The Edge of Armageddon: Lessons from the Book

The Edge of Armageddon: Lessons from the Brink, by Bruce J. Allyn, 2012. $1.99.

It was a mistake to start reading this short book at midnight, thinking I would just get started. I couldn't stop until I finished a couple of hours later. I highly recommend the book for anyone, but for especially those who don't remember the early days of the Cold War, when families were deciding whether to build fallout shelters in their back yards.

The possibility of nuclear war was very real to us in those days. We had duck-and-cover drills in school, and air-raid sirens that rang every Monday at noon. My heart always stopped a few beats until I remembered that yes, this was a Monday noon. If you saw a bright flash, you knew what to do and what was coming. Hiroshima was only 17 years in the past, the Russian hydrogen bomb only 9 years old (the same age as I), and intercontinental missiles, capable of destroying us all before the newspapers even had time to report them, only 3 years in the past.

I was only nine years old during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, and although I do remember it vaguely, I don't remember that we were particularly anxious about it. I do remember that we had some discussions in my early years about fallout shelters, but I think we felt that it was just an alarmist measure and a waste of money, which was short anyway. Knowing what I do now, I don't think a shelter would have been a waste of money, though it might have been futile in the end. Living as we did in San Diego, we didn't have much of a chance of surviving the war that almost happened.

Though that particular crisis passed, my friends and I did continue reading books like Hiroshima (John Hershey) and Tomorrow! (Philip Wylie; I'll never forget the ending), seeing footage of hydrogen bombs being tested, and discussing things like megatons, radiation effects, and half-life.

It's commonplace to hear that the younger generations do not have a sense of the way the world was during the Cold War. After all, no one can fully understand the times or places where she has not lived. Valuable experience fades even if it does not become irrelevant. We can no more expect the younger generations of the world to grasp the lessons of the Cold War than we can expect my "builder" generation to understand World War I. However, I believe that the importance and threat of nuclear war is unique.

Author Bruce Allyn

The Edge of Armageddon: Lessons from the Brink is not really another book about the Cuban missile crisis. Nor is it about the horrors of nuclear war. Though there are facts about the crisis that were news to me, they are not news to the world.

Rather, the book is a fascinating inside look at how, starting around 25 years later during another time of high tension, a small group of Americans and their Soviet counterparts, still mortal enemies in a sense, were able to sit down and honestly reconstruct the events of 1962 in order to learn lessons that could prevent a future nuclear disaster. Author Bruce Allyn was one of the main participants in this group, the Harvard-Soviet Joint Study on Crisis Prevention.

What appeared in some circles to be the naïve efforts of soft-headed do-gooders became a team that over a period of years came to involve the very highest levels of Soviet (later Russian), American and Cuban governments. It took time, but eventually people like ambassadors, heads of state, and defense secretaries opened up their secrets, if not exactly for reconciliation, then at least for the purpose of building peace and understanding.

Lessons Learned

There are many lessons to be learned from Armageddon. In one sense, the overriding one is the vulnerability of the world to destruction in an era of nuclear weapons. I'll come to that later. There are also very important lessons about diplomacy and reconciliation that we can apply immediately at any level of life: international diplomacy, religious relations, politics, family and marriage, and so on. Not all the lessons are cozy, encouraging ones, either.

Enemies Can Talk To Each Other

The work of the Harvard-Soviet Joint Study on Crisis Prevention was not a result of rapprochement. It started during times of great tension, the era of "Star Wars" missile defense, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, deployment of Soviet-threatening missiles in Europe, and a Korean passenger plane with American passengers shot down by a Soviet fighter. The communication efforts were the result of hostility and tension rather than of relaxation.

A big reason the enemies could talk was because they recognized a common interest: preventing accidental war. In fact, it was this rather narrow focus that allowed them to make progress at the outset. While the countries did not and could not trust each other about wider goals or military strategies, they both agreed on the importance of avoiding accidental disasters.

I think the common interest factor cuts both ways. It can encourage us about the possibility of reconciliation and how it might happen, but it might also remind us that there could be situations where it would be hard or impossible to define a common interest, especially once conflict has begun. Rwanda comes to mind.

The Importance of Building Trust

Allyn does not describe any systematic set of principles for building trust, but it's clear that the process was not just accidental. It was not enough just to throw together some well-intentioned people. Rather, the main organizers put a lot of effort into understanding negotiation and human relations.

One of the more impressive examples of how a small effort can have huge results was how a single, "incidental" comment by Robert S. McNamara (Secretary of Defense during the Cuba crisis) transformed an international meeting with Cuban leader Fidel Castro. McNamara simply remarked that he was impressed by the way the Cubans had been able to achieve such improvement in infant survival. One positive, affirming comment was enough to break the ice.

Armageddon is not a textbook on peace-building or human relations, but it does give us an important illustration of how these areas are not just pie-in-the-sky theories but can be critical in real life.

The Importance of Seeing Things through Your Opponent's Eyes

Naturally, the participants were aware from the beginning that it was important to understand each other's viewpoints, but Allyn also focuses on the way that McNamara focused on the key importance of this factor while he was participating. Though difficult at first, the ability to share perspectives became easier as trust increased. One obstacle was the secrecy and closedness of the pre-perestroika Soviet Union. Not only was it hard for the Americans to understand Soviet intentions, but the secrecy and paranoia made it hard for the Soviets to understand the Americans. Western news media was not even available in the USSR. Allyn gives the invasion of Afghanistan as one example. The Americans saw it as part of a sophisticated, determined strategy to seize control of the region and its oil supplies. It turns out, though, that it was more of a bumbled mess than a well-conceived strategy.

Group Self-Preservation Is Not Always Supreme

Coming to more strategic lessons relevant to a nuclear world, a very concerning one was that during the Cuban missile crisis the leader one of the three countries (not to spoil the plot too much) was willing to start a nuclear war, even with the understanding that it would lead to the destruction of his own country. This was not just a slogan such as "Better Dead than Red," (yes, some of us actually said that in those days), but formulated in a cable urging action.

Part of the reason for our relative lack of concern about nuclear war is that it is unthinkable to us. The obvious results are just so terrible that we're sure no one would be foolish to start one. Terrorists might make us nervous because they're relatively impervious to retaliation, but surely no country would start a suicidal war. This bit of history shows otherwise. National pride, ideology, eschatological hope (religous or materialist) may be enough to trigger Armageddon. We are foolish to the extent that we carelessly assume that it won't happen.

Bad Things Do Happen

Part of the unique American experience has been that bad things do not happen. In the end, good and justice triumph, we make progress, we live longer and more prosperous lives, the world comes to love us, and so on. After all, God is on our side, so how can it be any different? While other countries make at least some efforts to deal with global climate change, Americans cheerfully know that it's just a conspiracy. The possibility of pandemic influenza? Not a problem, can't happen here.

Though that perspective has glaring problems of its own, it is true to an extent for some parts of American society. Still, a little consideration of history, or a little experience outside America, should be enough to make it obvious that America's "blessings" are not laws of nature but are contingent.

The plague wiped out a large fraction of the population of Europe, and so did the Hundred Years War. The displacement and near-extermination of whole peoples has been relatively common and though myths of restoration persist in memory of the descendants, actual restoration is rare. Christianity in North Africa, and to a great extent in the Middle East, was annihilated by Islam regardless of whose side God was on. Yup, it happened, get over it. Bad things happen. (If that seems a one-sided view, then I can also point to the fact that the flourishing Muslim civilization of Spain was sent to oblivion by the Christians. Bad things happen to everyone.)

Natural and human-made disasters happen on local and global scales. Hurricane Katrina submerges a major city, tsunamis do kill hundreds of thousands of people, not just in impoverished third world countries but in advanced ones. Civilizations have collapsed due in part to their failure to understand and care for the environment. Nuclear disasters have already occurred (Hiroshima for a start). It's true, it's real, and there is no reason to think that nuclear war is any different.

We Really Did Almost Have A Global Nuclear War. Really.

Armageddon brings out some facts about the missile crisis that were not revealed until up to 40 years later, though they are no longer secrets today (and those of you who follow world events more closely than I have known them for years). Though I've learned a bit about the crisis in the past, I did not realize just how close we were to war. Most of the leaders involved did not realize, either. Here are a few of the facts:

• There were in fact SS-4 Soviet medium range missiles on launch pads in Cuba, with nuclear warheads stored on site.
• Not known until much later was that Cuba also had tactical (battlefield) nuclear weapons and would likely have used them to repel an American attack.
• There was strong pressure on American President Kennedy to launch an attack (not nuclear) on Cuba. Such an attack, we know now, would likely have led to massive nuclear war. It could have happened.
• As mentioned above, one national leader was willing to "push the button" if needed.
• Neither the Russians nor Americans knew all the facts or understood each other's intentions. There was pressure to act first and ask questions later.
• Finally, and maybe most chilling: In an actual combat situation involving a submarine with nuclear-tipped torpedoes  two of the three required officers wanted to launch a nuclear attack, while the third held out. Was our world saved because of the stubbornness of one man? Maybe. 

Conclusion

To bring it all together, I think there are four take-home points.

1. Disasters can happen. Countries and civilizations can destroy each other and even self-destruct. Global nuclear war has almost happened at least once. Climate change is not rendered harmless because we think it's a political conspiracy.
2. We can decrease the risk of disasters by facing them honestly and creatively, not by denying their possibility. The point of the Harvard-Soviet Joint Study on Crisis Prevention was not to publish papers or "improve international understanding" but to prevent disasters. It lead to concrete steps that helped accomplish that.
3. It behooves us, if only for our own self-preservation, to understand and talk to our opponents.
4. With reference specifically to nuclear weapons, the generations who have grown up since the 1960s should make it a priority to understand what nuclear war would mean. It's not a fashionable concern these days. In fact, it seems more fashionable in some circles to giggle about those who make it a concern. Doomsday is, like you know, so retro. Please, please, before you leave it at that, watch a few movies and read some books about real history (Hiroshima and Nagasaki) and potential war (with weapons that make the Hiroshima bomb look like a firecracker). Then consider whether there might be some reason to take it seriously and support efforts to prevent it.

More Information

All references are available online unless otherwise stated. This is not any sort of full compilation, just some references I know of or have dragged up!

Nuclear Warfare Analysis and Scenarios

Example Scenarios from atomicarchive.com.

The Effects of a Global Thermonuclear War. A worst-case scenario. Not sure how authoritative it is, but there are lots of references.

The Effects of Nuclear War. Office of Technology Assessment (US Government) , May 1979. PDF.

Local Nuclear War, Global Suffering, Scientific American, 2009. Shows that even a "limited" war between India and Pakistan could damage agriculture across large areas of the world for a decade. A billion killed by famine.

Nuclear Warfare, Wikipedia.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Wikipedia.

Hiroshima, by John Hershey, 1946 (with an update in 1985).

The Submarine Incident

The Submarines of October: U.S. and Soviet Naval Encounters During the Cuban Missile Crisis. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 75. William Burr and Thomas S. Blanton, editors
October 31, 2002.

The Underwater Cuban Missile Crisis: Soviet Submarines and the Risk of Nuclear War. National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 399, Posted - October 24, 2012. Edited by Thomas Blanton, William Burr and Svetlana Savranskaya

Vasili Arkhipov (Wikipedia)

Civilization and Environment

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. Jared Diamond, 2011. ("Real" book)