Quick Search
Secret files from 70s reveal Trident strike needed 'to kill 10m Russians'
- 1-5-2011
- Categorized in: NUCLEAR WEAPONS, War & Peace
One more example of the surreal and terrible logic of military thinking.
The Guardian l Rob Edwards 26 December, 2010
Secret files from 70s reveal Trident strike needed 'to kill 10m Russians'
Whitehall documents written in 1970s and marked 'personal and top secret' show logic of British Cold War deterrent
The British government opted for the Trident nuclear weapons system because it estimated it could kill up to 10 million Russians and inflict "unacceptable damage" on the former Soviet Union, according to secret Whitehall documents written in the 1970s.
The macabre calculations that underpinned the decision in 1980 to replace Polaris nuclear missiles with Trident have been revealed by a Ministry of Defence memo, marked "personal and top secret". In a nuclear war, Britain would have had to be prepared "to finish what we start", it said.
Other MoD documents set out in chilling detail exactly how an attack on Moscow and St Petersburg could cause enough death and destruction "to bring about the breakdown of the city as a functioning community".
