"First Strike" (1979) Cold War / WWIII Nuclear Attack Docu-Drama

so [Music] since the second world war the ultimate security of the united states has depended on the awesome destructive power of its strategic nuclear forces to deter thermonuclear war the strength of this deterrence was based on the calculation that we would inflict terrible destruction in retaliation for a nuclear attack this doctrine of assured destruction is dependent on the certainty in the mind of an aggressor that we have the will and ability to retaliate to always maintain this ability a sufficient portion of our strategic forces must be able to survive any nuclear exchange even a surprise first strike whether america's strategic forces will continue to be able to survive such a disarming preemptive attack is today a matter of increasing uncertainty oscar control trip 14-oscar on your access request entry captain stanton plus one abolish with 10 krause thank you sir so [Music] hmm taking lines two and four [Music] bridge after captain lines two and four are in [Music] [Music] thank you very much good morning everybody stand easy please how's everybody today good sir this is the current world intelligence situation and uh you might pay particular notes to the nuclear submarines off the east and west coast okay and then back here we have the situations that have changed uh in the last 12 hours worldwide okay i'll complete the review of those after we get airborne yes sir implement confidence reporting missile warning this is beale stand by for confidence reporting ssco no malfunction that's the warning of malfunctions missile warning this is be all confidence is high i repeat confidence is high i want to confirm is this an exercise roger copy this is not an exercise [Music] general the senior controller at the command post we have a warning message that requires your immediate presence [Music] impacts of moderate count at this time hello sac warning controller this is the airborne uh confirm inbound missiles on the u.s [Music] roger understand major reinhardt we have 12 semantic ballistic missiles inbound on the u.s now you're gonna go out with me tomorrow night i thought maybe check out the hacienda and have a dinner or something might even let you treat you don't mind do you hey i gotta go [Music] oh wow you're the guy that can't run the chat [Applause] sir we've just received a message from the sac underground command post putting all the sac force crews in their aircraft with their engines started okay man i got the key do you have your key yes sir roger i understand major reinhardt we have a massive attack against the us at this time icbms numerous icbms [Applause] okay last man this time [Music] general the sec underground just initiated a positive control launch message it appears that they uh discontinued the message halfway through or there's a detonation or they've been destroyed alpha tango golf lima so based on the initial launch poll and the bombers and missiles are destroyed these are the targets that we now have uncovered no longer have weapons against them x-ray five stand by this follows that's a gcs execution from the president step one launch case inserted roger [Music] let's enable the missiles program flight switch enable fall unlock code inserted standby unlock codes inserted naval switch enable it's enabled [Music] 34 minutes into the attack the strategic forces of the united states have suffered a crippling blow of the one thousand minute man missiles only 46 remain operational of the 330 b-52 bombers all but 22 have been destroyed on the ground of the 41 ballistic missile submarines 17 have been destroyed in port and an unknown number are presumed lost at sea the attack has been restricted to strategic military targets eight million americans are dead the united states is given an ultimatum any attempt at retaliation will result in the certain annihilation of america's urban population nine minutes later the president orders all surviving u.s forces to cease fire although the likelihood of a surprise soviet attack in the united states is very remote the growing possibility of such an attack being successful undermines our policy of deterrence and brings closer the risk of nuclear war [Music] our bomber and missile forces were designed and built in the 1950s and 60s to be secure against the threat from the relatively small and inaccurate soviet missile force that existed at that time today the united states is confronted by a soviet missile force that is massive and highly accurate it is now conceded that an attack on our minuteman missiles would result in the destruction of 90 percent of that force the consequences of this development are grave and far-reaching we always did expect to be in this position if we didn't modernize our forces we didn't expect to be this soon and we expected to have modernized our forces faster than we did some 15 years ago the united states decided to exercise a policy of self-restraint in our strategic force programs hoping that we would induce reciprocal self-restraint on the part of the soviet union and from that strategic arms limitations would be reached the idea then was that the more we did in our strategic forces the more we'd force the other side to do whereas the less we did then the less they would have to do now in pursuing this uh policy of self-restraint we forgot the second half of the of the proposition and that was the minimum we must do is assure always that our forces are thoroughly survivable against any scenario of to use harold brown's words even a well-executed surprise attack the soviets in contrast to the united states over the last 15 years have been serious about defense they have been deadly serious about defense at the moment they are not only procuring more defense hardware than the united states by 90 or 100 percent they are outspending the entire free world in the area of military investment and one must assume that they have some calculation and some motive for that behavior the soviet union now has the ability to deliver a nuclear warhead within 600 feet of a minuteman silo it is this accuracy combined with the destructive power of the thousands of nuclear warheads in the soviet arsenal that has made our land-based missiles vulnerable a sound deterrent must be based upon the proposition that no major component of our deterrent forces is vulnerable otherwise we've lost the ability to enforce stability in a crisis or at any other time but the icbm force is unique because it carries with it particular properties that are essential to carrying out a reasonable strategy of limited strikes against hard targets it's the icbm force and only the icbm force that's capable of threatening soviet time urgent hardened targets the submarine force isn't accurate enough and the bomber force isn't rapid enough therefore knowing this the vulnerability in the icbm force seems to me to be the most destabilizing possibility that we can face in the 1980s to design your land-based missile forces so that they are capable of withstanding a surprise attack from four or five thousand soviet icbm warheads is a very substantial undertaking and it takes a a system of the scope and the complexity of the mx to do that we've looked at dozens of alternative ways of doing it we know of other ways of doing it but they're all either more complex more expensive than mx or they are not technically feasible they do not really provide the reduction in vulnerability the mx missile is to depend for its survival on a multiple protective shelter basing system each missile would have 23 shelters between which the missile would be periodically because of the uncertainty as to which shelter contained the missile all 23 would have to be attacked to be sure of destroying one missile such an attack is considered too costly for the soviets to undertake while the controversy surrounding this system has mainly concerned its great cost and environmental impact a more urgent consideration is how soon it could be available that system won't begin its deployment until 1986 it won't complete it until 1989. so during the 80s we will not have the ability to withstand a surprise attack on our land-based missiles and that is a problem and that does increase the risk there is an interim solution that the u.s has worked on for many years and has found technically feasible and that is to take the existing minuteman 3 missile canisterize it modify it so that it can be easily moved from one location to another build many silos for each individual minuteman 3 missile this would require much greater resources on the soviets part to destroy the land-based missiles and would certainly give a great deal of survivability to the land-based missile force this could have been done by now and could certainly be done by the mid-1980s with the minuteman 3 missile because the missile already exists and doesn't have to be developed from scratch there's fundamentally nothing wrong with expanding the minuteman deployment building several thousand more shelters in the minuteman fields and having a deceptive basing system with a minuteman system but it is an illusion to think that that would happen any quicker or any cheaper or be in any way superior to the mx program the latest estimates showed that the mrx system would cost 50 billion dollars why is that only about a fifth of that will be the missile the rest is the deployment scheme the shelters the transporters the tracks the roads and so on why all that well on the one hand you want to have the missile hidden concealed so the russians do not know where it is so they cannot target it attack it with their missile warheads on the other hand because the government still thinks that there will be assault strictly in the future and for the purposes of salt they want to have the missile to be seen and verifiable that's why you have these complex shelters with sliding roofs that can be opened and closed inside you're trying to square a circle you're trying to have a missile which is invisible so they'll be safe and visible so that it can be counted for arms control you try to do the two and it costs you 50 billion dollars if we look at any one system in isolation including the mx we can design ways of destroying that system the way that we protect our deterrent is by having multiple systems all of which have certain advantages as well as certain disadvantages and the composite of those systems provides us with adequate deterrence we are going to need the mx one has questions about the particular mode of deployment but it is far more important for the united states to redress the strategic arms balance than to indulge in a five or ten year debate about the ideal mode of deployment america evolved a so-called triad of strategic forces after the second world war bombers intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear submarines which could launch missiles while safely submerged it has been suggested that we abandon our vulnerable land-based missiles and rely on submarines and bombers only this might be possible if it were not for inherent limitations and potential problems facing these forces the bomber force in my view is at least as vulnerable to a first strike as is the icbm force it's highly concentrated the alert rates are very low and soviet advances and technological capability have put that force into jeopardy in the time frame every bit as much as the icbm force in the event of a surprise attack it will take many minutes for the alert crews to reach their airplanes start engines take off and fly far enough away to escape destruction most of our bombers and tankers are based in coastal areas in short range of submarine-launched missiles it is doubtful that many aircraft would escape in the five to eight minutes it would take the missiles to reach these bases the seventy percent not on alert would certainly be lost an interim solution to give our aircraft more time to get off the ground would be to move them farther inland to the center of the continent it would take submarine-launched missiles five to ten minutes longer to reach these interior bases giving the bombers more time to escape it's certainly true that the soviets could launch an attack that either now or in the relatively near future would eliminate the great bulk of the icbm force they could also eliminate the non-alert bombers i think it's very doubtful that they could eliminate both the bulk of the bombers and the bulk of the icbm force you know because of problems of making that attack simultaneous and in any event they couldn't eliminate the submarine force so that we're talking about not the vulnerability the whole deterrent we are in effect talking about the vulnerability of an important part of the deterrent the synchronization of such an attack is a technical difficulty that a military planner would have to deal with and indeed it's difficult but it's not impossible the different kinds of missiles fly at different speeds they fly at different altitudes the techniques by which we try to detect these things are themselves based on vulnerable points of large radars at various places a disarming attack is technically possible although probably not perfectly achievable but perfection isn't required if the united states sustained a surprise attack that resulted in the loss of most of its icbms bombers and submarines in port the 25 or more nuclear missile submarines on patrol would certainly remain a powerful force but a force of restricted usefulness the depths they rely on for protection also make communication with them extremely difficult because their missiles are relatively inaccurate they can be used only for attacking unprotected military targets in cities it is a force of last resort that could become vulnerable as the soviet union improves their technology and submarine detection we may be facing a problem with uh submarine vulnerability towards the end of the century so we need to anticipate that and the way to anticipate it and to prepare for it is to fix the problem in our land-based missiles by then it would be a new type of folly to rely exclusively on our submarines and upon submarine-borne missiles the first place the submarine force is basically usable only for city busting and the united states along with the soviet union should be eager to avoid the destruction of urban areas the capacity of our submarine forces to do pinpoint targeting is quite limited to say the least and that is the reason that we must retain the icbms in the fourth structure but more significantly if one becomes dependent upon any single arm such as submarines the soviets can devote a much higher percentage of their budget to solving their problems of anti-submarine warfare the new cruise missile is being offered as a crutch to help us through our period of icbm vulnerability the cruise missile is essentially a small pilotless aircraft which can be armed with a nuclear warhead it is a technology that holds great promise for america's strategic forces b-52 bombers will be equipped to carry 20 cruise missiles which could be launched far from the borders of the soviet union it is believed that such a saturation attack by two to three thousand missiles would overwhelm the soviet air defenses flying at 600 miles per hour 200 feet above the ground the 1800 mile range missile would be extremely difficult to detect or shoot down the cruise missile matches the features of the terrain below it with a digital map that it carries in its onboard computer to find its way to target with on airing accuracy the cruise missiles may augment the bomber force indeed they will assuming that the bomber force carrying the cruise missiles is survivable both on the ground prior to launch and in route to target those cruise missiles are not exceptionally long range cruise missiles so the carriers for them are going to have to come very close to and probably even penetrate to some extent soviet air defenses they're an improvement they're hardly an answer to the bomber force difficulties there's no answer at all to the icbm force difficulties present plans are to use 150 of these b-52s as cruise missile carriers the remaining 180 b-52s will be expected to fly to their targets how much longer we can rely on this aircraft even in the cruise missile role is a matter of concern there's a pretty high level of interest in the air force and a new man bomber but i'd want to distinguish between a airplane that would be capable of penetrating modern active air defenses and an airplane whose only function would be to deliver cruise missiles from the exterior of the uh air defense system those are two quite different functions now the b-52 is as it's being outfitted now as a cruise missile carrier will be quite capable of performing that ladder function a cruise missile launcher well into the 90s they say the b-52s are good till 1995. then you go to them and say look these aircraft were designed in the 1940s were built in the 50s the last one came off the production line in 62 so the end of 1961. how are these bombers going to be functioning 25 years after the event how i mean it is you're trying to operate highly complex aircraft 25 years old no airline would try to maintain service and here they are trying to penetrate a formidable soviet air defenses with between three and four thousand fighter aircraft twelve thousand air-to-ground missiles operate thousands of radios they're trying to do it with these very old aircraft on the grounds that their technical studies show it can still be done this is not how a serious military power proceeds when the b-52 bomber was ordered in the early 50s the air force thought it would be replaced in a decade or so by a follow-on more modern aircraft the b-1 was to be such a replacement it is the most capable bomber in the world b-1 uses extremely advanced engines and a variable sweep wing to carry twice the payload greater distances at much higher speed than the b-52 in 1977 with the cost per airplane approaching 100 million dollars plans to build 241 b1s were canceled the new cruise missile technology seemed to offer a cheap alternative but the cruise missile must be carried by an airplane which can safely get off the ground and fly close enough to release its cruise missiles the b1 was designed to do this its quick response short takeoff rapid acceleration and hardness against nuclear blast effects makes it many times more likely to survive a surprise attack than the b-52 flying at treetop altitudes 600 miles per hour the b1 is very difficult to detect with radar or shoot down as a cruise missile carrier or penetrator the b-1 remains the soonest and best hope the us has for an advanced manned weapon delivery system in the eighties the soviet union already has 200 similar bombers the backfire against which we have little defense we dismantled the last of our air defenses in 1975 on the argument that since we had an abm treaty and we were defenseless against missiles what difference did it make if we were also defenseless against bombers we have a token air defense what they call enough for control of the sovereignty of the air we're still using six squadrons of f-106 interceptors which are late 50s technology most of them manned by the reserve i should also add that there's a very formidable soviet bomber force and they're going to have a free ride they can roam the country either after a missile exchange or instead of a missile exchange and attack or threaten to attack more or less it will if we deployed some modern interceptors some f-14s or 15s both of them are very good under the control of awax aircraft the new airborne warning and control system we could have a very significant air defense the radar net while it's old is fairly good at higher altitudes at lower altitudes there are gaps but it does present an avenue where a man bomber high speed in small numbers could penetrate without warning and it gives him another alternative uh we're talking of course about the backfire bomber but it applies equally as well to the barren bison aircraft or more seriously to the aircraft he's developing at this time he's working hard he's got to be one he's got plans he's thinking in terms of the aircraft that would follow these these particular current operational models so it also poses a very real threat the soviets in all probability have the capacity to knock out our minuteman system nobody knows for sure including the soviets because no one has ever practiced an attack of this sort there have been all sorts of tests but there have has never been any operational experience and we hope that it remains that way the soviet leaders should bear in mind of course that while they may have the capacity to attack and destroy our minuteman system if we ride out the attack that they can never even be sure of that and they should never be given assurance that the united states would simply ride out an attack the reason it's important that they not have in their mind that they might succeed in such an attack has to do with what their ambitions are what is it that they really would like to achieve they would like to separate the united states from its european allies they would like to neutralize and circle communist china they would like to expand their influence and get to a position of control over the persian gulf if they control the persian gulf then they can dictate where the energy supplies of the persian gulf go they can then that will support their policy of dividing european nato from the united states of encircling china by neutralizing japan and southeast asia and it will also have a bearing on what happens in the african continent so that their entire policy and our entire policy may depend upon what happens in the middle east the rest of the world has recognized that since 1945 the balance of power has been maintained by the united states none of our allies the former great powers like britain germany are in a position to do that only the united states has the power to serve as a counterweight to the soviet union and as our military capacity has flagged and more importantly as we have been perceived to be vacillating on foreign policy issues our allies and the third world nations have begun to make adjustments in their position they have begun to consider accommodations with the soviet union and as a consequence our position worldwide can deteriorate rapidly even in the absence of an attack on the united states directly people look at the united states and say to what extent are they concerned about displeasing the united states they look at the soviet union and ask themselves to what extent can they afford to provoke the soviet union then they're faced with this decision every day something comes up do we boycott the olympics or we don't bark out the olympics on on the invasion of afghanistan do we speak for or against the soviet union or the united nations debate do we give trade concessions to the americas or the russians and when they make these decisions they look at the power of each and on basis of their perception of the strength of each side their feeling of it on that basis they decide the outer world recognizes that the soviet political system has been a failure the only asset that the soviet union has is military power they recognize that in the absence of the employment of the threat of that military power the free world will win in the long run people have seen us going downhill downhill downhill first of all we have to at least give them the feeling that we can recover second we have to put substance into this by going back to a serious effort in terms of raising our military strength we're now spending five in a bit percent of our gmp we're competing against the soviet union that is spending much more than that in absolute terms in real terms we have to go back competing again that means more money i think it means conscription young people in the service so we get value for our money and it will mean of course the variety of weapon programs the third thing we have to do is that in an interim period when we move from weakness to strength we have to be very careful because the temptation upon the soviet union to intervene to prevent us from recovering to prevent us from reestablishing a deterrence and the balance of power the temptation would be very great i don't see the russians as as nazis the russians are not nazis they're not they don't relish war and so on but if we do recover and start moving back towards recovery there will be a great temptation for them to try and stop us when the us forces become vulnerable the soviets will know that as well as the u.s will know it and the soviets may read that as an inclination on the part of the u.s to strike first rather than to wait for the soviets to attack and leave nothing surviving in the u.s strategic forces this contributes to strategic nuclear instability to a greater incentive on the part of all sides to try to attack first and the last thing you want in this world is any incentive for a country to attack with nuclear forces presumptuously preemptively quickly [Music] thanks for watching if you'd like to help us produce more compelling historical content like this please like comment below and share this video with fellow history buffs and of course be sure to subscribe to help keep history happening [Music]

Channel: LionHeart FilmWorks

Views: 433,298

Keywords: nuclear war, first strike, cold war, world war iii movie, world war iii, world war iii scenario, world war iii documentary, world war iii simulation, cold war film, tv movie, nuclear warning broadcast, nuclear war movies, nuclear war scene, nuclear holocaust, world war 3, the day after, threads movie, complete, special bulletin, special report, nuclear attack, ussr, strategic air command, doomsday, middle east conflict, soviet, 1979, wargames, rand corporation war games

Id: 7lJ3mMzLZuY

Length: 36min 36sec (2196 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 10 2022