Whenever you need to put something out there, but don’t want anybody to see it, it’s always a good idea to release it over a holiday. You can expect all sorts of press releases and announcements today, but none is quite as fascinating, or as scary, as the American government’s plan to completely obliterate Soviet Russia with nuclear weapons.
The plan dates from 1956 and was recently declassified for the National Security Archives. What’s scary about it is more or less that it was a plan to kill millions of Russians and associated Communists to keep them from retaliating, something the 800-page report outright admits: Among other nuke targets, you had cities like East Berlin and Warsaw, destroyed largely due to government presence. In case you were wondering, yes, this is absolutely against every law of warfare, but that tells you how much the laws of warfare matter when nukes are in play.
Needless to say, we never ended up putting nukes in the sky. But this report illustrates just how vast the human cost would be and just how ruthless such an attack would have been, contrary to public claims. Boy, it’s sure a relief Russia isn’t run by some clown who needs to thump his chest constantly and loves antagonizing rival militaries, huh?
(via Foxtrot Alpha)