The book Major Rucker is reading here is real, although in their universe it’s a top secret study, rather than a real work on actual strategy. I have a copy of Khan’s book, by the way, and have read it several times over the course of this comic. It’s not what I’d call “light reading,” and I can see why it ruffled so many feathers in the 1960s and 1970s. I think it’s badly misunderstood, though – many people believe that Herman Khan was trying to acclimatize people to the inevitability of nuclear warfare, or even to support it as legitimate or desirable. In fact, if you really understand what the book says, it seems to me that his point was that deterrence of the variety practiced at the time, the “massive retaliation” that still holds such a grip on the minds of both East and West, could not be completely relied upon to protect the international order. There could be situations, he writes, where rational and clear-thinking individuals might actually consider a global nuclear exchange preferable to any other alternative, and only if such an exchange were actually contemplated and planned for could enough be known about its effects for it to be avoided.
The human element seems to have failed them in the world of 6-Commando, of course, but I still think there’s a lot of truth to Khan’s line of reasoning. As a matter of fact, we’re actually seeing much the opposite in modern East-West relations, a deliberate attempt to create dangerous situations, and threatening an irrational and unconsidered resort to violence and warfare. There’s a Defense Department paper on this which I’ve read, as well, and from all evidence both the U.S. and Russia are pretty keen on the idea these days, not to speak of North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, China – well, most of the world, actually, when you get right down to it.
Well, at any rate. I continue in my faith that the spirit of civilization will win out in the end. All things are relative in a world where change alone endures. Who said that? Trotsky?
Well, right you are.
I wonder what will happen. Last chapter ended with a black-out and now everyone is pondering…
Soundtrack to the previous and this page:
Ha! I guess there is a Galactica-esque tone to this on some level. Although if I’m honest with myself, what I would most like to see is a really well-realized animated miniseries of 6-Commando. Never going to happen, of course, but a man can dream.
I love the way different technologies evolved at different rates in this world. Flatscreen computers and Strong AI in a world where nukes are young and H-Bombs are still under wraps. And it’s the ’90s.
It really makes you think about how and why certain technologies are developed, and whether the world we see today is really as inevitable as it seems in the present moment.
A lot of that is my inner Michael Okuda, whose work on Star Trek made it look worn out and “used” in a way I really like. Technology deposits in layers, so you see things like rotary phones coexisting with touchscreens, and 60s-tech tanks and helicopters in the same order of battle as powered armor and WiGE hovercraft. Something about it feels compelling to me, and is a lot of fun to draw, into the bargain.
I would think the Big Book On Thermonuclear War would be alot slimmer. After all the war would be won or lost in 30 mins at most.
Well, that’s not as true as you might think. It’s kind of comforting to imagine that it would all be over and there’d be nothing to deal with afterward because we’d all be dead. But even with nuclear weapons, the result would not be total global annihilation, but a measurable catastrophe. That’s Khan’s point – choosing to ignore that fact is dangerous because it means failing to comprehend the actual consequences of a war like that, and thereby making it MORE likely instead of LESS.
The Day After did a very good job of summing up Thermonuclear War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After
Not exactly. Problem is that what came out of the Kremlin paints a rather DISTURBING picture on the use of nuclear weaponry within the USSR. Nuclear ‘deescalation’ -much like the French ‘nuke anything Soviet on the Rhine’ plans and even then their nuclear policy is so convoluted that it can’t be reliably planned around- being a basic part of tactical nuclear deployment, any invasion of the west being ‘throw the entire drug store of chemical weapons’ being standard procedure, and it only gets more disturbing as you get further into the insanity.
Soviet (and thus Modern) Russia -built upon the paranoia of all other Russia regimes before it- can’t feel safe until a) the very moment of invasion means the enemy gets destroyed or b) have only natural barriers to keep their enemies at a distance. Their response to every new weapon is effectively another arrow to the war quiver. While they do understand the concept of MAD, they only see it as the ultimate end-point.
National paranoia isn’t unique to Russia, to be fair – every nation that rises to a certain level of global influence naturally gets to the point where the population and leadership realize how fragile the cycle of imperialism really is. In most cases those feelings get directed outwards, as in “They want to destroy us because of our success,” or some such.
That said, it’s not every nation that has the Bomb, and not every nation that threatens to use it over minor incidents, either. Back in the 50’s and 60’s, nuclear rhetoric was of an entirely different order of magnitude, and the United States, Britain and France have all dialed it WAY back since 1985 or so. Russia has yet to make that kind of leap of diplomacy, I’m afraid – I mean, threatening Denmark with the Bomb? Come on, man. Mighty Denmark is going to try to conquer Moscow? I don’t think even they believe their own propaganda at this point.
And again, in the interests of fairness, the amount of absurd nonsense in the United States is just as high, if not higher – just read CNN and have a look at the salivating they do over American weapons and missiles on a routine basis. It’s embarrassing, and just as transparent as what comes out of propaganda mills like RT. It’s all an attempt to whip people up into conflict with people they have no material or ideological reason to fight with, except for what’s manufactured by the ruling classes.
The directors actually confessed that the aftermath it portrayed was less severe than that of an actual nuclear war, but it was still effective enough to scare Reagan into an arms treaty with the Soviets.
For anyone overseas, I’d recommend Threads and The War Game by BBC, which were based on the Strath Report, and World War III by ZDF.
Oh, and welcome back.
Well, the thing about that, though, is that even in a global nuclear exchange, on some level, life would go on. It might bring down what we consider organized civilization as it is now, but eradicating an entire species like outs is a vastly more difficult task than even hydrogen weapons are capable of. The most devastating war ever fought was probably World War II, and the aftermath of a nuclear war would probably be similar to that in many respects – it would just be telescoped into a shorter period of time. Whereas it took us, what, five or six years to make a colossal mess of Europe, Asia and Africa back in the 40’s, we could do the same in about thirty days with hydrogen bombs.
Also, think about the fact that an instantaneous, spasmodic model of nuclear war is highly unlikely, because it would require both sides to take the decision simultaneously to just say “What the hell, let’s light the sucker up!” A limited or demonstrative war would be far more probable, and in a way more devastating because more people would witness and survive it, and so Khan’s point is that credible preparation for the event would make it clear that one or the other side is willing to endure it for the sake of whatever it is they are committed to (the American Way, or whatever). This would give the deterrent more force on the one hand, and make preparations in some way possible on the other, giving both sides breathing room to de-escalate and come up with non-violent and non-nuclear solutions to their differences.
And lastly, thank you. It’s good to be back!
Another and even more realistic view of what the aftermath of a nuclear strike would be like (and one I’ve followed extensively in 6-Commando, for my sins) is the disaster at Chernobyl.
As long as you have them something eventually will go wrong. Several times we almost had a nuclear war. Fortunately Russians stopped it from happening especially in 1984.
We are fools to not only have them, but have so many, and more getting them. Chances are there have already been “accidents” and worse ones will happen in the future unless we reduce then eliminate it. No other way. We have enough against us to have our own version of speciecide.
Potentially, but not really, I don’t think. The accidents and close calls we’ve had (Able Archer, for example, the Northern Lights Rockets, the current mess in Ukraine and the Middle East) have been the result of failures to understand and really try to see the world from the other guy’s point of view. And that’s a two-way street, but is too often taken as “You try to see it my way, and that mean’s I’m right,” which only hardens people’s attitudes towards each other. That’s as true inside countries and in person-to-person relationships as it is among nations. It’s not a problem unique to the Bomb, although the Bomb gives it a different order of importance, to be sure.
After having seen some promotion for research on liquid fluoride thorium reactors (LFTRs, “lifters”) in a TED talk a few years ago, one of the things than made an impression on me (but probably does not reflect the full truth) was that, allegedly, although there was research on them and even experimental reactors showing several advantages over what is now regular reactors, the research was canceled as they would not yield, and probably was not design to yield anything useful for atomic bombs.
Often there have been a legitimate need for more energy and originally maybe also an interest in getting weapons grade materials from reactors, and atomic energy programs was started for those two reasons. But what if there had been more research on LFTR’s and that technology could have been proliferated instead? (I guess the same goes for other alternatives as well.) Too bad military interests often set the pace for technological progress…
It’s quite possible that the bomb program had a lot to do with it, and also the fact that the US had ready resources of Uranium in the Southwest, that made U235 reactors more economical in the sense that the material was there and could feed the military need as well. And it’s important to remember that the Soviet Union at that time really was a major threat to the U.S. and Western Europe. Both our countries had just come out of the worst war in human history, and the genesis for both the U.S. and the Soviet was a surprise attack, that cut very deep into the collective psyche of both peoples. So to say that we had a bomb that could supposedly deter this massive potential enemy, but that we weren’t going to build any more of them because we were afraid we’d kill too many Soviets with it, well, that’s not realistic. Or taken another way, for the Soviet to say that they weren’t going to pursue a super bomb that the Americans already had, and had used in anger, because it could kill too many non-Soviets, that’s not realistic either.
Un-inventing things that are dangerous is just not possible. And frankly, the benefits of such things and radioactive medicine, interplanetary (and potentially interstellar) transport and so forth, have been truly revolutionary. The problem isn’t with the Bomb itself but with people’s attitude towards each other. Until that conversion of conscience occurs in our civilization, deterrence is the best we’ve been able to do. It’s like asking “If there really is a God, why don’t we live in paradise?” Well, because we’re humans. We’re doing the best we can.
Most of us, anyway.