Non-motoring > The Queens Speech and Able Archer 83. Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Zero Replies: 13
View Threaded 

New Thu 1 Aug 13 08:30 
 The Queens Speech and Able Archer 83. - Zero
Saw this today

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23518587

WWIII Queen's speech' script revealed

In a Whitehall-written script, the Queen speaks of the "madness" of war
The Queen was expected to urge Britons to pray and remain united and resolute in the event of the "madness" of nuclear war, papers from 1983 show.

and that led me to this.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83


Really rather disturbing, I had no idea.
Reply to this message | Report message
       
New Thu 1 Aug 13 08:46 
 The Queens Speech and Able Archer 83. - Cliff Pope
Fortunately both sides had spies, so throughout the cold-war period could leak information to each other while maintaining the public aggresive postures.

I don't think enough credit has ever been given to the vital need for the enemy to have successful spies in one's camp if the theory of mutual deterence is to work. You can't deter an enemy if he doesn't know what you are doing and lags too far behind in capability, because otherwise you force him to gamble rather than calculate.
Reply to this message | Report message
       
New Thu 1 Aug 13 08:52 
 The Queens Speech and Able Archer 83. - Zero
>> Fortunately both sides had spies, so throughout the cold-war period could leak information to each
>> other while maintaining the public aggresive postures.

Alas Russia has always treated the information its spies obtain as suspect. Every russian spy in Germany reported home that the Germans were going to invade. Stalin had them all shot for lying.

Hitler was convinced his spies were "the golden fleece" , the rest of German high command knew the information was rubbish. (as indeed it was because the spies were the british pretending to be spies.)

On the whole, spies are useless and dangerous.
Last edited by: Zero on Thu 1 Aug 13 at 08:52
Reply to this message | Report message
       
New Thu 1 Aug 13 10:00 
 The Queens Speech and Able Archer 83. - madf
"On the whole, spies are useless and dangerous."

You mean like the Russian ones which enabled the Russians to build nukes based on US R&D?
Reply to this message | Report message
       
New Thu 1 Aug 13 10:05 
 The Queens Speech and Able Archer 83. - Zero
that was dangerous.
Reply to this message | Report message
       
New Thu 1 Aug 13 11:04 
 The Queens Speech and Able Archer 83. - Cliff Pope
>>
>> On the whole, spies are useless and dangerous.
>>

The danger period was early on after the war when the Americans were the only nuclear power, and seriously contemplated the use of nuclear weapons to counter or forestall Russian expansion in Europe.
But fortunately there were spies who passed the nuclear secrets to the Russians, and they swiftly caught up lost ground. Thereafter East and West co-existed in an uneasy balance, each aware of the other's capability and consequences of ever going too far.

It was the spies in the West who evened the playing field and held the peace.
Last edited by: Cliff Pope on Thu 1 Aug 13 at 11:08
Reply to this message | Report message
       
New Thu 1 Aug 13 11:23 
 The Queens Speech and Able Archer 83. - Cliff Pope
A bit like mercenaries really:

These, in the day when heaven was falling,

The hour when earth's foundations fled,

Followed their mercenary calling,

And took their wages, and are dead.



Their shoulders held the sky suspended;

They stood, and earth's foundations stay;

What God abandoned, these defended,

And saved the sum of things for pay.
Reply to this message | Report message
      1  
New Thu 1 Aug 13 12:20 
 The Queens Speech and Able Archer 83. - Armel Coussine
>> saved the sum of things for pay.

Chapeau CP, good poem that, Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries... My father put me onto it way back. He admired Housman but was amused by his generally lugubrious tone.

Reply to this message | Report message
       
New Thu 1 Aug 13 12:26 
 The Queens Speech and Able Archer 83. - Zero
>> >>
>> >> On the whole, spies are useless and dangerous.
>> >>
>>
>> The danger period was early on after the war when the Americans were the only
>> nuclear power, and seriously contemplated the use of nuclear weapons to counter or forestall Russian
>> expansion in Europe.

I dont think that was ever seriously contemplated during the brief period 1945-1949 when the Americans were the only nuclear force. Indeed it could be said that peace deteriorated AFTER the soviets got the bomb.
Reply to this message | Report message
       
New Thu 1 Aug 13 08:47 
 The Queens Speech and Able Archer 83. - sooty123
I've read that previously rummaging around on wikipedia. Interesting read isn't it?
Reply to this message | Report message
       
New Thu 1 Aug 13 18:56 
 The Queens Speech and Able Archer 83. - Robin O'Reliant
Quite a chilling read. I'd read before the one about the Soviets mistakenly thinking a missile was on it's way to them and only being prevented from responding by the one guy who kept his cool.

Those days were kept relatively safe by the fact that neither us or the USSR had any desire to start a nuclear holocaust. It's the religious nuts in the middle east we really have to worry about in the future.
Reply to this message | Report message
       
New Thu 1 Aug 13 19:05 
 The Queens Speech and Able Archer 83. - R.P.
Mutually Assured Destruction was a very stabilising doctrine - Nuclear proliferation was the nightmare scenario, we now have it to a great extent. Getting rid of our deterrent would be madness, at least the Iranians (for instance) are assured of destruction even now if they tried anything.....these naive idiots who think that a un-nuclear UK would invulnerable, they need their bumps feeling.
Reply to this message | Report message
      1  
New Sat 3 Aug 13 11:32 
 The Queens Speech and Able Archer 83. - zookeeper
i was a young man in my 20,s during the height of the cold war.... i dont remember quakeing in my boots here in blighty, the thought of whitewashing the window panes on the house to reflect the nuclear blast never crossed my mind, or stacking the internal doors against an inside wall to make a nuclear shelter
its like when i see old news footage of ww2, not everyone was walking around in gas masks and digging for victory surely?
and as for the ' we can take it' dunkirk spirit and all that cobblers...we didnt have a lot of choice
Reply to this message | Report message
       
New Sat 3 Aug 13 12:46 
 The Queens Speech and Able Archer 83. - Old Navy
>>....these naive idiots who think that a un-nuclear UK would invulnerable, they need their
>> bumps feeling.
>>

And probably have a baseball, cricket, or golf bat in the house in case of an intruder. Same thing different level.
Reply to this message | Report message
       
Latest Forum Posts