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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday November 29 2018, @08:43AM   Printer-friendly
from the would-you-like-to-play-a-game? dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

The war game that could have ended the world

On 7 November 1983, around 100 senior military officers gathered at Nato headquarters in Brussels to ‘fight’ World War Three. The annual simulation, known as Able Archer, came at the end of a large-scale conventional exercise ­– Autumn Forge – involving tens of thousands of Nato troops across western Europe.

[...] The imagined ‘war’ started when Soviet tanks rolled across the border into Yugoslavia. Scandinavia was invaded next, and soon troops were pouring into Western Europe. Overwhelmed, Nato forces were forced into retreat. A few months after the pretend conflict began, Western governments authorised the use of nuclear weapons.

Role-playing Nato forces launched a single medium range nuclear missile, wiping Ukrainian capital Kiev from the map. It was deployed as a signal, a warning that Nato was prepared to escalate the war. The theory was that this ‘nuclear signalling’ would help cooler heads to prevail. It didn’t work.

By 11 November 1983, global nuclear arsenals had been unleashed. Most of the world was destroyed. Billions were dead. Civilisation ended.

Later that day, the Nato commanders left their building and went home, congratulating themselves on another successful – albeit sobering – exercise. What Western governments only discovered later is that Able Archer 83 came perilously close to instigating a real nuclear war.


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by shrewdsheep on Thursday November 29 2018, @09:44AM (4 children)

    by shrewdsheep (5215) on Thursday November 29 2018, @09:44AM (#767689)

    It is control of the media. Putin, Berlusconi (o.k. he is gone), Erdogan. Trump btw does not fall in this category. There seems to be part of US media landscape voluntarily enslaving themselves.

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Immerman on Thursday November 29 2018, @03:57PM (3 children)

    by Immerman (3985) on Thursday November 29 2018, @03:57PM (#767757)

    >There seems to be part of US media landscape voluntarily enslaving themselves.

    Are you sure it's voluntary enslavement?

    The vast bulk of U.S. media outlets, both national and local are owned by only a few major conglomerates. Get a few key executives or stockholders in those conglomerates on board with an agenda, by hook or by crook, and you have control over the vast majority of the nation's media. We can already see the same exact same news story scripts being recited in once-local TV News stations around the country, often almost word for word. The only question is the exact source and purpose of the agenda they represent.

    I'd say either someone has leverage on "Corporate", so it's not voluntary. Or "Corporate" has a seat at the table, in which case it's not slavery.

    Unless you're talking about the newscasters themselves - in which case it's "just" wage slavery, amplified by the fact that most of the supposed alternative employers for your chosen profession are in fact owned by the same corporation. Either you voluntarily get on board, or you find another line of work.