It was amazing. I wasn't unsettled—more surprised. Assumed it was a meteorite burning up close by.

Yes they're quite bright but more consistent in their brightness, but any ICBM is going to detonate quite a lot higher.

Also: why is it still bright? Don't understand why it would still be firing at that point. Is it burning?

Everyone, including grade school children old enough to be aware of it, used to worry about that sort of thing. That latent fear lay across everything and everyone in the US, until around the time the Berlin Wall fell. It was an incredible feeling of the lifting of a mental burden.

I invited my little friends up to the roof to await the end.

The cold war was such fun /s.

https://cochranesfsophomores.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/fos...

Like everyone else, I let my defenses drop after '91 or thereabouts. They are back up these days, I can assure you. Unexpected lowflying aircraft, loud bangs, F16 fighters screaming pairwise out over the Baltic, believe me, I pay attention.

Rational Wiki has a good summaryhttps://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Duck_and_Cover

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/atomic-tattoos/

My freshman physics professor had a story about working for a cold war defense research lab, and not being told what the graph he was working on was about until he absolutely had to know. Eventually, it was revealed that the graph was for % fatalities from flying glass by height of airburst, megatonnage of weapon, and distance from ground zero.

It was at that moment, he decided to find a job elsewhere.

They still have thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at eachother, on hairtrigger alert.

There is zero rational reason for that fear disappearing.

Yes, there is. Political bravado coupled with distrust of politics in general and mainstream information being what it is today it's very hard for citizens to notice geo-political turmoils.

Personnaly I'd blame the fascination for useless plastic gadgets masquerading as star-trek level tech but I can't be certain.

https://youtu.be/TIoBrob3bjI?t=20

Even if they’re at home and you have a bunker, you don’t want the neighbors inviting themselves over. You want them locked safely inside before anyone else knows.

> The only time locking yourself in is really important is if it's a long term disaster, either something nuclear (where this is most valid)...

A nuclear ICBM striking DC is the scenario. Even though the strike is short term, that's a long term event with a lot of unknown variables.

In any case, I suspect it's a probable stance people will take regardless of the merits.

Basically, in the abstract, and in pop culture according to video games and movies... your approach is the way to "win", but the human psyche is a fragile thing.

(I'd clarify, this isn't meant as any sort of criticism, I just think that considering these sorts of scenarios in a abstract sterile setting is very different from how you'd experience them as they happened - and that's interesting to me.)

You can't expect rational behavior from governments. In a time of crisis, there will always be some idiot in power, who doesn't want to face reality, or cares about their pet issue more then overall well-being, or feels that they have no alternative options.

Note that the incident is started by North Korea downing a civilian jet, even if by mistake, South Korea reacting, NK going berserk with nukes, US responding with conventional weapons... Hmmm, a bit kind towards the West. The US certainly come out as the level headed guys, which doesn't sound very coherent with recent rhetoric and events.

Churchill rather typically stated it most succinctly: When presented in late 1941 with the report of Hitlers declaration of War on the U.S he said (paraphrasing a bit from memory on the literature) "So then we do win this war after all.."

As for Japan, SOME of the top people in the government and military knew they were committing slow suicide with their attack (Yamamoto for example, thought it was complete idiocy to fight the U.S) but there were enough fanatical believers to push through their idea that if they could just get the upper hand on the U.S in a preemptive naval/air war in 1942, they might secure peace for their Asian conquests.

Saddam Hussein thought that telling the United States to go pound sand was the correct move. He thought that all the talk by the warhawks in the Bush administration was just bluster.

As it turns out, that talk was not bluster, telling the US to sod off was not the correct move, he got to dance the hemp fandango, and 16 years later, Iraq is still in the middle of a civil war.

These kinds of geopolitical failures happen when one country's leadership mispredicts how another country will react to its actions. This can happen in any year, be it 1939, 1941, 2002, or 2019.

They either start by one side believing the other side fired a nuke. (See: Every close call having to do with a communication failure/false detection.)

Or by one side believing that firing a tactical nuke is the only way to accomplish their goal. The battle doctrines of both the United States, and Russia, permit the use of tactical nuclear weapons in conventional military engagements. I wouldn't be surprised if, in a shooting war, some idiot were to actually use a tactical nuclear weapon, believing that it would not escalate into an exchange of strategic nuclear weapons.

It doesn't have to be anybody's decision. Cascading mistakes and system failures happen.

This assertion has no historical basis. Plenty of people stand to profit from such a war. Just look at World War II. Countries, companies, and individuals profited greatly. Even in the worst case of total nuclear annihilation, someone who was prepared for such an event could profit, depending on your definition of profit. In any case, what matters is whether the people involved believe they can profit; however they define profit.

Amy preemptive strike will have no warning . Otherwise it would defeat the purpose.

On a similar note - the number of people asking about ICBMs every time SpaceX has a twilight launch... facepalm