Victor Alert 15 Minutes To Armageddon

Author : Lee Downer
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 160 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2016-06-15
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1533463395

Get Book

Victor Alert: 15 Minutes to Armageddon by Lee Downer Pdf

During the Cold War scores of United States Air Force fighter and fighter bomber pilots, both in Pacific and Europe, sat quick reaction alert around the clock, ready to launch on a moment's notice to attack Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union targets with nuclear weapons. This memoir mashes up, with some embellishment, events and personal experiences from the early 1970s in order to provide a look into the preparation, training and sustainment of the men assigned the onerous duty--called Victor Alert. My memoir gives insight into the mundane human aspects of life sitting on the "Bomb"--ready to launch in any conditions, penetrate a wall of defenses and drop it with precision. The "how do we get back home", if there was a home, was a bit sketchy. Aircrews leaving families unprotected and realizing our odds of returning were slim accepted these risks as just another day at the office. When the many years of painful lessons maintaining safe and secure Victor Alert ended, a culture of perfection lost way to other competing priorities. A few highly publicized incidents raised storm flags.Regardless of the implications, Nuke alert became just another part of our day-to-day life. The horrific potential consequences of Victor Alert duty, mixed right in with normal flying activities, mundane household chores and the joys of family life in a friendly foreign. For people stationed in Europe before the internet enlightenment, connections to family and friends in the USA were complicated, expensive and cumbersome. Our lives centered around the squadron, the flying schedule, deployments away from home base, and the weather, bonding our wives and children as much as it did us, the aircrews--pilots and electronic warfare officers assigned to the 81st Tactical Fighter Squadron. But all else was secondary to Victor Alert. Every detail was specified in war plans, concepts of operation, procedures, training manuals, checklists and rules of engagement. To insure we were prepared, frequent war games and exercises gave us practice and confidence. While we all felt absolutely ready to do our jobs if ordered, most of us wondered if anyone high up in our chain of command would be brave, or foolhardy enough to ever push the red button.

Author : Lee Downer
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2016-05-22
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 0997240814

Get Book

Victor Alert by Lee Downer Pdf

During the Cold War scores of United States Air Force fighter and fighter bomber pilots in both the Pacific and Europe sat nuclear alert, ready to launch on a moments notice to attack Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union targets with nuclear weapons. This memoir mashes up and embellishes events and experiences from the early 1970s, while providing a look into the preparation, training and sustainment of the men assigned the onerous duty--called Victor Alert. A culture of perfection affected every aspect of life on the Air Bases in Europe which supported this commitment. My memoir gives insight into the human aspects of life sitting on the "Bomb", ready to launch in any conditions, penetrate a wall of defenses and drop it with precision. The "how do we get back home", if there was a home, was a bit sketchy. Aircrews leaving families unprotected and realizing the odds of returning were slim accepted these risks as just another day at the office. When the many years of painful lessons maintaining Victor Alert ended, the culture of nuclear lost its way in the next decades. Getting it back has been fraught with difficulty--a few highly publicized events raised the storm flags.Regardless of its implications, Nuke alert was just another part of day-to-day life. The horror thinking about the consequences mixed in with normal flying activities, household chores in a foreign country and the joys of family life. Connections back to family and friends in the USA were complicated, expensive and usually slow. Life centering around the squadron, the flying schedule, deployments away from home station, and the weather, bonded our wives and children, as much as it did us, the aircrew--pilots and electronic warfare officers. But all those were secondary to Victor Alert. Every detail was specified in War Plans, Concepts of Operation, Procedures, training manuals, checklists and rules of engagement. To insure we were ready, frequent war games and exercises gave us practice and confidence. While we felt ready to do our jobs if ordered, most of us wondered if anyone would be brave, or foolhardy enough to push the button.

Author : Sean M. Maloney
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
Page : 446 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2021-02
Category : History
ISBN : 9781640124172

Get Book

Emergency War Plan by Sean M. Maloney Pdf

Emergency War Plan examines the theory and practice of American nuclear deterrence and its evolution during the Cold War. Previous examinations of nuclear strategy during this time have, for the most part, categorized American efforts as "massive retaliation" and "mutually assured destruction," blunt instruments to be casually dismissed in favor of more flexible approaches or summed up in inflammatory and judgmental terms like "MAD." These descriptors evolved into slogans, and any nuanced discussion of the efficacy of the actual strategies withered due to a variety of political and social factors. Drawing on newly released weapons effects information along with new information about Soviet capabilities as well as risky and covert espionage missions, Emergency War Plan provides a completely new examination of American nuclear deterrence strategy during the first fifteen years of the Cold War, the first such study since the 1980s. Ultimately what emerges is a picture of a gargantuan and potentially devastating enterprise that was understood at the time by the public in only the vaguest terms but that was not as out of control as has been alleged and was more nuanced than previously understood.

Author : Larry Hancock
Publisher : Catapult
Page : 464 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2015-09-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9781619026575

Get Book

Surprise Attack by Larry Hancock Pdf

Surprise Attack explores sixty plus years of military and terror threats against the United States. It examines the intelligence tools and practices that provided warnings of those attacks and evaluates the United States' responses, both in preparedness – and most importantly – the effectiveness of our military and national command authority. Contrary to common claims, the historical record now shows that warnings, often very solid warnings, have preceded almost all such attacks, both domestic and international. Intelligence practices developed early in the Cold War, along with intelligence collection techniques have consistently produced accurate warnings for our national security decision makers. Surprise Attack traces the evolution and application of those practices and explores why such warnings have often failed to either interdict or intercept actual attacks. Going beyond warnings, Surprise Attack explores the real world performance of the nation's military and civilian command and control history – exposing disconnects in the chain of command, failures of command and control and fundamental performance issues with national command authority. America has faced an ongoing series of threats, from the attacks on Hawaii and the Philippines in 1941, through the crises and confrontations of the Cold War, global attacks on American personnel and facilities to the contemporary violence of jihadi terrorism. With a detailed study of those threats, the attacks related to them, and America's response, a picture of what works – and what doesn't – emerges. The attacks have been tragic and we see the defensive preparations and response often ineffective. Yet lessons can be learned from the experience; Surprise Attack represents a comprehensive effort to identify and document those lessons.

Author : Victor Davis Hanson
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 264 pages
File Size : 40,5 Mb
Release : 2010-05-03
Category : History
ISBN : 9781608192946

Get Book

The Father of Us All by Victor Davis Hanson Pdf

Victor Davis Hanson has long been acclaimed as one of our leading scholars of ancient history. In recent years he has also become a trenchant voice on current affairs, bringing a historian's deep knowledge of past conflicts to bear on the crises of the present, from 9/11 to Iran. "War," he writes, "is an entirely human enterprise." Ideologies change, technologies develop, new strategies are invented-but human nature is constant across time and space. The dynamics of warfare in the present age still remain comprehensible to us through careful study of the past. Though many have called the War on Terror unprecedented, its contours would have been quite familiar to Themistocles of Athens or William Tecumseh Sherman. And as we face the menace of a bin Laden or a Kim Jong-Il, we can prepare ourselves with knowledge of how such challenges have been met before. The Father of Us All brings together much of Hanson's finest writing on war and society, both ancient and modern. The author has gathered a range of essays, and combined and revised them into a richly textured new work that explores such topics as how technology shapes warfare, what constitutes the "American way of war," and why even those who abhor war need to study military history. "War is the father and king of us all," Heraclitus wrote in ancient Greece. And as Victor Davis Hanson shows, it is no less so today.

Author : Douglas T. Stuart
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 552 pages
File Size : 52,7 Mb
Release : 2012
Category : History
ISBN : UCBK:C083537853

Get Book

Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO by Douglas T. Stuart Pdf

is understudied, both inside and outside of government. Tactical weapons, although less awesome than their strategic siblings, carry significant security and political risks, and they have not received the attention that is commensurate to their importance. Second, it is clear that whatever the future of these arms, the status quo is unacceptable. It is past the time for NATO to make more resolute decisions, find a coherent strategy, and formulate more definite plans about its nuclear status. Consequently, decisions about the role of nuclear weapons within the Alliance and the associated supporting analysis are fundamental to the future identity of NATO. At the Lisbon Summit in Portugal in November 2010, the Alliance agreed to conduct the Deterrence and Defense Posture Review (DDPR). This effort is designed to answer these difficult questions prior to the upcoming NATO Summit in May 2012.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : DIANE Publishing
Page : 369 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2004
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 9781428910331

Get Book

Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice by Anonim Pdf

Nearly 40 years after the concept of finite deterrence was popularized by the Johnson administration, nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) thinking appears to be in decline. The United States has rejected the notion that threatening population centers with nuclear attacks is a legitimate way to assure deterrence. Most recently, it withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, an agreement based on MAD. American opposition to MAD also is reflected in the Bush administration's desire to develop smaller, more accurate nuclear weapons that would reduce the number of innocent civilians killed in a nuclear strike. Still, MAD is influential in a number of ways. First, other countries, like China, have not abandoned the idea that holding their adversaries' cities at risk is necessary to assure their own strategic security. Nor have U.S. and allied security officials and experts fully abandoned the idea. At a minimum, acquiring nuclear weapons is still viewed as being sensible to face off a hostile neighbor that might strike one's own cities. Thus, our diplomats have been warning China that Japan would be under tremendous pressure to go nuclear if North Korea persisted in acquiring a few crude weapons of its own. Similarly, Israeli officials have long argued, without criticism, that they would not be second in acquiring nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Indeed, given that Israelis surrounded by enemies that would not hesitate to destroy its population if they could, Washington finds Israel's retention of a significant nuclear capability totally "understandable."

Author : Matthew Kroenig
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 281 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 2018
Category : Business & Economics
ISBN : 9780190849184

Get Book

The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy by Matthew Kroenig Pdf

For decades, the reigning scholarly wisdom about nuclear weapons policy has been that the United States only needs the ability to absorb an enemy nuclear attack and still be able to respond with a devastating counterattack. So long as the US, or any other nation, retains such an assured retaliation capability, no sane leader would intentionally launch a nuclear attack against it, and nuclear deterrence will hold. According to this theory, possessing more weapons than necessary for a second-strike capability is illogical. This argument is reasonable, but, when compared to the empirical record, it raises an important puzzle. Empirically, we see that the United States has always maintained a nuclear posture that is much more robust than a mere second-strike capability. In The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy, Matthew Kroenig challenges the conventional wisdom and explains why a robust nuclear posture, above and beyond a mere second-strike capability, contributes to a state's national security goals. In fact, when a state has a robust nuclear weapons force, such a capability reduces its expected costs in a war, provides it with bargaining leverage, and ultimately enhances nuclear deterrence. This book provides a novel theoretical explanation for why military nuclear advantages translate into geopolitical advantages. In so doing, it helps resolve one of the most-intractable puzzles in international security studies. Buoyed by an innovative thesis and a vast array of historical and quantitative evidence, The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy will force scholars to reconsider their basic assumptions about the logic of nuclear deterrence.

Author : Len Scott
Publisher : Pen and Sword History
Page : 314 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2023-11-23
Category : History
ISBN : 9781526779793

Get Book

The Cuban Missile Crisis by Len Scott Pdf

It is sixty years since the events of October 1962 brought the world close to nuclear catastrophe. The Cuban missile crisis has long been recognized as the moment of greatest danger in the life (and near death) of humanity. In those sixty years, our knowledge and understanding of events have undergone significant change. There are some reasons to be encouraged, inasmuch as we have learned how both President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khrushchev sought to avoid nuclear war. More ominously, we have learned of incidents and events that suggest nuclear weapons might have been used by subordinate military commanders, in circumstances frequently unknown to their political leaders. Decisions whether to use nuclear weapons lay in the hands of often junior military commanders, some of whom were perilously close to crossing the nuclear threshold. This does not mean – as often assumed – that if some nuclear weapons were used, escalation to all-out war was inevitable. Yet the undoubted risk of thermonuclear war in these circumstances threatened the very survival of civilization. Hundreds, if not thousands, of millions of people would have died from immediate and short-term effects, while the longer-term prospect of a ‘Nuclear Winter’ portended the virtual extinction of humanity. Drawing lessons from sixty years ago faces significant challenges. If we draw lessons only to discover our understanding was mistaken, we might well have drawn the wrong lessons. Many received wisdoms about the crisis have been shown to be misleading. What is striking is how after forty or fifty or even sixty years, new evidence has emerged to challenge previously accepted explanations. It is for the reader to reach their own verdicts on the history of the crisis, and how much we owe to political leaders who averted catastrophe (as well as how their words and deeds helped create the crisis in the first place). It is for the reader to conclude how close we came to nuclear war. Whatever conclusions are reached, one overriding lesson looms large. However we judge the actions of political and military leaders, one factor was crucial in why we avoided nuclear war in 1962. It was luck. In October 1962, humanity was very lucky. Will we be so lucky next time?

Author : Richard Rhodes
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 770 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2012-09-18
Category : History
ISBN : 9781439126479

Get Book

Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes Pdf

Here, for the first time, in a brilliant, panoramic portrait by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, is the definitive, often shocking story of the politics and the science behind the development of the hydrogen bomb and the birth of the Cold War. Based on secret files in the United States and the former Soviet Union, this monumental work of history discloses how and why the United States decided to create the bomb that would dominate world politics for more than forty years.

Author : Victor Davis Hanson
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 316 pages
File Size : 42,9 Mb
Release : 2013-05-14
Category : History
ISBN : 9781608191635

Get Book

The Savior Generals by Victor Davis Hanson Pdf

Moving portraits of five commanders whose dynamic leadership styles changed the course of warfare and history trace the stories of Themistocles, Belisarius, William Tecumseh Sherman, Matthew Ridgway and David Petraeus, evaluating their pivotal military roles and the controversies that marked their careers.

Author : James W. Douglass
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 562 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2010-10-19
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 9781439193884

Get Book

JFK and the Unspeakable by James W. Douglass Pdf

THE ACCLAIMED BOOK, NOW IN PAPERBACK, with a reading group guide and a new afterword by the author. At the height of the Cold War, JFK risked committing the greatest crime in human history: starting a nuclear war. Horrified by the specter of nuclear annihilation, Kennedy gradually turned away from his long-held Cold Warrior beliefs and toward a policy of lasting peace. But to the military and intelligence agencies in the United States, who were committed to winning the Cold War at any cost, Kennedy’s change of heart was a direct threat to their power and influence. Once these dark "Unspeakable" forces recognized that Kennedy’s interests were in direct opposition to their own, they tagged him as a dangerous traitor, plotted his assassination, and orchestrated the subsequent cover-up. Douglass takes readers into the Oval Office during the tense days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, along on the strange journey of Lee Harvey Oswald and his shadowy handlers, and to the winding road in Dallas where an ambush awaited the President’s motorcade. As Douglass convincingly documents, at every step along the way these forces of the Unspeakable were present, moving people like pawns on a chessboard to promote a dangerous and deadly agenda.

Author : John Mueller
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 393 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 1934849170

Get Book

Retreat from Doomsday by John Mueller Pdf

Author : Paul Bracken
Publisher : Macmillan
Page : 303 pages
File Size : 48,8 Mb
Release : 2012-11-13
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781429945042

Get Book

The Second Nuclear Age by Paul Bracken Pdf

A leading international security strategist offers a compelling new way to "think about the unthinkable." The cold war ended more than two decades ago, and with its end came a reduction in the threat of nuclear weapons—a luxury that we can no longer indulge. It's not just the threat of Iran getting the bomb or North Korea doing something rash; the whole complexion of global power politics is changing because of the reemergence of nuclear weapons as a vital element of statecraft and power politics. In short, we have entered the second nuclear age. In this provocative and agenda-setting book, Paul Bracken of Yale University argues that we need to pay renewed attention to nuclear weapons and how their presence will transform the way crises develop and escalate. He draws on his years of experience analyzing defense strategy to make the case that the United States needs to start thinking seriously about these issues once again, especially as new countries acquire nuclear capabilities. He walks us through war-game scenarios that are all too realistic, to show how nuclear weapons are changing the calculus of power politics, and he offers an incisive tour of the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia to underscore how the United States must not allow itself to be unprepared for managing such crises. Frank in its tone and farsighted in its analysis, The Second Nuclear Age is the essential guide to the new rules of international politics.

Author : Ron Rosenbaum
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 322 pages
File Size : 54,6 Mb
Release : 2012-02-21
Category : History
ISBN : 9781416594222

Get Book

How the End Begins by Ron Rosenbaum Pdf

An alarming, deeply reported analysis of how close--and how often--the world has come to nuclear annihilation, and why we are once again on the brink.