Every incident is an opportunity

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1

Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 08:05:08 GMT
From: Brandon Butterworth <brandon@rd.bbc.co.uk>
To: nanog@merit.edu
Subject: Re: Every incident is an opportunity

> > During the cold war American kids
> > were trained to hide beneath their desktops in caseof a nuclear
> > attack. Much good that would have done.

It could have kept them from running around the streets screaming we're
all going to die.

It may well save people if they are on the edge of the survival zone,
that may not be a good idea but at least they know what to expect

I don't pretend to know the real reason but keeping control is usually
better even if you can't change the outcome.

There is a 'relatively small' area around ground-zero where it wouldn't
make any difference what action was taken -- virtually everyone in that
radius would be a 'prompt kill' causalty, regardless.

0utside the 'prompt kill' radius, there is a much larger circle where
blast/concussion/over-pressure effects are the major cause of _immediate_
injury. _Most_ school-buildings in metro areas were of 'relatively'
_survivable_ construction. Although there was likely to be significant
damage -- flying glass from broken windows, airborne 'projectile' objects,
possible minor thermal-flash triggered fires, etc. -- the buildings were
not likely to suffer total collapse.

'Tornado safety' precautions -- "get underground, if you can,", and "get
under something _solid_" -- are effective in minimizing immediate injuries.

Many urban schools simply _did_not_ have basements. So that 'safety hatch'
was not available.

In the event of an imminent nuclear 'event', you just DON'T have any 'good'
options. Depending on the delivery system, you may have a _maximum_ of
from three (3) to 25 minutes warning.

This isn't enough time to send the kids home. Assuming home provides
better protection than the school building. *BIG* assumption.

You don't have a basement to retreat to.

You sure-as-hell don't want the kids gawking out the window, and ending up
looking into the blast -- even from a range that wouldn't break windows.

So, you make the 'best use' of what resources you _do_ have available.

You cannot do much about preveting/reducing radiation injury. Given the
situational constraints you have to work within.

Blast/concussion/over-pressure is another story.

When that procedure was promulgated, many classrooms had heavy wooden
trestle-type desks.

Getting _under_ them was some of the 'best protection available' against
flying/falling 'foreign objects'.

It is also a matter of experimental fact that having a _plan_ to do 'something'
in event of an emergency -- 'right', 'wrong', or 'worthless' -- *IS* better
than having no plans. "No plans" degenerates very quicly into 'panic', which
is virtually always the 'worst possible thing'.

'Duck and cover' may not have appreciably incresed survival odds for those
relatively near ground-zero, but it was (a) "better than nothing", and (b)
about the "best that could be done", given the real-world constraints that
did exist.

BTW, I was in school (elementary/seconndary) in those days (1958-71), in a
mid-sized Midwestern city. We -never- had any of those kind of drills.
Apparently 'the powers that be' concluded that there was nothing in our
vicinity that would be worth dropping a nuke on. :slight_smile:

2

Mostly the same as what I said, but one important difference: duck and
cover was a response to seeing the flash (only seconds), not to sirens
going off (minutes) which was generally get your coat and go into the
hallway and close the classroom doors and await further instruction
like maybe head to the basement, being sent home was discussed and
there's even some cultish early 60's? movie that revolves around the
teachers sending the kids home upon hearing nuclear attack was
imminent, etc.

> BTW, I was in school (elementary/seconndary) in those days (1958-71), in a
> mid-sized Midwestern city. We -never- had any of those kind of drills.
> Apparently 'the powers that be' concluded that there was nothing in our
> vicinity that would be worth dropping a nuke on. :slight_smile:

POSSIBLE OPERATIONAL CONTENT:

In the late 60s I remember having an interesting conversation with
someone who did this kind of strategizing for the Dept of Civil
Defense.

His scenarios were markedly diferent from the "urban folklore" you'd
hear from people about what the Russkies were likely to nuke, other
than everyone agreed they'd try to get the silos and a few other key
military assets to try to prevent retaliation.

But by and large his scenarios worked forward from the assumption that
it was a prelude to an invasion and if you're going to invade you
don't want to destroy immediately valuable assets like big factories
etc. which usually meant you didn't want, or have any good reason, to
nuke major cities, they'd make good slaves.

Notice how this "they'll nuke the big cities first to kill as many of
us as possible" presumption carries forward even today to the central
plot of the current US TV show Jericho (it's summarized in the
wikipedia) tho of course the enemy and its strategy has changed since
the end of the cold war.

Then again much of 9/11 did kinda happen in a big city.

Anyhow, far be it for me to try to outline an invasion for fun and
profit scenario in less words than you'll tire of reading. But it's
somewhat different than a white-hot grudge match fling them all at
major population centers extermination scenario.

The operational content is to be careful of folkloric wisdom in
regards to major disaster no one involved has ever really personally
experienced.

3

Targeting strategy changed over time, because of changes in technology,
quantity of bombs available, accuracy, perceived threats, and internal
politics. For a good history of US nuclear targeting strategy, see
"The Wizards of Armageddon", Fred Kaplan, 1983. The short answer,
though, is that it changed markedly over time. To give just one
example, at one time the US targeted cities, with very big bombs,
because the missiles of the day couldn't reliably hit anything
smaller. Since that's what was possible, a strategic rationale evolved
to make that seem sensible.

    --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

4

Of course, but the point was the goal of that targetting. The US
public by and large believed, and seems to still believe (i.e., the TV
show Jericho) that the goal of a USSR attack was purely vindictive,
complete annhilation. Apparently Civil Defense leaned more towards
invasion as a goal.

No doubt as weapons systems evolve how you achieve one goal or the
other evolves.

Either goal leads to different targeting strategies, as possible. If
your goal is invasion then value preservation is important (factories,
bridges, civilian infrastructure, etc.) If anniliation is the goal
than it's of no importance, just bomb the densest population centers.

5

Of course, but the point was the goal of that targetting. The
US public by and large believed, and seems to still believe

       [snip]

If anniliation is the goal than it's of no importance, just
bomb the densest population centers.

To borrow from snarky comments past:

Unless Vendor C has introduced a "no nuclear-apocalpyse" command that I
need to enable in IOS, it seems that this thread has wandered far from
the flock and subsequently lost most any relevance to the listserv
and/or topic that spawned it. Cold War strategy is fascinating and all
(I do mean that in a non-snarky way) but does it really belong on NANOG
after it has seemingly dropped any pretense of being an analogy for
anything list-relevant?

-Feren
Sr Network Engineer
DeVry University

6

Some of the time, that was the goal... It's not that anyone wanted
that; however, it was (a) achievable, and (b) it was part of the MAD --
mutual assured destruction -- deterrent strategy. One could argue that
that part, at least, worked, though I would assert that that was at
least partially by accident.

    --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb

7

Hmm, let's see.

Nukes => cold war => arpanet => internet

Yup, looks ok.

8

Causality? WW2=>nukes, cold war=>arpanet=>internet, surely?

9

Come on guys... Some more originality please... Internet--->Al-Qaeda
fundraising---->Afghanistan--->USSR vs. US---->Cold war---->
Arpanet---> Internet.

Vicious cycle.

-mike

10

Causality? WW2=>nukes, cold war=>arpanet=>internet, surely?

Hitler=>WW2=>...

Godwin!

Please?

Anyway, we all know Al Gore invented the Internet.

11

Alexander Harrowell wrote:

Causality? WW2=>nukes, cold war=>arpanet=>internet, surely?

Heh. We're that > < close to invoking Godwin's Law here. :slight_smile:

12

warning-- this thread is so far off topic, i can't even REMEMBER a topic
that it might once have had. hit D now.

bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) writes:

... If your goal is invasion then value preservation is important
(factories, bridges, civilian infrastructure, etc.) ...

so if the last remaining superpower were to bomb a country in the middle
east in preparation for invasion, regime change, etc., that superpower
would be well advised to avoid hitting civilian infrastructure, assuming
that its bombs were smart enough to target like that?

(i'm sorry, but your theory doesn't sound plausible given recent events.)

13

a message of 17 lines which said:

so if the last remaining superpower were to bomb a country in the
middle east in preparation for invasion, regime change, etc., that
superpower would be well advised to avoid hitting civilian
infrastructure, assuming that its bombs were smart enough to target
like that?

I believe that Barry Shein was assuming "invasion for a long-term
occupation and exploitation", like the Romans did in Gaule in 52
bc. Not "invasion for destroying a regime" like the Allied did in
Germany in 1945.

14

What theory is plausible? DNSSEC even sounded good on the drawing board. :wink:

I think that war strategists have always only wanted to attack the other side's war machine and political machine. (Said sarcastically:) A bullet in a civilian is a waste of metal after all. The problem is that theory and operations don't mesh well.

A bomb that killed only warriors and their infrastructure and left schools and children safe is as likely to exist as an electronic messaging protocol that prevented spam but let good email through. (How's that at trying to come back to being on topic?)

15

Neutron bombs?

[Mild apologies re continuing this thread]