Doomed to Fail - Ep 106 - It's all fun and games until... War Games Pt 1: Able Archer 83

Episode Date: May 13, 2024

🎙️ Hello! Join us this week as we explore the intense geopolitical tensions of the Cold War era through the lens of military exercises and simulations. Today, we unravel the significance of "war games" during Ronald Reagan's presidency, including the pivotal Able Archer 83 exercise. Discover how a NATO simulation inadvertently escalated tensions with the Soviet Union, shedding light on the delicate balance of international security perceptions.We'll also talk about how close we were/are to total annihilation.Don't miss out on this intriguing journey through past events that continue to shape our world today. Listen now! Sources:‘Nuclear War: A Scenario’ - by Annie Jacobson - https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/748264/nuclear-war-by-annie-jacobsen/The Handmaidens of the Apocalypse - Dan Carlin - https://www.dancarlin.com/product/ep-29-the-handmaidens-of-the-apocalypse/The Soviet “War Scare” Feb 15, 1990 - https://www.archives.gov/files/declassification/iscap/pdf/2013-015-doc1.pdfhttps://americansongwriter.com/behind-the-band-name-megadeth/ Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

It's a matter of the people of the state of California versus Hortonthal James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. And we are here live on a beautiful Monday morning, Taylor. Hi, how are you? Good. How are you? It's Mother's Day.

Did you call your mom? I did. And I ordered flowers. Love it. Did all the things. What did you get from Mother's Day? What did you do? I got breakfast in bed.

It was McDonald's breakfast, which is delicious. And, oh, I didn't, I didn't really anything to show you, but I got some cute little cards and stuff from the kids. And then I got a box of wine from my husband. He knows you. He knows what you like. He was like, you have everything. You know, and I'm like, that's true. I have everything.

And if I want something, I'll buy it. Taylor, we, you and I, single-handedly need to elevate box wine to the amazing thing that it actually is that people who wear fancy pants look down on. Well, you know what I do when I have people over is I have some like really beautiful wine bottles that I've saved that are like, sometimes they're just beautiful. You know, you're like, I can't believe that this was like $7 and it was also filled with wine. So I will just get a box of wine and then like fill up like four beautiful bottles of wine and just have that on the table. That's so smart.

So smart. I mean, I'm like I said, you're giving me a ton of money. Not like I'm buying really expensive wine in like any case, but it looks really pretty. and then I can, you know, use a box a line. I use a big, like a big jug of whiskey bottle for water on the table when I have people over. That's fun. They're pretty and they're nice. And like, I'm like, I don't know.

It's like buying like a really nice bottle to pour something out of. It's expensive. And I'm like, this one came with whiskey. I love that. But I also am 100% the judge a book by its cover guy because I only look at the bottle when I buy wine. And if I like the cover, then I mean. But I take the, but I take off, I don't like pretend that it's something else. I take off the label.

I'm talking about like a beautiful bottle. Oh. You know, okay, hold on. I'm going to, can you introduce a show while I go do a visual for you? While, while we're waiting on a visual, this is doomed to fail. We are a twice weekly podcast. I'm Farr's joined here by Taylor. Taylor is on her way to go get a beautiful bottle to show me how.

Also, this is an audio medium, so you all are not going to see it, but I'll describe the bottle. Okay. so there are two or three bottles that are clear and three bottles yes like this one is clear but it's like it's really pretty like it looks like diamond d fancy is that pretty it's from trader jose and like this one's just like a beautiful shape you know it's not like a regular bottle and this one look this one from trade dress too look how beautiful it is it has all these like flowers on it and stuff so i i i was thinking i would just try and fool people by putting the label on no one would ever fucking know anyway.

People would be like, oh, this cab? Oh, great. Like, no one, no, no, but I don't do that, but I understand why you would think that I would do that because no one fucking knows. Nobody knows. Sweet. Well, um, well, cool. Well, uh, well, how, sorry, how do we get on

wine bottles again? Mother's day. Fancy, fancy thing. Right. Yes. Right. Um, no, we're on the same page. We're going to bring back box wine. Box wine is just as good as any other kind of wine. Don't be stobby. Yeah. Like after your second glass of wine, like, even matters at all yeah we don't need to talk about like whether it's from the actual champagne

region of france or not like it doesn't matter nobody cares nobody cares so uh taylor i think today also happy mother's day to you thank you there we go got that out of the way down the park um so i think today is a you go first day i do okay nilda i'm ready and if something tells me the research wrapped very recently on this Well, listen, I have done a lot of research with this. Let me tell you, my friend, I have read several books. I have this document in front of me that I printed out that is recently declassified and has parts of it redacted. Is this about JFK?

No. But it does involve a partially redacted thing. Here's the thing I want to tell you that in case I forget. This is an entire page of this document that is redacted. The entire page redacted. The whole page is blacked out. At the very bottom, it says, despite or perhaps because of its disturbing message, that is blocked out. It tells you that this is disturbing, but you don't get to know what it is.

Is the disturbing part in editors take who did read it or did nobody read it? No, it's in the actual report. This report is from 1990, from the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, February 15th, 1990. I'm trying to guess what? what this could be. And it's actually also a two-parter. Oh, wow. Okay.

We're doing anthology. Well, it wouldn't be an anthology, whatever. Serial. Okay, got it. So, hold on. So the event, the event is it from 1990. The report that the president commission is from 1990. What happened in, what, so it would have happened in like 88, 89?

The Gulf of Tonkin. No, that's a way earlier. Specifically happened in 83. It happened in 83. was it was it a shuttle explosion no i'll just tell you i don't know when the shuttle in the challenger it's um this is a two-part series on war games and we'll start with the able archer 83 nato nuclear war game in 1983 and next week we'll talk about eligible receiver in 97 which is the the internet digital war game that algor commissioned in 1997 that we're we commissioned in 1997 that

was held at Windows on the World and the World Trade Center and by the people who worked at Cantra Fitzgerald, who have a different fate that we'll talk about. Are you back in your, the world is going to end mode? Have you? If you haven't been near me in the past two weeks, I have been so jumpy for us. Okay, we're in the car and Florence goes, mom, there's something in the sky. And I'm not a normal number, I'm not normal these past two weeks. So instead of being like, is it a bird? Is it a plane? I was like, where? is the tummy where it is I have to pull over because in my head I'm like oh it's a nuclear missile today's today why do you think about that stuff well that I haven't read several books on this so

far this past two weeks okay so I thought the paranoia led you to the research but the research led you to the paranoia indeed got it okay so I'm here because of Dan Carlin because when I saw him and since I saw him he did release an episode um with author Annie Jacobson who wrote a book called nuclear war a scenario. And in the book, she goes through from talking to a ton of people in the government and reading all this declassified stuff, what would happen if nuclear war was launched and how quickly the world would end? And she goes like a minute by minute in a scenario that she creates that could very well happen. You know, like it's fiction, but it could actually happen based on like the real people that she's talked to. I also read the book 1983 Reagan, Antipoff

in the World of the Brink by Taylor Downing. And I read this Soviet War-Scare Declassified Doc from 1990. So, and I also have been to Hiroshima recently. So, like, that also was a bit part of it, too, I think, because I saw a lot of, like, pictures and stories of, like, nuclear, um, just, like, aftermath. And what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki is nothing compared to what we can do

to each other now. Yeah. I was watching, um, it was probably, an old episode. I don't know how I ended up down this rabbit hole on YouTube, but it was like last night and I ended up down the John Oliver episode on nuclear armaments.

And where they're doing this now like I just just did that. But it was basically he was talking about how we have so many of these things and we lose track of them. Yep. And they're all on outdated technology. Am I stepping on your episode?

No, I'm going to mention all of that, but that's all true. It's so scary and it's scary because it's out of control and in so I'll probably say this later um well let me say this well I'll say this later that basically a nuclear war is not winnable a nuclear war doesn't end in weeks or days or weeks or months it ends an hour you know like there's no well it's not world war three it's like an hour and human civilization will never be the same well they do there is that saying that I don't know how we're going to fight World War

3, but we know that World War 4 will be felt with sticks and stones. 1,000%. Yep. They say that in like all these books, because that's exactly right. There's just, there's no way that we don't completely annihilate everyone on the planet in very terrible ways. And we're thinking about that right now

in like the 2020s, but in the 80s, it was also like really huge and like really looming over everything. It was a Cold War, right? So it's like, basically, like, someone describes it as two cowboys in a saloon with guns pointed at each other's head. You know, like, that's what we're looking at. Like, we are, everyone's going to die. This, this paper that I read from the president's foreign intelligence advisory board has a quote from Mikhail Gorbachev in 1986.

And he says, quote, never perhaps in the post-war decades has a situation in the world been as explosive. and hence more difficult and unfavorable as in the first half of the 1980s. So we were just like chilling being babies, but like we were very close to dying. We didn't know. We're just chilling. Just chilling. Being babies. And the world knows that.

That's the first page of this is him saying that. So I, so some things I learned about nuclear war, specifically from Annie Jacobson's book, about like the way that the U.S. would respond to being attacked. So if the president can't just, like, choose a first strike nuclear war, he can't wake up and decide to do that, you know. But the reason the president has, as we know, like the ability to make that decision for a counterattack in nuclear war is simply because there is not enough fucking time to have a quorum. There's not enough time. There's six minutes, basically. And that from launch to having to make a decision of what you want to do next to retaliate.

I don't understand why the president can't launch an offensive I think you can't just like do by myself he has to like talk to other people about it but I'm actually not sure but I'm pretty sure that's the way it goes but I know that but I know the reason that he has that he's the only one who can do the counter attack is because of the time

so if you're doing like a first strike I don't know I was going to look that up but I missed it I'm going to look at up right now sorry like I can't see a situation where anybody would do that ever again given how things turned out but seems like a so here's here's there's a good question so here's the deal in a nuclear that from the arms control association um the president should have so the congress has the ability to declare war

not the president right right so congress can declare war and they can decide if it's going to be nuclear. And then if the president really wants to do a first strike, he needs to have the unanimous consent of the vice president and the secretary of defense. In a reactive strike, the president gets advice from the secretary of defense and advice from the vice president and other people, but ultimately he's a person to make the decision because there isn't enough time to ask everybody. Sorry, how much time is there again? Six minutes.

from Russia? Yeah, it doesn't get here in six minutes, but you've about six minutes to decide if you want to launch a counter a strike. Yeah, it's insane. And so there are a few things about the nuclear codes. There's not just like one button,

but he has obviously like the codes that he needs to give to someone so that they know that it's real and that they really are going to do this. So he carries a little card in his pocket at all times. that have nuclear codes in them. And a Secret Service agent carries a thing called the football, which is like a briefcase.

And he is with the president at all times. And the football is a locked briefcase. Inside of it is like a menu of options for nuclear war. And so the president opens up the menu, looks through it, with secretary defense on the phone, probably, maybe the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff on the phone. And he has about six minutes to decide what to do next. based on like the menu of things

that he has to do. It's kind of badass. It is crazy. So in the book that in the A. Jacobson book, she's pretty much like, no president is prepared to do this, you know? Like, you're just not.

Then like when you do, you're like, you don't know if it's the right thing and you never will. You know, it's like such a crazy thing to even like wrap your brain around that you're supposed to do this.

Can we discuss that? Yeah, yeah, go ahead. why wouldn't ever be the wrong thing if it's counterattack here's what you're deciding so in the scenario in jacombs's book or in a scenario that someone launches a missile from north korea for example north korea the missile is coming

towards the united states it takes like you know it's going to be here in like 20 minutes so you have to decide if you're going to go and counterattack. If you counterattack North Korea, the missiles have to go over Russia. There isn't enough time or there aren't missiles that are good enough

to not have to go through Russia. They have to go over Russia. So if they go over Russia and Russia gets freaked out because in the scenario that she poses, Russia gets freaked out and they start doing a strike as well because they want to be involved. But what you're deciding is like, or if Russia sends the nuclear bomb over here,

if you're like, okay, in 20 minutes, the United States is no longer going to exist. They're going to destroy five of our big cities. They're going to destroy our nuclear power plants. They also have the ability to do a nuclear detonation in space that will knock out all of our electricity forever. And that would knock out cars, that would knock out planes, that would knock out obviously like the internet, regular electricity,

heating, air conditioning, everything that we'd use to survive, that could shut that all off in the United States. So that's coming. Do I make the decision to kill me? millions of Russians who did not make that decision, do I do that or do I let them win? So my argument is, of course you would do that. Well, the thing is, the things you would do that because you would want to level the playing field for whatever comes next, right?

If you don't do that and then that was all the setup to an actual ground invasion, then they are way better situated than you would be to counter. ground invasion that's my logic well they're not going to come on the ground after that because it's going to be covered it we're going to be covered in nuclear nuclear fallout they're not going to walk into the united states they're going to leave it to kill each other and die but but you're right no one's going to not do that but that's a mutually assured destruction part of it is like we're all going to die no one's going to be the one to be like you know what let's let the north koreans just have it it's over didn't that just happen like two months ago where like i remember

and there was like an emergency meeting of like the national security council on like and nobody knew what happened but they were like yeah they think that they literally put a nuke in space that it's like just ready to go yeah and there's a lot of them up there that's actually not the scare that the nukes in space don't scare me as much as hold on let me get here they don't scare me as much as the nuclear submarines there are about 720 warheads of the United States has, nuclear warheads, on their Ohio-class submarines, which are the nuclear submarines that the United States has. But it is harder to see a nuclear submarine in the ocean than it is to see like a great fruit in space. They cannot see them. So there are nuclear subs parked all around the world, and we don't know where they are, and they don't know where ours are. So if North Korea or Russia wants to launch a nuclear, um, attack from a submarine, they could just pop up in like, fucking San Francisco Bay. We would never know they were on their way.

They could pop up, launch a missile, and disappear. And that'd be it. I'm sure you're going to, that's way scarier to me than the ones in space. But the ones in space, also, we can't shoot those down. We think we can, but we can't. I have a ton of thoughts, but, but I'm something on your story. So do you talk and then we'll, we'll discuss. We can talk more about that.

But so that's one thing that I know is like the president having the nuclear codes and the football. The last time the football was open was on 9-11, like just in case there was something bigger coming. We had, we like had options. There's also a thing called the doomsday plane that is a plane that is not. So older planes would be okay in the case of like the nuclear detonation above, above the United States to get rid of all of the electronic communication. older planes would be okay because they're not based on electronics as much as current planes are right which is one thing that makes us feel safe about planes and the computers run them but if electricity goes away then like you're fucked if you're on a plane during that hour but you're fucking anyways it doesn't matter um but um older planes would be okay so there's an older plane there's a doomsday plane that can circle america for like a day and give orders to whoever still left to take orders so that exists as well if it did come to that um so this is also the only time that i feel sympathy towards ronald ragan because usually i'm like fuck that guy you know because of the economy and all that stuff but

ronald ragan he did remember when he launched the star wars program you don't remember i mean you weren't like you were a baby but you know what that is no so ronald ragan saw so gps right was gps He did. He did launch GPS. I'll tell you why in a little bit. But the Star Wars program was essentially a program to be able to shoot down nuclear weapons from space. So they would put something in space, like satellites. And there are satellites up there that they can see if a nuclear bomb is launched within a fraction of a second. They cannot see the bomb itself. They only see the tail, like the fire coming out of it.

And then once that cools off when it's in like the second half or like a second half of its launch, they can't see it anymore. They can only see it when it's like actively on fire. But once it's like once that part is done and it's just like kind of coasting to his destination, they can no longer see it. Which is why our air defense missiles have like a 20% success rate. Like there's a very small chance that they're able to actually shoot down a nuclear missile. But Ronald Reagan saw a plan for something that ended up calling Star Wars because it sounds

very futuristic where you could have essentially a base in space that could shoot down any missile that was coming across the world or potentially have like a barrier across the United States so like you couldn't bomb the US. None of this actually was able to happen but he announced it like really prematurely on the news and the people were pissed and it made Russia

really anxious but he saw stuff like they put him in like the situation room and they locked the door and they did like an exercise where they were like this is that Russia sending all of their nukes over to the United States and he saw that map that like we see and

movies where it shows the United States and it's like one red dot one red dot and then it's over like the United States is just gone and so that's what he's like having to live with is like I need to make some decisions then this is a very very real threat happening right now you know yeah it's got to be rough yeah um and um especially just you're a dope like Ronald Reagan you don't like ready for this he was very funny I will give Reagan humor humor points you know he's not he's not he's a big deal um So it's in the 1980s. It's the Cold War. We have these weapons that are impossible to stop.

And once one country uses it, the other ones will, and everyone will die. The United States and the USSR have Soviet Union have nuclear missiles. North Korea does. NATO does. The United States, all across the Midwest of the United States, there are nuclear silos with, like, ready to launch at any moment. Like, they exist all over. We are ready to have them go. Taylor, real quick, I don't, I don't buy the whole we can't shoot them down thing.

I mean, we built the technology for the Iron Dome in Israel, and they just knocked down 120 Iranian missiles. Like, there's no way we didn't do it for ourselves. We just probably don't know about it. No, I don't know. I don't know. Because I believe this investigative reporter who wrote this book this year about it, about how not great our

system is. But, I mean, I hope you're right. I hope there's a real I'm going logically. I'm just saying about it from a logical perspective.

Like, why on Earth would we build it for, well, obviously we build up for Israel because they're going to be attacked constantly. But like,

but I think it's different. No, but I think it's different if it's like small bombs versus like a nuclear bomb coming from across the world. because you can't see it in a different way.

Yeah. You know? Because I imagine that like a bomb coming from relatively close, you're able to see the entire time. But a bomb that has to like go into the stratosphere and like cross the world in 30 minutes, it's going to be going so high and so fast. And it's going to be, it's like a bullet shooting a bullet.

You know? Right. Like nearly impossible. Yeah, maybe. I hope I'm wrong. I'd love to have to be proven wrong, but it's very scary. So if the submarines shoot their missiles, everyone shoots their missiles, if you don't die immediately, and we're not talking nuclear bombs anymore, we're talking hydrogen bombs, which are like a thousand times the bombs that hit Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In a case where like, it is a bomb where the nuclear bomb, where the nuclear bomb,

that hit Hiroshima is the detonator or a bigger bomb. You know, it's like huge. If you don't die immediately, and if you do, you're lucky. If you don't die immediately, you're going to die in the fire because there's going to be raging fires all over. You're going to die from the radiation. You're going to die from the nuclear winter that's going to lower the temperature on Earth by like 40 degrees because of the smoke and everything's on fire because of the smoke and

the radiation in the air and we're pretty much blown going to be blown back to nothing like you were saying in the book it's 57 minutes and it's over she actually ends her book i think you i mean i definitely recommend it but also i'm spoiling it but she ends it talking about go blackly go becky teppy go blackly teppy in in turkey you know the underground city oh yeah because she's like that's what we would have to do for thousands of years to live in a underground city what if that's what we did i know i think that's also what she's saying what if that's what we did we've already done this before the only the only part of it it's like the reason why it doesn't scare me at at all is i'm like somebody would have to start it and like

who would start it like the only person on earth i can think of would be like kim jung un because he doesn't know that there's a world outside of his it has to something like that like she calls him a mad king in her book but yeah exactly like someone who really doesn't understand or is so like in this space you know where you think that there's no other chance choice but this or you don't care or i don't know that's the only thing that's the only that's the only thing that's the mutually assured destruction that's how people are agreeing that they'll they'll that this will never happen because no one would do that to the entire human civilization. Yeah, no, we talk about in the context of like Russia, but like, I mean, I get it. Putin's like not a good guy.

But like even him, like he's got to be like Spartan cutting enough to know not to do. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like totally. Totally. Totally. Totally. Totally. Um, but yeah. Okay. That's a good question. That gets us into what's happening in the 80s as well. So Reagan is spending a lot of money on these space programs on war programs. He's buying ship.

he's buying things. Obviously, there's a chint of spies back and forth telling each other things. So the USSR sees the United States bulking up their arsenals. Like, we're doing that for sure. You know? So they have this really, really intense, like, paranoia that the United States is going to do that. And that's like the mindset that they have is that the United States is fucking crazy enough to do this. So that's what people, that's what the Russian government is thinking. And I'll tell you why. So. So. Oh, another thing that I learned is the term megadeth refers to nuclear weapons. And Dave Mustaine, who is the leader of the band Megadeth, was in like a real depressive state. And he heard Senator Allen Cranston say, quote, The arsenal of megadeth can't be rid of no matter what the peace treaties come to in regards to nuclear weapons. And that's where he got the name for the band. That's cool. That's cool origin story.

Yeah. So Ronald Reagan is president blah blah blah he was the president of SAG he was governor of California And then he was shot so after he was shot and and obviously lived he there was a lot more thought about like you know that line of succession and like who else has the codes and things like that so the United States is thinking about these things and they're doing these scenarios like they're called war games are just like if this happened then this happens and this happens and And everybody goes through and asking like it's happening and you do like what you would do. So it's like super intense like work summit for like three days where you actually have to pretend that the world is under in nuclear war, you know. Well, it's not just it's not just like they're actually moving submarines around and stuff. Right. Okay.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Correct. They're doing everything except actually doing it, you know, but you're acting like it's real. Right. Um, so in Russia and it's like 83, there's a. new leader, Yuri Andapov, and I googled him to see what he looked like. And it's impossible because there's also an NHL player named Nick Antropov, and he comes up first, which is hilarious.

But Anderpov is old. So the USSR has gone from like older leader to older leader. And he will die in the Cold War and he'll be replaced by Gorbachev. Everybody seems to be, at least in the U.S. side, pretty excited about Gorbachev because he was like the young guy, which is so funny because I just like don't think of him as like the young Sprightly guy, but he was compared to job prior leaders. So I mean, he was probably our age back then. He probably was, but like, but I remember me old because

I was a baby. And so in um, so he's new and him and Reagan will have a couple talks. We'll have one famous one in Reykavik where they do bring down the number of nuclear weapons but it's still always going to be a little bit

tense like I mean, obviously it's always going to be tense between us. Um, so it's, but everybody's getting prepped for like what might happen. So in 1982, the U.S. did a war game called the Ivy League's 82. And these names are just like random military names. So Able Archer 83 is just Able Archer just like words that they use to name things. And that was when Reagan saw the map.

It got really, really stressed out. So he was like, you know, seeing a map of the United States being destroyed like in a matter of minutes. Like everybody, the whole thing. the USSR did a war game called Operation Ryan Ryan and Ryan RYAN like the name but in Russian it means like nuclear war whatever that's a acronym and we learned about Operation Ryan from Oleg Gordievsky and did you talk about Gordievsky when you talked about Robert Hanson I don't think so because Robert Hanson is up in this too he's pretty much like the USSR is Robert Hanson like the big spy on the other side who came over here um And he tells the United States that the Soviets think all the time about an imminent nuclear war. They're always thinking about it. They are always worried about this happening. And they're like really, really, really, really, really paranoid.

And also, like, you watched Chernobyl, the show, right? I saw one episode. So in that, I think they do a really good job of showing that, like, the culture is. in Soviet Russia and not that saying that that isn't the culture here in America and our government or even like anywhere is like you want to please your boss no matter what so you cannot tell them that like you don't have the information you cannot tell them that you don't that you like didn't do the thing so you just make shit up and so like in Chernobyl they're like they like do not solve the problem everything is terrible but they're like everything's fine and everybody stands up and like we're on a board like a boardroom table and claps for each other and they're like great job comrades you know but like nothing actually happened but they like need to tell their bosses that something did happen otherwise they're all going to get like killed or go sent to a gulog you know like it's not good so there's things that like the ussr wants to wants proof of the united states is mobilizing for something so they're doing things like

asking their spies in dc to spy on like the u.s war department buildings and be like how late are the lights on at night you know if the lights are on past 1 a.m it means that they're working really really late and they're probably planning a nuclear war but also like it's probably just a fucking janitor taking out the trash you know they didn't think about things like that but they report back on that and then they'd get like great job great job comrade virus thank you for letting us know that they were open to 1 a.m you know I think um to our credit Taylor our generation is breaking that whole thing of like just confirmation bias I mean I say I don't know all the time I know I tell my team that all the time I'm like if you don't know the answer

whatever so you don't know we'll figure it out later you know like don't lie about it that's crazy but yeah no they're definitely doing that in in the USSR and in their spy game um and they were like um so they're really really heightened everyone's really nervous at the end of Operation Ryan they have like the USSR leaders like press the button to send the nukes and they even paused and they were like are you sure this is fake? You know, like just want to make sure. Like I don't want to touch a fake button

that says nuclear war. You know, like I just want to make sure that like I'm not actually doing this. So tensions are high in the United States, but they're like 10 times higher in Russia because all this other shit going on because they're like in the middle of their communist stuff.

Right. And everyone's stressed out and starving, you know. So then a couple of things happen that like really, really, really make things worse. So have you heard of the time that the USSR shot down the Korean Airlines

flight zero zero seven no so at September 1st 1983 there's a Korean airline passenger flight that from JFK in New York to Seoul Korea it has to make a stop at Anchorage Alaska to refuel so the flight is and this is just like every plane crash we've talked about there's a Swiss cheese model of like what is going on You know, like if the holes line up, then something disastrous happens.

And so flight KAL-007 had a extraordinarily competent flight crew. They'd flown for hundreds of hours. They were just like the one we learned of in the past, like some of the best of the best of the Korean airline pilots. There were 22 children on board. There were some United States Congress people on board. They were going to a thing in Seoul. And there was another KAL flight that was about 15 minutes behind them, which is KAL-015. So another plan is right behind them going on the same route.

And the way that it worked in 1983 is that someone would manually put in the codes of where they needed to go. And they would put in like several codes along the route to show, to prove where they were. So they had check-in points that like weren't like actual places. They're like, okay, we're here. we're over this area, over this area, and we know based on the coordinates that we put in at the beginning that were in these places. And something happened where the person who did it did it incorrectly, probably. That's probably what happened, but we'll never actually know what happened. But because of the coordinates being put in incorrectly in the beginning when they left Anchorage,

they were off course right away. So they should have been flying this like straight shot that went from Anchorage over Japan to Korea and never all over international waters until they were in Japanese and then South Korean waters, never going over the USSR and Soviet air. But they started to slowly move off course. So by the end, there were hundreds of miles off course and they didn't know. There was no landmark. There was over the ocean, you know, so no one was paying any attention. the like no one was like worried who was on the flight everyone's asleep it's the middle of the night and there for some reason they only ever heard from the co-pilot so the pilot was probably like walking around first class and talking to people like it was such a regular flight that like no one was really worried about anything so the co-pilot would be like yeah we're here we're checking in everything's fine the flight behind them was like where we're supposed to be and they were where

they were where they were supposed to be but zero zero seven was getting further and further north over soviet territory so there was no communication with them no back and forth no you're in the wrong spot because they didn't they thought they were in the right spot so no one ever like told them they were going in the wrong direction they were moving the wrong way so the captains of the korean airlines like just didn't know so then the russians they see it coming in and they cannot tell what kind of plane it is. So they're like, it might be a, like, it could be a bomber.

It could be a U.S. reconnaissance plane. It could be anything. It could be a passenger plane. We don't know. So they send a jet up to see what kind of plane it is. And that's where things get like murky because the pilot was like, they didn't have their lights on. So I couldn't really tell.

I couldn't get close enough to like read it and see what kind of plane it was. In one of the like official things afterwards, they got the pilot to sit. that he confirmed that it was not a passenger jet and they got him to record himself saying that to ground control and someone held an electric razor next to him so it sounded like he was still on the plane and they put that into evidence

because they wanted to be like we didn't do it's on purpose but like we'll never really know what happened but either way the Russian I don't know I'm saying Russian and it was USSR all the things but you know what I mean the pilot got underneath the Korean Airlines flight and shot it from below he shot the tail off so we do they did have a little bit of recording from the cockpit saying that like we're descending unbelievably quickly you know and like the um they knew

that like the air pressure had gone down so some people obviously got sucked out of the back other people would have frozen to death instantly um and then it spiraled as it fell and it broke apart in midair and then two pieces slammed to the ocean obviously everyone died there were 22 children on board. Some body parts were found. Shoes were used to identify people, but it was horrible, and it was, obviously, the Soviet Union

shooting down a passenger jet. That's not crazy. Yeah, that's awful. Like, unbelievable. That's what I think happened. I mean, it could have happened with the Malaysian airline. But then I also, maybe I'm making this up, but I remember hearing that there was a plane that crashed like a pasture plane that crashed in Iran taking off Iran and they confirmed it or they suspected that it was actually like the military

shot it down because there was this one author or writer that was on the plane this might happen more than we think yeah I think that's exactly right honestly yeah I think it might happen more than we think but this one was obviously a huge deal because you know a lot of innocent people, you know, were killed. And it brings to mind, like, this is a small scale attack on, you know, a perceived threat. But if one person is confused, so like maybe the person who put in the coordinates on the Korean Air Flight was the person who was confused, maybe it was a co-pilot because the pilot wasn't there to help him, which is something that my friend Ben told me about when he was, a friend Ben, who's a pilot, he was telling me that, like, there's something

recently, like a recent-ish law that, like, you can override the captain. Like, you can be like, listen, Captain, like, you're wrong because for a while you weren't allowed to do that, really. And if you weren't allowed to do that, then, like, there were plane crashes, you know? Right. Like, so there's like, you know, when one person is confused, then everyone's confused, if they think they're going one direction and they're not, like, that they don't know, then, like, anything can happen because they were so close to being out of the way.

Soviet airspace, but they just didn't make it, you know, and it's, and they didn't, and they didn't know, they didn't know what they, what they did wrong, you know, to be shot down. So that, so that happens in early 1983, three weeks later, there's this huge, the huge one that I think we've all also heard about is the day when Stanislav Petrov saved the world. Have you heard about this? Yep. Yep. So, yep, Petrov was on duty at the Okonuclear Warning System Command Center in the USSR. And so, September 26th. So KAL was shot down on September 1st, September 26th. The system saw five missiles coming toward the USSR. And this is also something that was in the Annie Jacobson book, The Nuclear War, a scenario, is that, which is true, is that are reconnaissance and technology available to see what's incoming is like pretty good, but the Russians, even today is not.

that great. And they can see five missiles when there are zero. They could see a thousand missiles when there are 10,000. It's just like not great what they can see. It's like harder than it seems than it sounds to be able to see what's coming towards you. And in this case, Petrov's systems were telling him that there were five nuclear missiles coming toward the USSR from the United States. And he just felt like that feels weird. You know, like we've had no warning. We've had no even though this KAL thing just happened he's like we've had no warning there's nothing on the ground telling me that this was going to happen

and also five is a very very small number so if the US attacks Russia he was always told that it would be like balls to the wall everything you know so he just in his heart he felt that it was wrong he did not tell his boss he waited and it was wrong it was a sun glare off of a cloud so if he would have told someone

they would have counterattacked wild and we'd all be dead yeah so he ended yeah he ended up being um given a different job but never really like given any praise or retaliation for what he did but he saved he saved the world in one way or another um there's also things happening like um there's some terrorism in Beirut the u.s is taking granada there's all sorts of things going on in the world um the russians are looking for the u.s to be aggressive especially after these last couple things that have happened And they're also obsessed with like, 1983 is another 1941.

We were at the brink of war. So they're thinking that. And that's what this, this declassified thing that I read was, the basic conclusion is that like, after this all happened, like after, in retrospect, in the 80s and in the 80s,

they were like, it wasn't that big of a deal. Like everyone was doing war games, no big deal. But what this paper says is that Soviets were like legitimately afraid and legitimately believe that at any moment the U.S. would do this. And so that puts him at like a just an unbelievably paranoid state. So, which brings us to able to.

Can I ask something? Yes, please, please. Do we do we know if the Soviets thought that like Ronald Reagan was a rational actor or not? you know because i think that like when you look at like um okay if like just not even being political i think anybody would if you were looking between trump and biden you'd be like yeah trump would launch before biden would yeah there's some personalities that are just a lot more obvious like why you have that perception of them did they assume reagan had like a death wish or like do we know i don't know i'm sure someone knows um

I'm not sure. But they do see Reagan investing a lot of money in the military, you know? So I think that they see that as like, like, we are building the Ohio class nuclear submarines at this time, you know? So like they know that we're doing that. So I think that that is enough to make them nervous, you know? Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah. I don't know if that means that like they think the person could physically press the button or not, but they do.

see us like we're not like opening the gates and you know making borsed we're like buying guns right right yeah so that brings us to the war game able archer 83 um which is a NATO war game which is like the NATO allies versus the countries in the Warsaw pact and it involves a lot of people all over the world kind of coming together and like you said like doing the um you know they're moving things around, they are in bunkers, they are doing a simulation of what it would happen in this attack. So it's in November 1983. It's a five-day game played in Brussels at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers of Europe, shape headquarters, in Kesto, Belgium. Margaret Thatcher probably participated. Ronald Reagan did not. The Secretary of Defense and other higher-ups in the U.S.

were like, let's just not involve the president in this one. You know, like, in some cases, they did involve him, but they're like, we don't need to involve him at every single one because we really only need him at the end, you know? Right. So someone, like, played him. So the scenario that they had, um, was supposing that it's nice to 83 and in February, so this is fake, this is a scenario that they had.

In February, there was a dramatic change in leadership in the USSR. They sent aid to Iran. The U.S. Navy increased. their stance around the world, the number of ships that they had. By June, things start to escalate in Europe and Eastern Europe. In August, there's protests in Yugoslavia. They leave the Soviet bloc. The Warsaw-Pact people get together.

They invade Yugoslavia, Finland, Norway, attack NATO, attack Greece, attack West Germany. So that's what they're supposing has happened up to this. Then Abel Archer 23 is in real time. So it's November in the year where all of this has happened. The NATO stations follow a script. They're talking to each other and reporting on the crisis. Those real people, there's real paper. They're in these rooms that have like a map of Europe and there's pinned over the map.

And they're like, you know, the Soviets are coming here. They're coming down through, you know, through the, like through Norway. They're coming up through Greece. Like they're starting to attack Europe. On day two, they suppose that the Warsaw Pact countries like the USSR start using chemical weapons. So NATO did as well. Within 24 hours, they retaliated back. Some of the members of the Air Force who were in Germany, like physically had to move to West Germany, get into bunkers and wear gas masks for like a day, like pretending that like, you know, they were under chemical attack. So it's supposed to be like super uncomfortable, you know, because in that case, like if I say to you like Faris, imagine that we're being attacked by a chemical weapon, you'd be like, okay. okay, I'm imagining it, but I'm like, Fars, you have to go into your bathroom, close the doors, put on a gas mask and sit there in the dark for 12 hours. Like, you're going to feel different after that, you know?

Right, right. And that's what they're testing, too, like, the human reaction. Like, it's one thing to say it, but you have to, like, really feel that. And even though you know it's just a game, like, you're still going to be like, this fucking sucks. I am hyped, you know. So people keep adapting, trying to figure out, like, what to do. and they're also obviously talking to each other on like the radio every time they before they say something they say exercise exercise and then the thing that they're going to say so that if it is

intercepted which they know that it will be by the real life Soviets they will know that this is a war game so they say that but like Soviets are like well wouldn't they just say that wouldn't they just pretend it's a war game and have it be real and then you're like well fuck like everyone's fucked if that's it's going to happen. You know what I mean? Like if someone's like, don't mind us. We're doing this scenario.

And they're like, oh, sure you are. But also, it could probably be real. Then like, what are you supposed to do? You know? Yeah, especially during this time when you're on pins and needles anyways, you're always,

it's like they're doing the confirmation bias thing of. Yes. Here's why it's not what they say it is. Exactly. And it is so much of that. so they also can see like you said like there are ships moving in the seas and like things physically happening that are really happening but they're happening in response to something that is not real as an exercise so the KGB is seeing that and they start panicking they remember Operation Ryan

they remember all the paranoia they remember how they think that the U.S. is going to strike first and there are spies everywhere you know making shit up saying what their bosses want to say Maybe they heard bad intel in the first place. So there's like, so much of it is rumor anyway. And so they're like confirming like, yeah, things are happening. Like, we don't know what's going on. And so on the next day of Abel Archer, they, the KGB, in real life, tells its people, tells everyone in the military to expect a surprise attack. So everything was up to DefCon 2 on our side.

the people were acting like Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan and, you know, making decisions. But in real life, Ronald Reagan is leaving D.C. to go to Japan for a summit. So the Russians also see this. And they're like, is he getting the hell out of Dodge? You know, like, is he leaving the United States because he knows that they're about to launch a nuclear attack on Russia? And so they start thinking that things are real. And then towards the end of Abel Archer, they changed the codes that they were using, like the NATO. side did. I don't really know why, but because they changed the codes, the Soviets were like, this is proof that it's real. Like, this is really happening. And so they were like, they started

mobilizing and getting things together to try to reemptively attack the United States before we could actually do the thing that they thought that we were doing. So it was like on the brink of them responding to something that like didn't exist. So that's, that's the answer to the question of why would anybody launch first? Got it. yeah exactly because you're like confused and it's weird and like once one person does it it's kind of over you know right um so also during this time antropov the leader of the USSR is very very sick he is in a home and um like a nursing home essentially um but they're not telling people that he's there but they are like kind of relying on him but he's still like very very sick and he will

die he'll die early in 84 um but one person who on the day that the NATO war game able archer is almost over the USSR is approved to launch they're like ready to go and so there were a couple people in Russia who were able to kind of have some rational decisions there was one man who had a like a calculator that was like thinking that was working on like different like ideas and presumptions. and he was like, the U.S. wouldn't do this. You know, he was like, using a lot of data and Intel and being like, it doesn't make sense, like, why this would happen. He, like, decoded some numbers and he was like, I don't think this is real. And, like, trying to, like, you know, say that out loud. There was a spy at NATO and he was like, everything's fine here.

You know, he was like, I would let you know if, like, something weird was happening, but, like, nothing weird is happening. You know, like, no one in, like, the regular offices were freaking out or anything. And then another person was like, we shouldn't retaliate by getting ready because then they're going to see us getting ready

and everyone's going to be scared so he was like we should just like take a breath so a couple rational people kind of calmed down the leadership in the USSR and they ended up not retaliating and then Abel Archer ended

and then they realized that it was just a game but they were very, very close to that first strike which is crazy. It's terrifying. Yeah, it's terrifying. And then so

so, they do it like pretty much every year and they do these war games all the time and I think that like the big thing that is that could you know doom everyone is really if someone misinterpret something and then there's also like I get that you also might be like well wouldn't you hide a real attack behind a war game and you're like yeah probably you know so they're just like everyone's just going to be holding that gun to each other's head forever. I don't know why, because if you initiate the attack, it's over anyways. I know. No, I know. There are no winners in a nuclear war. I'm saying why would anybody even put on the auspices of I'm doing this like in a fake way when they're going to know when something is inbound to their country that it's real.

but but they might but also like will they because they've seen where like people think it's real and it isn't you know I guess like there's just a bunch of like it's not as like it's not as easy as it seems like I think I thought before doing all this reading that would be easy to be like oh there's a bomb coming at us and it's like harder than it looks and subjects to a lot of mistakes you know there's a lot more people involved in this than than machines which is like terrifying because because people make mistakes but also machines make mistakes and also just like will we just all die in a robot war with like the nukes nuke each other and then and then add on the complexity of like AI yeah exactly trying to interpret what another AI model is doing and then what data was that

fed off was that fed the data of this exercise where it wasn't and then maybe that that model doesn't know and yep and then that'll be it and it'll be just like up to that to that like those computers to decide like the level of threat and like be like okay well I did all my modeling seems right and then launch you know yeah it's very scary and it was very close to to being real because no one was talking to each other and everyone was scared and everyone was like trying to you know show their might and do all their things but um yeah it's a very um you know big responsibility for the presidents and everyone in the world to make sure that that doesn't fucking happen,

which is what the conclusion in the Hiroshima Peace Museum wasn't like, I thought it would be more like World War II related, really, but the conclusion was like, never do this again. Like never do this again. Like a nuclear bomb kills everyone and everything indiscriminately. And if we do it again, we will destroy the world, you know? Yeah. So they are very rightly committed to total nuclear disarmament,

which is now my life's cause because after reading all this, I'm like, oh my God. Like if we have one, we have, you know, a thousand and we are, and we lose them. And they're, you know, huttering around the ocean. And I remember there was that Russian nuclear stuff, but like everyone on it died.

It got like lost in the ocean a couple years ago. I think it was Kirst. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. People are just out there. It's just out there. You know that that's how it's, Titanic was discovered, right?

By a nuclear sub. No, it was, it was Bob Ballard was hired by the U.S. government to find this submarine that was a nuclear submarine that sank forever ago and they could never figured out. And they're like, you can do it. And then, like, you can do your Titanic thing. But first you've got to find this one. We'll fund the whole thing, but find this first.

And that's how, that's what happened. So. That's fun. Yeah, because they're impossible to find. you can find the Titanic before you can find them because they're moving and the Titanic is not moving anymore well no that thing

that thing sunk the the the the thing was I think it was oh it was sunk yeah yeah but it's on the but it's on the ocean floor just like hanging out ready to kill someone

yeah well so well when you say nuclear submarine it means like two two things one is like they're nuclear powered versus like they actually are possessed nuclear armaments absolutely yes that's a good distinction yeah so in that's a good distinction yeah

And so in that case, I know that it was, it was nuclear-powered. So what they were trying to get a sense of was, like, is a reactor leaching into the ocean? Is it still secure? And frankly, it probably doesn't even matter if it's leaching into the ocean when it's, like, three miles down. But I think it's more like a, like, are these things safe enough at that depth? It probably matters in the long run, you know? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah.

Yeah, I'm, you know, also just like to your point, like the, your question about, like, you know, who would. who would launch this first like I think the conclusion from this report that I read and from like Reagan's memoirs and talking about the time is like after this was over the United States was

genuinely surprised at how paranoid the Russians were like we didn't realize that they were on a hair trigger because we weren't you know we weren't as like worried as they were and their you know culture of

telling you what they wanted to hear and like being like very very you know like just like always like really really hyped up and like ready to go you know like made people kind of just like agree that that's supposed to be happening I don't know that makes sense they were like riling each other up so that and then that can be a problem too when you have a lot of people who are making these decisions who are all in the same you know headspace well I do I do I don't I don't I'm trying to I'm trying not to follow the news because I'm trying not to live a weird and paranoid life. But I do kind of get the sense that like we're edging closer to the world being on a hair trigger. Yeah.

With things. I mean, it just feels like there's a lot of moving pieces right now. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's very, very scary. And then like, there was a movie called On the Beach. I think there's two of them. There's one in the, I was made in 1959. and there's one later, oh, in 2000, but essentially for both of them, and I would have made of a novel, is that the world goes into nuclear war and everyone dies and the last people alive are in Australia, and everyone is like dying of cancer because everything on the earth has been destroyed from the nuclear radiation and all the things and, you know, the nuclear winter and the last, and they're like, the last scenes are like in Australia and they're like,

getting these pills from the government to die by suicide because everyone's just like dying of cancer and it's so terrible and then like that's it the human race is over yeah yeah i think i think in any of those situations it is always better to be as close to the thing yeah yeah and then there was also a tv movie um in the 80s um about a post um nuclear attack that was that actually uh aired on ABC in November 20th, 1983, so a few weeks after Abel Archer 83 ended, and it was called the day after, I'm not going to watch it because

it sounds terrible, but John Lithgow's in it, Steve Gutenberg's in it, but it is about what happens after saying that, like, Kansas is, in this case, hit by a nuclear bomb, and then it has like the what happens afterwards, and that show really affected Reagan as well, and that

led to him having more talks with Gorbachev because he was like, we can't do this, you know, like seeing it. And then I have a book that I read in elementary school for no reason and I bought it to have because it had profound effect on me called After the Bomb and it's a book that was written in the 60s about Los Angeles

accidentally being nuked by the Russians and what people do kind of after and during it and it is horrifying and I don't know why they gave that to children but I thought it was my children yeah I literally have it here at my house to have my kids read it but it's scary as fuck and like

you know if you imagine like all of our infrastructure just going down you know like one thing i remember from the after the bomb book is like the kid is like the kids happen to be playing in a bomb shelter when it goes off like they're okay but like their parents are not okay and he like brings his mom to a hospital and the nurse he's like a doctor need a doctor and the nurse looks at him and she goes doctors died too like there are no doctors like that's the and that's the thing that happened in hiroshima too they were like doctors would work until they were dead because there were no other doctors yeah that's why i'm like just

be as close to it as possible. Yeah. Because there's something you just don't want to survive and it feels like that's probably one of those. That's one of them. You don't want to be in it. It sounds,

it will be absolutely terrible. And then we'll have to go underground and then in the future archaeologists will dig us up and be like, I wonder what that was about. And then we'll do it again. I do like the idea of like being at a scholastic book fair

and you hand a kid like a curious George and then also this like nuclear Holocaust book. I know. enjoy here you a little timmy I know it's pretty intense and then you said this is a series so we're going to do another one next week yes next week we're going to talk about

the 1997 game eligible receiver 97 it was a war game that Al Gore commissioned people at Cantra Fitzgerald the accounting firm to do with people in the government to say what would happen if there was a cyber attack on the United States

and we'll talk a little bit about that and then what happened and a couple years after that in the same building that they did not expect as well. Which was 9-11. It was 9-11.

Like, Canada 3-year-old, most people there died. Wow. But a couple years before that, they were, like, worried about this threat. And they, you know, there was another threat, like, looming, which is kind of a big deal. So talk about that next week. And then after that, I'm going to talk about, like, puppies.

Yeah, let's change. I'm not okay. I will never complain for puppy content. That's awesome. Well, thanks for that. That was fun. That was really interesting. It was also weird that I literally just watched the nuclear thing last night.

I know it's like in the zeitgeist. Yeah, yeah. But do we have anything you want to read off before we wrap? A lot of people gave me shit about how I was wrong about the unexamined life of Socrates. So I get it now. Me and your husband were the ones. um that's all and um also our friend morgan said that if you look up business fail and spell it correctly on overcast we are 17th in life oh nice nice okay that's exciting oh and also i made a website but it can't

get the dns to work we have to talk about it like the dns didn't it failed like twice and then i put in a txt record and now i'm waiting for that but i don't know that's going to work so we'll talk about it later but i made a website very exciting very exciting once we have a URL to share we will in meantime you can still write to us at doom to fell pod at gmail.com. Follow us on the social at doom to fail pod and we'll join you in a few days with another story. Thanks, Farrs. Thanks, Taylor. Thanks.