missile crisis, but this is different. This is different than
the Cuban missile crisis. It's different than the kal shootdown
because it's not like there's a political provocation that can
then de escalate.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Is the Russians literally thought we were about to attack.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
So there is an argument made by people who have
some knowledge of what's going on that had Able Archer
gone for another twenty four hours, that the Soviets were
preparing for strike, and that is interesting. You know, then
you can talk about the counterfactors. Would it have been limited,
would it have been large, would it have been war
in Europe? You know, would we have actually gone new clear?
(21:01):
That's I mean, that's an interesting question. But I'll tell
you what I sure felt in nineteen eighty three, like
we were prepared to go to nuclear war. I mean
I felt like we were you know, we knew that
that was a distinct possibility and our people were prepared
to do that.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
And did you have that feeling.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
Brett, Yeah, I did not. I had a slightly different feeling.
I was at the time. I was actually concerned about
the fact that, you know, mutual assured destruction only worked
if it was mutually assured and destruction. And during the
(21:40):
nineteen eighties, the peace movement, especially you know, you and
I being in university at the time, we got to
see we were at ground zero for the you know,
for the intellectual debate that disarmament is superior to extinction,
so we have to disarm now. And my concern was
is that you keep a you know, you keep a
(22:02):
credible deterrent because short of being you know, absolutely whacked
out and saying people do not make the rational choice
too knowingly destroy their own power base, that was the
whole idea.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Yeah, but I mean because there was that sting song.
There was it sting if the Russians of their children too.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Or that.
Speaker 2 (22:26):
And the thing is, if you understand the history of
second of the Second World War, I'm not sure they do.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
I mean at the time.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
I mean now I would say so, Well, I don't know,
because we've got a different Russian now too, But and
they're clearly quite willing to send their children off to
die in Russia still today.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
But I mean Russia. You know, Russia allowed.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Millions of people to die in the Second World War
that they just threw into. So the question is would
what we thought at the time, and and it really
wasn't fair because both sides thought the other side was crazy.
But what we thought at the time, or what I
thought at the time, is that the Russians might be thinking,
if we lose twelve million and they lose fifteen million,
(23:04):
we win the war. And in reality, I think what
we found sense, and actually it was you know, the
big secret there was that one of our submarines got
into what are their cables, and we were actually reading
their naval codes. And at the point that they thought
that we might be preparing a war, they dispersed their
fleet rather than concentrated their fleet.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
And that changed. So I mean that.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Literally, you know, changed in the Reagan heres where we
saw a possibility for the tant But in nineteen eighty three,
I don't know that we felt that.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
I mean, I think in nineteen.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
Eighty three, as surprised as NATO was that that the
Russians would think that the you know, the fifteenth time
that we've done this, that this time it's an attack.
Speaker 3 (23:43):
So we were just wasn't even thinking about that.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
And in nineteen eighty three, I think probably people and
the Reagan administration were thinking, the Russians don't love their children,
they are willing to go to war and take the losses,
because that's the Russian mindset.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Well, and I think the Soviets were absolutely thinking that
the Americans and NATO is that they truly, I mean,
there was this this It seems kind of I think
it seems kind of insane to us today, this idea
that the Soviets truly believed that capitalism was going to
fall apart and that the Western the Western world was
(24:18):
going to get desperate as it started falling. And so
one of the reasons they kind of had this theological
belief that we could do that is that they were
figuring we were seeing the end of our own world
and we would do anything to prevent that.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
Including Yeah, there seems to have always been this thought
that capitalism was just on the virgial collapse, that we
knew it and that we would and you know was
that yeah, that was that still real enough in the
polit bureau in nineteen eighty three that I mean that,
you know, we're operating under the Russians are crazy, I
don't sacrifice their people, and they're operating on the idea that.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
We're this is our death row.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
So if both sides believe that the other side is capable,
then mutually assured destruction becomes a much shakier foundation, because
mutually sured destruction works on the idea that it is
irrational to seal the fate of your own destruction.
Speaker 3 (25:04):
Yeah, I mean we still hear that.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
People will argue now is if Putin was actually threatened
in power over the war in Ukraine, you know what
would he do to maintain power? And I think he'd
still get people that argue that he would be happy
to start a nuclear war and lose millions of his
people over his own power.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
I don't I'm not saying.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
I'm making that argument we stay out of politics here,
but I'm saying that there are people that would certainly
make that argument today, and I'm sure you would find
plenty of America sure that Trump would do anything right.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
I mean, I think you're right that this idea that
the nuclear question to certain leaders is not totally out
of the question, especially when it comes to some personal
power or you know, the power of the country if
they think that the country is crumbling. Because I mean,
I think that that's always been a concern, is that
if if one or the others seems to think that
(25:54):
their their country is falling apart, do they try to
save things? To do by making an absolutely.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Mutually assured destruction depends upon rational thinking and and you
don't have to be irrational, you just have to be
convinced your enemy is to undermine mutually assured destruction. I mean,
you know, do we do we think that if Kim
Il junk got nuclear weapons that he would be a
rational actor?
Speaker 3 (26:17):
Who wouldn't you know, wouldn't.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Do we think if I'm wrong, got nuclear weapons, that
they wouldn't use them even if it meant their own destruction?
Or do we do we not trust the Mullahs or whatever?
I mean, these are all Please don't take too much
politics from this, because we're not arguing politics here. It's
just to say, I think in all of those ones
that I've just mentioned.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
We can all we all know someone.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
Who at least believes that the other side would be irrational.
And if you believe the other side would be irrational,
the mutual assured destruction falls apart. And now it is
rational for you to consider mutually assured destruction because you
think the other guy will.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
And I because that's where I thought.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
We weren't want to be the only one destroyed, right,
that's as long as thinking they might make the preemptive strike,
you've got to be prepared.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Yeah, Yeah, And that was you know, that's part of
the question if the Russians launched, would we really have
the guts to do it, or would we say we
would rather we would rather die than destroy the world.
I mean, you know, you know there were people that
certainly was the peace movement that Brad was talking about
in Europe at the time. So I mean that was
I mean, it's an interesting discussion that we kind of
went off on. But I mean that starts on this premise,
(27:23):
and the premise is could able archer Was it literally
to the point where it could have sparked, you know,
some sort of response if the Soviets had just you know,
thinking that we were doing something had actually because you know,
we were it was literally an electronic thing.
Speaker 3 (27:37):
We weren't even moving troops.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
But if the Russians had taken off a bunch of aircraft,
would we have de escalated and said, what what's going
on dude?
Speaker 3 (27:45):
You know?
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Or would we would you know, the Reagan administration, which
you know, it depends really what side of the aisle
you're looking at, what you thought of Reagan. Would the
Reagan administration have been well, we're rare to go to
war anyway, So I mean, who who who would have
talked down? And do we think they could have down?
That is part of the you know, the counterfactual of
able archer is just how much did you have to
change the scenario? Is Reagan the way that he was
(28:08):
portrayed by Republicans or by Democrats? Because Democrats, I mean,
my experience being a boulder, thought that he was just
a crazy man that would do anything.
Speaker 1 (28:17):
Well, and it's it's well, I mean, you know, that's
it's part of that is this kind of historiography, too,
which is something we're able to do. I mean, with
all the history we've talked about, too, is how you
talk about you know, this part of time, which definitely
changes from the contemporary response, right. I mean, we know
a lot more about what was going on now than
we did in nineteen eighty three as the people discussing it,
(28:39):
and we can think more.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
I mean, we can see much better. You know, if
Carter had won in eighty how would nineteen eighty three
have been different. That's a lot easier to understand than
what if there had been a different ruler.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Than Hanno in Carthage.
Speaker 5 (28:53):
Yeah, it certainly, certainly there's a lot of talk over
the fact that Reagan's rhetoric was was part of what
made the Soviets concerned, But I don't I mean, I
still some of the stuff I looked at when we.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
Were looking into this, because if if part of the
question is, you know, how close to nuclear armageddon were
we in nineteen eighty three when the when the polit
Politburo met on the thirty first of May, Andropov asked
its members whether they thought that American policy makers would
do that would make a preemptive strike, and they still
(29:26):
said The Foreign Minister said, I think they wouldn't dare
to use nuclear missiles without sufficient reason. So even I mean,
even when we were getting awfully close to them thinking
that there was going to be a preemptive strike, there
seems to have been at least significant thought, you know,
in the Soviet upper echelon.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
And was probably they didn't think they were, but you know,
there's that instability in the Union at the time, and
you know, because you whis fact moving, but he was.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
He was the most tawkats.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
Yeah. Yeah, the fact that the polit Buro's the fact
that polar Bear's average age in that year was seventy four. Yeah,
there's a good indication there that Hearkening back to a
discussion of World War Two, the members of the polit
Bureau had all had firsthand experience with World War Two,
(30:17):
and all of them played various roles in World War
two and post World War two Soviet history, which is
I think that it's an understatement to say that it
is replete with violations of human rights, attempted genocide, attempted
(30:38):
erasure of culture, forced immigration of Russians into newly created Soviets.
One of the reasons, one of the reasons I point
that out is because this is an aspect of history
that I think a lot of people lost sight of
and that is the Soviets. They were not nice people,
and they were doing things that if any other any
(31:02):
Western power had been doing it to whatever remnants of
colonial empire they had, there would be hue and cry.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
That's a fair point. I mean, Russians would say the
same about us, that we were the evil people. But
I think if you look maybe more objectively, and you
we do come from the side that there were things
the Soviets were doing that you know, wouldn't we wouldn't
have been doing.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
Now.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Our government was doing crazy things all the way through
the seventies and eighties, right, I mean, but we were
overthrowing governments, and I mean we were, we were doing things,
but not in not in quite the same way.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
And it does that.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Comes to then an interesting argument, I suppose, or just
maybe a way to shift is to say, you know,
what if this leads to because this is this is
something you do see in war games, what if this
leads to a conventional war where both sides are reticent
to use nuclear weapons. Nineteen eighty three is an interesting
time because if you roll forward in the nineteen eighties,
(31:55):
I think NATO gets stronger and stronger in that comparison,
as we're because we're developing the you know, the Bradley
and the and the end one, and we are really
developing our technology and the black Hawk and some things
ended up being good technologies going forward. And you know,
after the after Afghanistan, the Soviet military becomes much reduced.
But in nineteen eighty three, what is the balance and
if the Soviets come pulling through the what is it
(32:18):
called the gap the full if they do, we do
see all those T seventy two s which now they're
fishing out and starting up again, and you know, going
into Ukraine. If all those things came rolling across in
nineteen eighty three, was our military strategy? I mean exactly
what we were practicing an able archer minus nuclear weapons,
(32:38):
because so much of our strategy depended upon tacular tactical
nukes in order to take care of them. So what
if we say we can't use tactical nukes because that
will escalate into nuclear war. There's conventional war between the
Soviets and the West and NATO. That's the war's up
packed in NATO in nineteen eighty three. I mean, that's
that's a question. You can really sink your teeth into
as you know, as a military historian, as a.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
War gamer, is to say, who do want? Who do
won in a shooting match?
Speaker 4 (33:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, And now this comes back to you.
During the eighties, and this was the Western Powers, I
think were using nuclear deterrent deterrence as a method to
prevent having to create support and to continue to support
(33:26):
in perpetuity a huge military force that would have been
able to be enough of a deterrent to the Soviet
military forces, and to do that in countries that at
various times were either more or less on board with
(33:49):
the idea of credible military deterremce.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
Our strategy was especially I mean, I mean, I think
NATO was still even when you had the re brigades
and the peace movement, I think NATO was still had
the idea that there could be a war and that they,
you know, we're trying to prepare a reasonable defense in
that war. I mean yeah, So, I mean, I think
I think NATO was prepared to go to war if
(34:13):
they had to, And you know what would that have
looked like?
Speaker 3 (34:16):
But you know what would.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
What would Leopard twos have looked like if they were
competing against T seventy two's I might be off. I
might be off a decade on both of those, to
be honest. But or what if thetis the stig bargain
had actually gotten tested in combat. That's one of the
great if you're a tank guy, you know exactly what
I'm talking about. Everybody wanted to know how that thing
would have fought. But I mean, it's it's it's an
(34:41):
interesting time. It's also a time when the US military
was struggling in various ways, drug problems, all sorts of
stuff going on. You could generally argue NATO probably would
have air superiority, NATO would have naval superiority, but the
Soviets might have superiority on the ground. You'd like to
argue that the Soviet performance in Afghanistan shows that they
were a paper tiger until we went there.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Technically good better, it didn't.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Have any more luck continues to be the graveyard of as.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Maybe that was just don't play.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
The whole world goes to work and we just leave
at Afghanison now because we're just tired of that.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
But and you know, it was a time when.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
The Soviets were building the fleet and in the just
good enough strategy and so it's I mean, that's I
don't know if it's the great discussion here, it would
be it is a great I mean I have war
gamed many many times, you know, fighting between Soviet tanks
and the Western tanks in the nineteen eighties, and was
there a chance that that was actually like literally on
the horizon, and the chance that that could have occurred
(35:41):
with neither side escalating into nuclear competition in some ways?
Speaker 1 (35:45):
I mean I think I think, yes, I know that,
you know, during there was this this idea that I mean,
neither side really wanted to use nuclear weapons, and we
you know, what each side knew with the time, there
was significant planning in within the Soviet upper echelons for
a conventional war, where the first thing that they would
have done in terms of their preemptive strike was since
(36:09):
conventional weapons in their planes to attempt to knock out
essentially most or all of the nuclear capabilities in Western
Europe in the first forty eight hours. And so their
goal was we will prevent you know, we will prevent
them from sending nukes by destroying that stuff so that
we can fight a conventional war. Of course, you have
(36:29):
to wonder what the Western powers think of if you
knock out every one of our nuclear places in Western Europe,
if our thoughts are, oh, that's you know, or if
that just makes us shoot to nukes from somewhere else,
from our subs, from a plane or something like that,
because we decide that that is an unacceptable you know,
level of fear is for them to have the nuclear
(36:53):
power over Western Europe and that's not to be able
to respond.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
That was the argument short short range missiles personing versus
the SS twenties and them that that that's really where
the kind of the Cold War discussion of nuclear weapons
kind of came down to that we never did deploy
the person So there was a point where they had
the s S twenty and we did not have or
you know, we had Jupiter.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
Missiles or something that we're not nearly as good.
Speaker 2 (37:13):
But did the Soviets have the better strategy there or
you know, in the long because I have to think
that there is a logistics difference, the same difference we
saw in the cin World War. I think if if
it prolongs, I think that ends up favoring the West
in the long run. It is interesting to say, what
if we were throwing you know, m sixties up against
T seventy two's yeah, or T fifty.
Speaker 4 (37:34):
Seventy twos, Yes, yeah, T sixty four's T seventy twos. Yeah,
knowing the Soviet annoying Soviet forces, we probably see, we
had we had special formations, you know.
Speaker 6 (37:48):
I I we were so sitting on the trigger at
the time on the whole idea that you had to
have credible deterrence that you have to wonder if there
were some people in both government saying, I want to
test this.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
Yeah, yeah, Well there's it's it's a it's a unique
question to think instead of you know, just nuking each
other all Ino non existence, that we are a fashion
inventional war in Europe in the eighties.
Speaker 2 (38:16):
That is more fun as a counterfactual than to say
simply that able archer goes on for twenty four more
hours and we're all debt.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Yeah, just goodbye world.
Speaker 4 (38:25):
Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of the that's kind of the
ultimate counterfaction ender, if you will.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
It feels like there.
Speaker 4 (38:30):
Was thermonuclear war. Not only win the archer.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Would you get all sorts of headlines that are things like.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
The world nearly ended.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
How we Yeah, we came to the break world destruction
and stuff like that. That's that's literally the counterfactual that
people talk about. It actually limits the counterfaction very much.
So you can get into you know what if we
use battlefield or tactical nuclear weapons, so we use neutron bombs,
but we never go to the ICBMs or you know
the other good one. You know what if you push
a button and these rusty old things that never left
(38:57):
their stuff blow up in their you know, we don't
really know that those missiles were actually going to make
it what we told them to, or that when they
got there, they've got to know how to blow up
because you know, thankfully we never really tested the terry.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
Yeah, right, that's thankfully. I mean. One of the big
things I read while I was preparing for this was
was someone that was arguing the opposite side, which was
to say that it wasn't as dangerous that as it
has often been portrayed, and that essentially that the Soviets
were more unwilling to pull that trigger and talking about
you know, the what is that incident called the guy
(39:32):
who sees the warnings and decides not to accept that
the you know, his early warning system.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Yeah, Princecocraft. Was it that.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
I mean someone, yeah, someone said to stop this a
little early, so we don't.
Speaker 4 (39:44):
The Russian the Russian commander who re basically shut down
his early warning system four times after the after the
newly you know, the newly launched Soviet satellites detected atmosphere.
Speaker 1 (39:58):
He chose to weigh that I mean, essentially, this guy's
arguing that that wasn't just you know, this, this one
guy making a courageous act, and that that was really
more indicative of the uh, the the Soviet forces overall.
There's a reason why that the Politburo never lets individual
commanders make the decisions to launch nuclear weapons. They kept
(40:19):
that power, and but I mean he doesn't fire it
up the chain of command, which could have been bad.
There's also, of course, there's the American or the NATO
guy who decides, you know, when he starts seeing strange work,
a strange activity from the Soviets, he decides not to
raise American alert levels, which is in terms of places
(40:40):
where I think it might have gone really wrong if
those alert levels start spiraling. I mean, that's one of
the that's I think that's one of the places that
could have gone bad.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
That's the thing about Able Archer, though, is that it wasn't.
It wasn't someone just sitting, you know, wavering their finger
over the nuclear trigger. I mean, we've got the pilots
in the planes. You know, this pilot has been training
and this is you know, this is what they do.
Speaker 3 (40:59):
We got the ground. They honestly think they're being attacked.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
So if you if you just have your early warnings,
which happened here in nineteen seventy nine too, that's another
episode of the history guy. If you just have your
early warning system that's going ding ding ding ding ding,
and someone's like, that's stupid. No one would really do that.
And so they managed to you know, pull back, and
you know, we had a lot of those, you know,
the Norwegian rocket incident, and there's a few episodes about
those sorts of things. That's different than if we are,
you know, putting whole military on alert, because I think
(41:26):
those troops are less likely to say no if you're
talking about your whole squadrons there and you think that
that your homeland is.
Speaker 1 (41:34):
And they certainly got close, I mean there was they
seem to have taken it seriously. You know, they moved
into bunkers, they brought missiles out into firing positions, but
there was there was like they're one of the star
agents of East German intelligence. Roop wasn't contacted, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(41:55):
was not contacted about Able Archer until November ninth, which
is after it already begun. And when they said are
they preparing for war? He said there was no indication.
And so there, I mean, there's there are some places
too where despite their fears, I mean, because clearly they
were thinking about it. The question is were they as
afraid as we think they are? Were they as afraid
as they've been portrayed? And you know the answer is
(42:17):
maybe not. But even then you still are looking at
you know, did did the forces have feel like they had?
You know, was this just an excuse to start saying
something like a conventional war? And the end, I don't know,
you really kind of come out of this thinking maybe
the lesson we learned from looking at it is the
lesson that we actually learned, which is that neither side
(42:39):
was as willing to kill everyone as we as we
were afraid they were. And it's it makes Able Archer
is such a good example of the fears and thinking
in that whole period. I mean, all all these sides
that come together, and you've got people who are just
sure that we we couldn't we couldn't decide we were
(43:00):
going to end the world, and people are who are
sure that it is possible and that and all of that.
And the problem is when you have all of that
tension up in the air and people are literally flying
around with nuclear weapons or we've got missiles pointed at
each other anyway, it doesn't take much for that trigger
to be pulled. And even if there really are people
(43:21):
who think it's not going to happen, even if they
still think it's you know, unlikely, you've got everyone in
position and ready because they might think it's unlikely, they
don't think it's impossible.
Speaker 3 (43:33):
That's I mean, and that's the big question of able Archer.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
I don't know how it becomes a counterfactial, but it's
a big question of able archer. Is it proof that
we lived literally on the verge of nuclear war, probably
closer than we understood at the time, or is it
proof that we would never have gone to nuclear war
and we were probably farther away from it than we
perceived at the time.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
I mean, it is a little different. It's not the
nineteen fifties. I didn't.
Speaker 2 (43:54):
I mean, I never had a drill where I had
to hide under my desk, right, I never watched you know,
duck and cover on ironically, But I mean, so it's
not quite the same time when we you know, when
people were literally told that they and and you know
they're literally they told you if you hide under a newspaper,
it will protect you from the flash.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
I mean, yeah, honestly in the video, in the movie.
But uh so we're not We're not quite there.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
But I mean, I think I perceived in the nineteen
eighties that the Soviets were a risk, especially when Reagan
was president, we perceived it a little bit more and
were we appreciating that? And the problem is Able Archer
doesn't answer the question because you can see able Archer
both directions.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
You can see it as.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
Maybe we all could have died on a Tuesday night
and we didn't even know it was coming, or you
could see it, and there were you know, television shows
that you know that made that as a possibility.
Speaker 3 (44:40):
But there's there was something the day after the day after. Yeah,
so there was a Intellivision talking about it.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
So, I mean we're were we literally on the brink
or disable archer say that even when the Soviets thought
that we were ready to attack.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
We we didn't go to war?
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Yeah, And just does that say about today?
Speaker 3 (44:58):
Are we closer or farther the we know? Okay?
Speaker 4 (45:02):
That that presents an interesting segue to a point that
you brought up earlier, and that is that, you know,
according to Western press at the time, Reagan was actively
looking for a reason to, you know, to launch ICBMs
against the against the Soviet Union. And it wouldn't even
take a provocation. He probably would have done it strictly
(45:24):
because you know, he missed tea time or something. And
that is only a slight exaggeration of how a lot
of press in the Western world covered it.
Speaker 2 (45:36):
That absolutely, but I mean, yeah, they definitely presented, oh yeah,
someone who was itching to go to war.
Speaker 4 (45:43):
Yeah. Now, there's an interview with James Baker who observed
that President Reagan was invited to a pre screening of
the film the day after and his words were President
Reagan was visibly moved. I think that there's at least
(46:04):
one data point that kind of suggests that Reagan was
not elected to office and ready to push the button
the moment's notice just because of some deep body logical
much of.
Speaker 2 (46:16):
The historical understanding of Reagan's senses saying no, he was
not the war fighter that they made him sound out
to be. That was actually probably closer to a piece Nick.
But I mean, do you think if if we had
perceived the Russians attacking, was he someone that was going
to hesitate? And you know, again, as we talked to counterfactuals,
because it was actually closer up until the end, It
(46:36):
wasn't close, you know, in the end, but it was
closer up.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
To the end.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
What if Carter had won in nineteen eighty, would there
have been an able archer? Would have been the same
and if there were, what would the reaction have been differently?
And I think actually when you get there, what you
find out is that probably it's not as different as
we think that in terms of nuclear war and taking
the nation to war, that Reagan and Carter were probably
not as far apart as anybody thinks, and probably neither
(46:59):
one of them wanted to.
Speaker 3 (47:01):
And I agree with.
Speaker 1 (47:03):
You, agree with you on that. I mean, there were
some changes to able Archer. That may have been impacted
by uh, you know, kind of a Reagan policy to
to be more more active. But overall, I mean, able
Archer was going to happen. I don't think that that
election was going to change how how Ryan Operation Ryan
worked out. I don't think it was going to change
the signs that Operation Ryan caught that made the Soviets.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
You know.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
It might have altered some of the rhetoric, I guess,
but I think ultimately the rhetoric was less important than
than some of the actions, you know, And and so
I mean, rhetoric can it's it's not that it doesn't
mean anything. But we were in a point where we
were the pressure of actual decisions, and everyone knew to
(47:47):
some extent that whatever rhetoric was going on in the
in in the Western world, and was going on in Moscow,
that ultimately that was that was in large part for
your for you know, for the audience you were speaking
to in your in those countries, and that didn't necessarily
mean that that's you know, that that's how the leadership
perceived things. One of the counterfactuals I think is kind
(48:10):
of interesting is if it does spiral more, but war
is still averted. But essentially we have a spiral where
we get I mean at planes or in the air
people are you know, I mean it is it is
truly right up to the right up to the line
in a way that it also makes it more public
(48:30):
because one of the things about what happens in nineteen
eighty three is that the public doesn't know how close
we got, and a lot of the shifts in policy
came from information that that essentially wasn't released to the public.
And if you have it where the two sides get
that close, and it's maybe what we actually get there
is that we get something even more high, you know,
(48:52):
even more highly pressurized, but we still don't come to war.
But we also get the effect of both sides being like,
oh my god, we're more scared of each other than
we than we thought we were. We are less willing
to you know, pull that trigger than we thought we were.
That maybe what we get is more de escalation.
Speaker 2 (49:11):
That's an old argument from eighties debate again, you know,
when we were talking about Mrs All the times to
say that something like a limited exchange or a close
call leads to disarmament and true peace.
Speaker 3 (49:21):
And I mean it's it's not an incredible arguments.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
To say if able Archer had just pushed a little
bit farther and we had become convinced that the Soviets
were willing to go to war, and the Soviets became
convinced that we were willing to go to war. Nobody
wants to do that. Do they pick up the phone
and say, what are you talking about? I thought it
was you? Now what do you talk about it? I
thought it was you. And both of us say, because
we start, you know, strategic arm limitations after at this point.
Speaker 3 (49:45):
Right are you know?
Speaker 2 (49:47):
They're actually they actually started before this. But you know,
do we disarm even more quickly? Is there more nuclear
disarmament than there is today? Is there less mistrust? That's
a very real possibility to say that if it had
escalated just a little bit more, that might have been
all it took to take U over the break of
saying this is crazy, we can't do this nuclear disarmament. Yeah,
and then of course Iran gets the nuclear bomb and
(50:07):
rules of the world right because we've all disarmed, or
the big Foots do, or the aliens we haven't. We
haven't brought in aliens, but yet maybe the aliens are
out in space and they're waiting, and if we come
that close to the trigger, then the aliens finally step
in and saying we're stopping war because guys are two
warlike and then we're all an alien togemony.
Speaker 4 (50:26):
Now we see.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
Actually, maybe that's what they were waiting for.
Speaker 4 (50:29):
Actually, what I think it is, I think that the
aliens they're highly intelligent and they're also somewhat ethical, and
that is they're depending on humanity wiping itself out so
that they can fully exploit the earth without competition from it,
but from those from from those troublesome natives.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
That's that's the ethical version of the.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
Because I was thinking of the opposite.
Speaker 2 (50:53):
I was thinking, like, they have a prime directive that says,
don't interfere with civilization except if they're going to destroy
each other.
Speaker 3 (50:59):
And then step in you're seeing and you got very
different aliens, and I got ye see.
Speaker 1 (51:06):
Maybe in that version, what they've been doing is like
they're like, okay, we have to have limited operations. So
you know, the whole the whole getting as close as
we did was because the Aliens were like, behind the scenes,
were manipulating.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
That they were nuclear war in order to weaken us.
So because they only had the one.
Speaker 1 (51:24):
Ship, perhaps the Soviet early warning systems weren't failing. They
were being tampered with by the aliens and they were
hoping and we did that.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
We have to mention around this period is when the
six million Dollar Man was showing, and it was in
the six million Dollar Man.
Speaker 3 (51:41):
That we found out that Bigfoot work for the aliens.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
So indeed we did, and this is how the cold
warships and you know everything.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
That's what that's what the historical documentary called the six
million Dollar Man suggested.
Speaker 4 (51:54):
Well, you know, I do you think that we also
have to bring in the point that the last natural
habitat of the Bigfoot is in Central Russia. If there's
a nuclear war that obviously is going to spend that's
going to.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
Spell win, we wouldn't be nuking Central Russia. It means
that the that the radiologically mutated Bigfoots would rise up
and take control of the Soviet Union from the only
part of the Soviet Union that was too remote for
us to bother to nuked. I think that's writing this
time though not elephants, but mammoths that they find in
the ice there that could be woke up if you
if you melt the permafrost with your nuclear weapons. The question,
(52:31):
the difficult question, is how do the aliens react to
radiologically mutated bigfoots writing.
Speaker 1 (52:37):
Mammoths, especially when their whole plan was that once we
had all wiped each other out, they'd come in and
exploit problem and then suddenly comes out big pots. A.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Yeah, that would be bad luck from the alien perspective.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
The best laid plans of tribles and men.
Speaker 4 (52:56):
There are some other interesting counterfactuals that I think that
we can actually go with on a on the able archer.
You know, let's ask the question, what if Nikole Gorbachev
instead of Uryandropov is chief Secretary of the Communist Party
in the Soviet Union in nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 3 (53:12):
That's an interesting question.
Speaker 4 (53:14):
You don't have an old Cold War hardliner. You have
more of a I'm not going to say Western friendly,
but certainly a less distrustful that's.
Speaker 3 (53:25):
Truly less distrustful of the West. What was he?
Speaker 2 (53:27):
Just a pragmatist who saw what was happening economically to
the country, realized that they needed glassdowse so I mean
it is. I mean because Andropov was only leader for
a brief period of time, right, But if you think
of him as being the most militaristic, and if you
consider Reagan being the most if you think that Reagan
was more likely to go to war than Carter, if
the fact that we had the two most militaristic guys
(53:48):
at a very unstable time and we still didn't go
to war, then it's try to say, if you had
people who are less militaristic, if we've got a different outcome,
is there a greater chance that Gorbachev would have gone
to nuclear Hopefully not?
Speaker 3 (54:00):
Of course.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
We honestly, we in the West like Gorbachev more than
the Soviets do historical or the Russians do historically. You know,
we have a fonder image of him and Yeltsin. We
think we think they're heroes. Yeah, are much less fond
of them than we are.
Speaker 4 (54:13):
There's a debate, and that is, you know, is Garbachev
actually the savior that we think he is from a
Soviet and ultimately than a post Soviet Russian perspective. The answer,
I'm not actually going to throw one in on this point, yet,
I would want to do a good bit of research
on that, because that's a lot of what if. What
(54:34):
I can see happening is is that if the Pollit Bureau,
instead of going with one of the old guard that said, okay,
let's bring up this new up and comer, does able
Archer even bring us close to potential nuclear war? And
I think the answer is probably fairly clearly no.
Speaker 1 (54:51):
Yeah, it seems like it might. That's all it takes, right,
because it really feels like we were we were at
both sides, were really on the precipice, and they you
only need to really move one to you know, kind
of make that gap between war expand pretty significantly. Because
I because I agree, if we're talking about you know,
if those are the two, if if those are like
(55:12):
the most warlike ones and we still weren't there, if
if you just have someone who's even a little less inclined,
that that might that might significantly impact how likely.
Speaker 2 (55:21):
Except that Andropov was kind of sick his whole time, right,
and at Chereneko he.
Speaker 3 (55:26):
Was barely there.
Speaker 2 (55:27):
So maybe if someone young, that's true, that's true, he's
more capable of consolidating power and seeing it for a
longer future, you know, you might have been able to
have a Russian leader who was more more had more ability.
I mean, I think if Putin wanted to go to
nuclear war today would be hard for anybody to say no, right,
And that might have been possible with Endropov. He might
have had people who say, now we're going to overthrow
(55:48):
you here, we're not going to war. So if you
had someone who had maybe more secure hold on Russia,
that maybe slightly increased the chance that they would go.
Speaker 3 (55:57):
To nuclear war.
Speaker 2 (55:58):
But I don't know who you had as a potential
for leadership, whether that was you know, a younger Gorbachev
or something else. I don't know who you had that
was actually going to actually going to pull the trigger
or pull the trigger more likely than Andropup was. I
mean again, I can't even even though I was there,
I can't really answer how different Carter would have been
than Reagan, other than you know, Reagan had done the
(56:19):
imperative that we make exercises more realistic, which wasn't certainly
any you know, that wasn't any intent of war, and
Carter might not have done that. And so maybe Carter's
able archer was just not as provocative.
Speaker 1 (56:28):
There certainly was some difference in policy there, but I
agree that that ultimately, you know, there's there's a lot
of weight of kind of what was going on at
the time. Now, all these things that seemed to be
kind of leading ratcheting up the tension in the in
what leads up to to Able Archer. You know, would
altering those events have really impacted it or was it?
(56:49):
Did it all come down to the signs that they
were picking up and don't I don't know, because to
some extent, yeah, the changes they made had an impact
on it, but it also just came down to this
this absolute paranoia. Every every event, the Soviets looked at
it and they chose the worst case scenario. And so
(57:09):
I mean, that's that's really what brought able Archer as
close as it got. And I don't know that Able
Archer itself, it was a yearly exercise, you know, I
don't know if that that this. I think they might
have been thinking that Able Archer at any time could
be used as a pretext or you know, as a front.
And that's the things that had happened around you know,
(57:31):
just leading up to nineteen eighty three meant that they
were going to suspect nineteen eighty three specifically regardless, And.
Speaker 2 (57:37):
This puts in a position, say, I mean, we talked
about great Man theory, but I mean, given that this
was provocative in any which way, and you still have
the Soviet program looking for it, and I don't know
that it would have made a different I feel like,
as a counterfactual, it probably would not have made a
difference if it had been Carter and Gorbachev as opposed
to Reagan and Andropov.
Speaker 4 (57:55):
I didn't agree with you on that. Despite the looney
Tunes press of the time, the fact is is that
Reagan and the people that he was surrounding himself with
were very pragmatic and they were never They were not
that particular brand of irrational that decides that.
Speaker 1 (58:14):
That's what you needed, right, I mean, you needed someone
truly and I think that's what everyone counted on a
little bit, was that it seemed like you needed someone
truly off the rails to make that. And really it's
less about whether they were, I guess, and more about
whether each side thought the other one was off the rails.
But if that's not what able Archer exemplifies as everyone
thinking maybe the other guy is off the rails, and
(58:36):
we still didn't because no one was as off the
rails as to be feared they might be.
Speaker 4 (58:41):
And you know there's a lesson there, because history does
teach us lessons, and that is that you know, when
you are when you were projecting irrational fears upon the
leader of the of whoever is opposed to you, oftentimes
you discover that that those accusations of irrationality are really
(59:03):
quite exaggerated. You can choose to let that influence your
behavior going forward, or you could choose to just keep
believing that, oh, well, they were that irrational. And at
this point, I also want to point out that in fact,
up with people prevented nuclear war. So I have done
my small port.
Speaker 3 (59:25):
Working for you. See. I think debate. I think debate
prevented nuclear war.
Speaker 2 (59:29):
I think we brought into the world the understanding of
how many things could turn to global thermonuclear war, and
many of us then went off and not me, but
I'm in a positions of power and authority and they
and they knew the risk because of it. And I'm
fairly sure that I was preventing nuclear war in nineteen
eighty three by by debating you know in District nine,
(59:49):
some of you, well, we were debating there, I don't
gun control or the military support of non democratic government
or something along the land.
Speaker 3 (59:57):
What if we were debating at the time.
Speaker 4 (01:00:00):
Except for that one time that the team presented that
by not doing this, you also caused therma nuclear war.
And the decision came down too, well, ours which comes first? Yes,
ours causes global thermonuclear war in four years, their's causes
in two two.
Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
Yeah, yeah, that was And there were many debate rounds
that came down to whose nuclear war was going to
come first, because then so yeah, look, look I'm going
to give us thirty seconds more like life because theirs
is there. Guy's going to new before my guys Gonda new.
Speaker 3 (01:00:33):
That happened a lot. That happened a lot.
Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
But so if if you were premitting, if you were
preventing war with up with people, I was preventing war
through intercollegiate debate. And we're all here because of Brad
and I. That's obvious. There we go and and the
biggest change is what if a bigfoot had come along
and killed us, then we'd all be dead in the
nuclear war that would result because he wasn't with up
with people, and I wasn't in collegial debate. Now we
(01:00:55):
have solved we've solved history.
Speaker 4 (01:00:57):
There we go, we're you know, we're else. Can the
counterfactions go with able Archer? You know what if able
Archer gets called off in the future and there's a
you know, another crisis not too much later, and you
know the Western allies are not practicing or not as prepared. Yeah,
(01:01:19):
are not quite as prepared.
Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
It's an interesting question to say, because we had a
lot of those drills because we were doing a Korea
and we were doing with the sea and stuff like that, that
that at times caused concern by between the rivalries. Both
sides were doing these. We still do them now in
Korea too, and it takes off no career every time,
and say, if we didn't do those, will be closer
to war, would be farther from war.
Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
It is a fair question.
Speaker 4 (01:01:43):
I can see where a general lack of preparation and
possibly you know, the other reality is and that is
post nineteen eighty three, the Soviet Empire is going into
decline and it's only a few years before America's military spending.
(01:02:07):
In a sense, it breaks the Soviet economy.
Speaker 2 (01:02:10):
Yeah, I mean that was Reagan's idea, piece through strength,
So we were dramatically increasing our So I mean just
a few years differently, the scenario becomes a little bit
different because you really do see a change between the
West and the East during you like, over the course
of the eighties. Eighty three is an interesting time when
we might be more and more evenly balanced. Any kind
of war, if it's a conventional war, the whole NATO
strategy means we would have been given ground before we
(01:02:32):
moved back. I mean, any kind of war means that
a huge chunks of Europe would be essentially devastated, either
you know, in a World War II version of everything
wiped out, or in a nuclear war version of no
one could live in Europe anymore.
Speaker 3 (01:02:44):
That's where it would have had.
Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
Even if you essentially used tactical nukes and it never
you know never, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
I mean that means that people might still live in
the in the eastern part of the Soviet Union, in
the United States, but Europe in East a mess.
Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:02:58):
And you know, let's face it, it convene war even if
the you know, even if the Russians comes through the
full the gap, decide that okay, America is potentially going
to preemptively strike US with nuclear weapons, so we're going
to just send two ultimatums, and that is you know,
(01:03:18):
United States UH and Western Europe. If we see a
single nuke total retaliation, we blow up everything. And we're
also sending forces UH into the fold the Gap to
try to seize West Germany and see how far we
can get.
Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
Just just a conventional war where we where we don't
touch on nuclear weapons, still means millions of deaths. It
means at least several major European capitals devastated. It would
probably have been strategic bombing, very much like the Second
World War, except on on a greater scale, and so
it would have been I mean, it would have been,
you know, utterly horrific.
Speaker 1 (01:03:53):
The idea that this conventional warfare was, you know, is
somehow lesser.
Speaker 4 (01:03:58):
A kinder gin flow sort of.
Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
Yeah, you would say that Hamburg after we tried to
literally you know, kind of just elimited Hamburg and see
if we could do that with bombers, or Tokyo after
we fire bombed or whatever. I mean, you would hardly
tell the difference between those and the cities that have
been hit by nuclear bombs.
Speaker 1 (01:04:14):
There's there's some difference, I guess in terms of you know,
the long term impact of radiation and stuff like that.
But conventional weapons are more than enough to cause absolutely horrific.
Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
Yeah, there are certainly if you look at photographs of
what was going on during the you know, the bombing campaigns,
they didn't these these cities looked everybod as ruined as
as Hiroshima and Nagasaki did. Yeah, it just you know,
took a little bit more time. I mean, you know,
on the on the fari end, if it had gone
a little bit farther than that might have been what
spurred us to disarmament in some version of happy, happy
world peace. By now it's kind of hard to I mean,
(01:04:47):
the way that it's worked out in Russia, I just
don't know that that was ever on the table, if that,
you know, if there was, the rivalry was just too real.
Speaker 3 (01:04:53):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (01:04:54):
But I mean some version that we moved a happy,
happy world peace, or some verson that we moved to
where you know, we're living in caves like the end
with all those of us that are left.
Speaker 3 (01:05:01):
And Bresno said.
Speaker 2 (01:05:02):
The Livy were envying the dead. I mean, that's that's
I mean, when you were the real counterfactual able archer.
I mean, the best case scenario is that the coming
close to war actually ends up being good for us,
and the worst case scenario is.
Speaker 3 (01:05:13):
That people have the war.
Speaker 2 (01:05:15):
Yeah, and maybe I think what we're kind of talking
about here is that maybe the most likely scenarios that
it works out the way that it did, even if
even if you push them things here and there, we
just weren't so on the trigger that a barcher really
was going to cause a you know, earth literally earth
shattering event.
Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
Thank you for listening to this episode of the History
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Speaker 2 (01:06:09):
Became even invest in the inimit