I was in USAF during the height of The Cold War. If you think this is bad you should have seen then. Both us and the Soviet with over 10,000 strategic thermo nuclear weapons apiece each pointed at each other, with most of them on trip wire alert. Base after base with Buff's on hot pads, roped off under extreme security, the pilots in nearby standby houses able to be in the air in 15 mins.
We had three separate ICBM classes on alert at one time. One, a Titan 2 at a base I was stationed at, blew up in its silo and we came within a 25 cent electric circuit of a 9 megaton warhead annihilating Arkansas. And I'm not even including medium range/theater nukes. THEN, at the height of it, we stared down the Reds and put GLCMs and Pershing-lls in Europe. Ballistic missile submarines prowled the oceans, just one of our could take out every major population center of any country in the world. And we had 18 of them.
This Russian poking and stumbling around with their Bear bombers and whatever else was almost daily. We considered it nothing but practice, and remember, the fighters we sent out to check them out were also armed with Genie nuclear ATA missiles. I spent 18 mos in the Middle East and terrorists were murdering us back then also. A friend of mine was thrown off a 4'th floor balcony by fundamentalists just for marrying a girl of a different religion. I did TDYs in secret bases where the NSA monitored Soviet missile fields across the Black Sea. Unlike today we were always a split second from Armageddon and we weren't doing much talking about it.
So today it still goes on but we pulled back our nuclear postures and we have far less weapons on alert tho reduction talks are threatened by distrust and our need to have at least some ABM capability to protect us from rouge nations. But dont forget a certain amount of ABMs was agreed to under the SALT talks, I think about 64, and the Russians have always had them active in a ring around Moscow. They still do and are even going to replace them with newer ones.
Yes Korea is a worry some thing and unfortunately were going to have to eventually draw the line. With avoiding Politics History has shown us when one person holds all the power and he has destructive weapons its a bad thing, tho its far worse in Asia then here. I have a son at that same MidEast base I was at, still basically fighting the war I fought. Its worse now but we fought terror then too, and you can add all kinds of Marxist student groups, the Red brigades, and all kinds of Soviet funded Loony birds back then as well.
We are at risk of a major regional conflict now but I still say it was a far scarier world in 1978. History has shown us the only chance we have of avoiding war is thru strength and resolve and each and every time we have forgotten that we have ended up in a conflict. I just dont see WW3 right now but we are going to have to pay a price to prevent it. Our allies will have to pay too.
Frankly, if WWIII and nuclear holocaust happens a lot of us will be in the service by the time it goes nuclear. Many of us will meet that day on foreign and unfriendly ground, far from home with little hope of getting back, should it ever come to pass.
Granted I'm 22 and single without children, but I'll be counting more on my rifle and the guys in my unit than a bunker I probably won't be able to use.
