In a volume edited by Marshal of the Soviet Union, V.D. Sokolovskii, we read, “Nuclear strikes by strategic missiles will be of decisive, primary importance to the outcome of a modern war. Massive nuclear blows on the enemy’s strategic nuclear weapons, economy, and system of government control, and the concurrent defeat of his armed forces in military theaters will permit the attainment of the political aims of war much more rapidly than in previous wars.”

Here is a Soviet military professional telling his subordinates that nuclear war is the most practical war of all. It is very difficult, however, to get Americans or Europeans to agree with this. There have been, in recent decades, two false narratives advanced about nuclear war. These narratives say that the radiation from nuclear weapons will kill everyone on earth, and that the earth will die in a nuclear winter.

According to [the late] Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, “Radioactive fallout from a nuclear war could be a major threat to human life, if the nuclear attacks involved groundbursting of warheads. Airburst or low airburst nuclear weapons would pose no or a greatly diminished fallout threat.” In terms of military efficiency, noted Pry, “All U.S. targets … including missile silos, can be most efficiently attacked by airbursting warheads because airbursting maximizes the lethal radius of overpressure and blast effects, the dominant killing mechanisms.” Pry pointed out that bomber fratricide from ground-bursting nukes would not be in the interest of the Russians, whose bombers would be sent to key target areas to finish the job. If the atmosphere above those targets was radioactive the follow-on bomber crews would not survive. ~ J.R. Nyquist in Strategic Intentions: Commentary Followed by Interview With Lude Media, 19th April 2024.

Introduction

A lot of attention in conservative media has been given to Annie Jacobsen's new "non-fiction thriller", Nuclear War: A Scenario, with the author being notably interviewed by Lex Friedman and Piers Morgan, leading to a flurry of alarm amongst many of a preparedness mindset.

However, it is sad to note that Ms Jacobsen has succumbed to perpetuating a number of notable nuclear war misconceptions that are lingering artefacts of old Cold War scaremongering, propaganda or careless notions, especially the Launch on Warning myth, the "everyone will die" myth and the nuclear winter myth.

In this article, we attempt to refute a total of five popular nuclear war myths (including the above-mentioned ones espoused by Annie) and help the reader to acquire a more realistic view of the relevant aspects of the subject, and to hopefully thereby start to take an informed approach to making appropriate preparations now.

Plainly, therefore, we are asserting that not only is nuclear war with Russia and China survivable, but that the governments of the world are both aware of that reality and willing to factor it into their own war-planning, right up to, and including, actively engaging in nuclear warfare.

That point should, of course, be obvious in light of the otherwise baffling belligerence in the statements and rhetoric emanating from Russia, China, North Korea, et al, as well as from the the actions, construed by Russia as provocative, that our governments in the West have been engaging in through the supply of arms and weapons systems, in an escalatory fashion, to Ukraine.

All players are acting, in other words, as if they don’t mind if the present trajectory leads to an all-out global war.

Or rather, they are acting as though they intend for it to happen.

And in all of this, it seems as if they have suddenly dropped their own decades’ old assurances to the public about the futility of nuclear warfare, thereby exposing the falseness of at least some of the officially sanctioned “facts” that for so long stood as received wisdom (at civilian level) concerning WW3.

With that in mind, let us consider – and refute – the following five popular nuclear war myths:

  1. Nuclear war is not survivable and everyone would die right away.
  2. The barrage would be over in a day or two.
  3. It would “destroy the planet” / trigger nuclear winter.
  4. NATO still operates a policy of Launch on Warning (LoW).
  5. There could be no winner, therefore no nation would start WW3.

Myth #1: Nuclear war is not survivable and everyone would die right away.

If one considers the fact that (a) governments themselves have been making deep bunkering preparations for decades (such as the British government’s facilities outlined in The Secret State, by Peter Hennessy (2010), (b) that other countries (notably Switzerland which has 360,000 shelters, Sweden with 65,000 shelters, Finland (50,000+ shelters), Russia and China) have bunkering strategies within proper civil defence planning designed to protect all or the vast majority of their populations, (c) billionaire elites are feverishly engaged in building bunkers, and (d) wealthy people the world over are lining up to acquire bunkers at the present time (according to information we have become aware of), it is clear that the notion that nuclear war is not survivable is considered entirely fallacious by all of those groups described above.

Speculating as to why the fatalist notion has taken root in most western countries, in our view it is the outcome of generations of deliberate government policy to exclude the matter from public discourse and thereby avoid pressure to invest in expensive civil defence measures, and books (and interviews) like those of Annie Jacobsen in recent days form part of that conditioning.

In the Anglosphere, we have been deliberately trained, in other words, to be fatalist about surviving a war with Russia, as typified by the tagline from the disturbing video game, DEFCON, which puts it thus: Everybody Dies.

DEFCON game on Steam


Of course, it is reasonable to point out that during the Cold War, nuclear warhead yields were typically much larger than they are today, the reason being that delivery mechanisms were at that time far less accurate than they are now and therefore a broader stroke, so to speak, was required.

That being the case, the scale of destruction at that time would have been considerably higher than might be expected with today’s lower yield, high precision nuclear munition delivery guidance systems. (This is not to say that a 10x more powerful yield would deliver 10x the destruction; more like 2x or so, but the point is, destructive power is now deliberately less on many or most warheads compared to counterparts in the 1980s, for example).

Nevertheless, even during those Cold War years, with the larger yield warheads arrayed against them, the western governments expected to survive and made emergency plans for maintaining continuity of government accordingly.

In the UK, Regional Seats of Government (RSGs) were prepared to nip in the bud any power-vacuum anarchies or the rise of regional factionalism / warlords, with contingency plans put in place to press-gang survivors – yes, survivors – into work teams, etc.

But to what degree is nuclear war survivable?

We assess its survivability to be a factor of the following:

Simply put (and stating the obvious) the better your nuclear war survival preparations are, the greater your chances of surviving it are.

And the sooner you prepare, the better your chances of being prepared on time are... because be in no doubt, the window for that is fast closing due to the spectre of a CBDC-based social credit transaction system!

Myth #2: A nuclear barrage would be over in a day or two.

It appears to be the case that most people, at least here in the UK, have a perception of nuclear war as consisting of a swift, choreographed, day-into-night saturation strike on all the cities, immediately followed by a ghastly aftermath phase, such as that depicted in Threads, a 1984 British-Australian WW3 dramatisation.


However, neither Russia's nuclear salvo doctrine, nor its vast stockpiles, nor its suspected nuclear warhead manufacturing capabilities buried deep below ground in the Yamantau Mountain region of the Urals (which has long been inaccessible to non-Russian citizens) attest to any such view, despite western experts expressing contrary views in ignorance of longstanding revelations of Russian doctrine (these experts, such as those writing for Chatham House, almost always ignore the consistent warnings found in the defector literature over the decades, leaving themselves not fully equipped to judge Russian thinking).

Rather, all known data points corroborate the more depressing view that Russia not only intends to unleash an ongoing overkill barrage, at least on primary targets, but also intends to retain the capacity to make even more nukes during a continuing nuclear war so that fresh salvos can be made or reserved as additional leverage.

This should not surprise anyone familiar with purely western nuclear war doctrine during the Cold War era; our own militaries also intended (and presumably still do) to unleash repeat strikes on already stricken targets - see, for example, anecdotes from Eric Schlosser's Command & Control (2013).

Myth #3: Nuclear war would “destroy the planet” / trigger nuclear winter.

One of the most popularly believed, yet governmentally disbelieved, nuclear war myths is that it would precipitate a worldwide environmental catastrophe that could end life itself on this planet, yet Annie Jacobsen in her book and interviews presents it as uncontested fact.

Variations of this myth come with fancy looking computer models showing either the northern hemisphere engulfed in radioactive fallout or even, in extremis, the whole world blanketed with sunlight-blocking smog, bringing on the terrifying prospect of a so-called nuclear winter, as popularised in the 1983 motion picture, The Day After.


And indeed, much effort continues to be invested in the nuclear winter theory, with popular videos such as this on YouTube:


But what of the origins of nuclear winter theory?

Cutting through all the proposed scientific rationales for it, conservative author and blogger, J.R. Nyquist, has examined the propaganda origins of nuclear winter theory, and found them to be extremely suspect:

Vladimir Valentinovich Alexandrov (b. 1938), a Soviet mathematician and computer scientist, was tasked by the KGB (via his boss, Evgeny Velikhov) with creating a mathematical model to substantiate nuclear winter theory. He was chosen for this assignment because he was part of a research exchange program with the Americans, operating from 1978-1982.

According to Richard P. Turco and Starely L. Thompson, the resulting global climate model was “a very weak piece of work.” Of course, they revised their criticism later when the political consensus-building began and scientists started losing grant money for holding “the wrong “incorrect” opinions on politically-charged topics. According to an article in National Review Magazine in 1986, Alexandrov changed sides and revealed the bogus nature of his nuclear winter climate models. Then, on 31 March 1985, while attending the Second International Conference of Nuclear Free Zones in Cordoba, Spain, Alexandrov disappeared forever. He was described, by one associate, as being dragged off in a car and taken to the Soviet Embassy.

Is any of this familiar or credible? According to KGB defector Sergei Tretyakov, “The KGB was responsible for creating the entire nuclear winter story to stop the Pershing II missiles.” The fraudulent science of nuclear winter, added Tretyakov, was fed to Western scientists and peace activists.

If the reader goes online to search for this groundbreaking information online, all you will find is nuclear winter propaganda. The lid is closed tight on this story and nobody is supposed to guess the truth. I offer the Alexandrov story, and Tretyakov’s testimony, in order to show how our perceptions are managed by our enemy, and how our ideas about nuclear war — above all — are targeted by that same enemy. ~ J.R. Nyquist in Nuclear War: Where Nuclear Winter Meets Global Warming, 2nd November 2023.

The same corrupt wellspring that brought forth the theory of nuclear winter has also authored the climate crisis narrative, and for the same ends: the tyrannical, globalist subjugating control of the people of the West.

The only questions that remain now, given that the western governments are finally trying to alert their populations (that is, prime them, for they care not one iota about any of us) to the likelihood of nuclear war with China and Russia, are (a) will they come clean about the nuclear winter fallacy at last, or (b) will they maintain the charade – despite the logical disconnect between it and their warmongering – lest the wheels come off their bogus climate narrative also?

Myth #4: NATO still operates a policy of Launch on Warning (LoW).

This myth seems to be more commonly held, in our experience, among those of a military background or those with an interest in military matters (and it is held by Annie Jacobsen!)

Essentially, it is the misconception that NATO, or specifically the nuclear armed triumvirate thereof (the US, UK and France), would instantly launch a counterstrike barrage on Russia upon the confirmation of a first strike directed against NATO.

This was, admittedly, at least the policy of the US, if not the UK and France also, from the 1950s onwards and appears to have continued right up until Bill Clinton introduced Presidential Decision Directive 60 (PDD-60) in November 1997, which did away with LoW (among other initiatives that greatly weakened the strategic nuclear capabilities of the US, in what conservative writers such as J.R. Nyquist have excoriated as a major victory for the gamesmanship of the Russian establishment’s long-term strategic deception – for more on that subject, I recommend the reader study Joel Skousen’s Strategic Threats section on his website).

Clinton and his advisors were keen to reduce the US stockpiles, “now that Russia is no longer a threat”, which played directly into the hands of the newly “democratic and transparent” Kremlin, as predicted by KGB defector Anatoliy Golitsyn back in 1984 in his unmissable book, New Lies for Old.

New Lies for Old


For Clinton, a modernised and well stocked nuclear arsenal was overkill, as the following short-sighted commentary on his PDD-60 nuclear posture change reveals:

The catastrophic domestic and global consequences of such gross overkill—involving force levels far in excess of those necessary to deter any adversary—became increasingly clear to a growing number inside and outside the military establishment. And with the end of the Cold War, it became obvious that deterrence could be accomplished with much smaller strategic forces. Now, with the elimination of the formal requirement to be able to fight and win a nuclear war, the Joint Chiefs — who long ago outgrew their initial infatuation with nuclear weapons for all purposes — are in a position to accept lower force levels with full confidence that any potential adversaries, including a highly unlikely recidivist Russia or aggressive China, will be deterred. "One Step Forward" article on Arms Control Association's website, November 1997.

Note the mentality there, that affirms Russia as highly unlikely to ever be a threat again; that has to either be some of the worst naivety ever known in western military planning, or the work of subversive influences within.

Or perhaps, as Joel Skousen has suggested, it is the result of America’s very own strategic deception, to entice and embolden Russia and China into initiating a near future nuclear war that the US believes it can win through the deployment of black program technology that neither Russia nor China is privy to.

Skousen’s theory may, of course, be wishful thinking (we assess it to be probable, however), but in any case, PDD-60, be it noted, is still in force, with a rare insight into the thinking that pervades it being revealed in How the End Begins (Ron Rosenbaum, 2011) through interviews with Pentagon top brass who confirmed that the US now maintains a “wait-and-see” defensive posture.

Myth #5: There could be no winner, therefore no nation would start WW3.

It is hard to say if this myth was promulgated by western propagandists to pacify their populaces, or if instead it is just one of those things that organically appeared in western civilian consciousness as a result of deductive processes originating with other WW3 ideas, but by no means can it be said to have ever been adopted as a policy driver in Russia or China.

On the contrary, Russia’s longstanding nuclear war posture has been aggressive rather than defensive, with its rocket forces designed and equipped to launch a first strike, whereas the West has always placed an emphasis on defensive deterrence.

We could, at this juncture, discuss the merits and demerits of launching first, and the risk that a first strike against enemy strategic forces (counterforce targets) might compel them to unleash a retaliatory strike against the aggressor’s cities (countervalue targets), leaving the aggressor’s opening salvo to land on empty silos, but this appears to be a one-sided issue, insofar as the US, under PDD-60, is postured to fully absorb a counterforce strike, whereas Russia would simply launch on warning.

But in either case, the point is probably moot, given the sheer volume of warheads and delivery platforms Russia now possesses; that is, we assess that Russia could probably simultaneously launch a counterforce strike with a countervalue one, and still retain plenty in reserve as well as the manufacturing capacity to produce even more.

The strategic imbalance, therefore, is such that Russia is confident in any kind of escalatory scenario; it has deep-bunkering, most of NATO does not; it has enough warheads for multiple nuclear wars, the West does not; it has Launch on Warning, the West does not.

And given that the West appears weak, or is feigning it, Russia is encouraged to become increasingly bold in its moves of the geopolitical front, further comforted by knowing that China (contrary to what some well paid experts will foolishly and ruinously tell you) has its back, as part of the long-term "joint clenched fist" strategy the defectors have been warning about for decades, mostly to no avail.

We would go further and say that Russia, by invading Ukraine, and by waging a proxy war with the West there, is already escalating towards a nuclear showdown with the West, which we project shall come to pass towards, and before, the end of this decade.

However, we temper that with the additional assertion that the West is also committed to war and cite as evidence not merely its escalation in the supply of weapons systems to Ukraine, and its “please kick me” label courtesy of PDD-60’s supine defensive posture, but also now the transition of the western economies into a war footing and the psychological priming of its peoples for a near future war with Russia (hence all the talk of conscription).

The bottom line is that both the West and the East believe nuclear war is winnable, and all signs point to both blocs having already committed to it irreversibly.

Accordingly, you must do what you can now to prepare, because leaving it until the eve of destruction is going to play out very badly; but there again, as a conservative reader, you already knew that.

And if you would like help in finding a retreat locale or building a shelter, kindly consider our services.