Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Radio War Nerd EP #144—"Able Archer 83" Declassified, with Nate Jones (Patreon)

Published:
2018-08-12 01:08:53
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Downloads

Content

Guest: Nate Jones, author & director of FOIA Project at the National Security Archive

Recorded: August 7, 2018 

The War Nerd welcomes FOIA ninja Nate Jones to talk about his frightening discoveries uncovering the secret history of Able Archer 83—when Reagan's Cold War nearly scared the Soviets into launching a preemptive nuclear first strike. It was the closest the world came to nuclear holocaust since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Jones helps recover that lost history through relentless FOIA efforts to declassify Cold War secrets — and reminds us how relevant this story has become again, now that the US and Russia are rebuilding their nuclear arsenals and sliding back into Cold War madness. . . 

At 1:14:00 the Nerd and Ames talk about current war news: US-Saudi alliance with Al Qaeda in Yemen; WaPo asks why their own Yemen death count stuck for 2 years, something RWN has been harping on endlessly; Trump sanctions/subversion efforts against Iran; Maduro assassination attempt in Venezuela; "Jihadi Charles" Lister spreading more Saudi disinformation; latest on Boko Haram's attack on Nigeria military base . . .

Buy Nate Jones' book Able Archer 83: The Secret History of the NATO Exercise That Almost Triggered Nuclear War. Nate is also chief editor of the National Security Archive blog UNREDACTEDFollow Nate on Twitter @NSANate 

Total time: 2:28:09

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

Files

Comments

Adrian Johansson

The Swedish military true to form has its largest military garrison in Boden in northern Sweden and that place has mosquitoes. But dont worry you just give up after a few weeks and let them drink. Oh and i volunteered to do my conscription there because my family is from the area and theyve all done their service in the Arctic Infantry there

Ed Mac

Interestingly today I saw an ad for humanitarian aid to Yemen for famine relief during the MotoGP race on a UK sports channel. So there is some sort of a shift happening in the media. No mention of the cause of the famine though.

MS

"Deutschland 83" is hugely recommended. It's unusually funny (for a German TV series) and superbly captures the paranoid 80s era well. Oddly it wasn't as popular in Germany as it was in UK, US and elsewhere.

Paul Vd

Wait... Wait. So the US is supporting AQ in Yemen? This is where those spec ops commandos were killed. So they are just being used as props to show that they are fighting AQ ??

Kevin Walsh

A bit off-topic, but re: the War Nerd letter, and why the walls didn't extend to the river? Assuming there wasn't a sound architectural reason for it, the boring answer is probably that nobody wanted to pay for it.

Kevin Walsh

Oh, and a nitpick. The term man-at-arms historically meant heavy cavalry - what we think of when we heard the word knight.

Igor Igorsson

In a way, I guess you could put it that way. But I would say it is probably more about the lack of coherence in the US government. Not that the people that matter mind. Weapons are being sold, those who want to fight terrorism is happy about killing people from AQ, the Saudis are happy to work with AQ against common enemies, and since it does not get much coverage, most people never hear about it, so there is not much backlash.

Igor Igorsson

Probably not the best spelling or grammar, but it's 9 pm here and I starting to get drunk.

Crazy B0nkers

There's actually a water spring deep beneath one of the walls called "foun celada" (hidden spring), but that summer was so hot that it went down to a trickle. There are also water wells and storage cisterns beneath each gate, but they were all but dried up. The crusader vanguard came in force way earlier than expected and went straight to cut the river water access point. Lack of water, meat rapidly rotting in the heat, swarms of flies and disease amongst thousands of overnight refugees did the rest of job within a week.

Shfifty_five

The National Security Archive is amazing. Ranbitholes for days.