The Day After (1983)

I watched this last year just to relive the memories of youth. I was a young lad when this movie was on TV, I remember watching it with my family and at the time, considering how afraid everyone was of Russia and nuclear war, yeah it was a sobering moment.

When you can sense your parents were uncomfortable watching it, it has an effect on you. Back in 1983 there were far fewer channels and only a few prime ones, ABC, NBC and in Canada we got WUTV which is Fox in Buffalo. So when a movie was promoted as this one was as Made For TV, it was a big deal. Teachers and kids at school talked about the movie the next day.

Even president Reagan was moved by the movie, so it had an impact fair greater than it's quality or even it's accuracy. He apparently decided to try and make peace with the Russians after seeing it, and if I'm not mistaken it was shortly after the U.S almost had a real nuclear situation if not for Petrov in Russia doing he right thing and not retaliating to a false alarm from their satellite.

Scary time indeed. Especially when consider the world was at the mercy of a foreign nation that was quickly becoming technologically a laggard, but they possessed such massive atomic power.
I let me son watch it. He was 10. Some people were absolutely furious that I exposed him to that fear. I said he is old enough to die in an attack, he is old enough to know about it. I did end up feeling bad, though, because a couple days later he asked me in a small voice if we were all going to die in a nuclear attack. I told him probably not; we need to keep working to keep that from happening anywhere. It worried him. I felt bad, but part of me still thinks he had the right to know.

I do like your reasoning. I spent 8 years in Strategic Air Command around the bombers, tankers and Minutemen. The hardest part of it all was trying to stay motivated. Being at war when you are peace is just as hard as being at War. But we were ready in a seconds notice. What people don't understand, we also trained in the Aftermath. Pick up the essentials and move to somewhere yet to be determined. Once there, set up a base to recover whatever AC should return and turn them, repair them, etc.. We also mobilized the Hospital since they are going to be extremely important for not only returning crews that may be hurt but also the Civilian Populance. And we were armed meaning, we became the Sheriffs to keep order in both Military and Civilians to prevent society from turning back to the Stone Age. When faced with death, starvation and cold, the only difference is that Civilized Man needs to be reminded that they are still civilized. Side not: Anything we didn't take with us went up in a Mushroom Cloud.
 
Here are the two most likely scenerios for Nuclear Attack.

1 The most likely is for a terrorist to get ahold of nuclear fuel weapons grade. If you have that, you can make a makeshift bomb out of things off the shelf. Of course, you will need some plastic explosives. I won't go into how it's done but any 1st year College Student and half of the High Schoolers can do it. It doesn't have to be a Rogue Nation, it can be a terrorist group like ISIS. Russia didn't keep good records of all they had. Pakistan keeps losing it. Luckily, it's normally just an accounting mistake. But it just might happen. No, it will be a low yield but still take out a few city blocks and pollute the air since it will be on ground level. If set off in a major city during rush hour.....I think you get the idea.

2. Now comes the other example. A Mistake by a Nation. The use of Nuclear Weapons as a first response by accident is a serious worry. It's nearly happened more than a few times since 1950. Obviously it was caught in time in each case. But that is the #2 and the deadliest.

Now, let's talk about another way that is less likely. Let's say that Russia decides to invade the EU. They come charging over the borders. The war starts going badly for them. Now they resort to Tactical Nukes which they have more than all the rest of the world put together. The Russians would first posture about using them to gauge the US response. The US response will probably be to put the nuke bombers in the air to even out the fight or stall the Russian advance using smaller nukes than the Strategic Weapons. The Russian launch their big stuff. The US follows in kind. Here is what prevents this from happening. Both know that the US will fare better (not really a good thing) but it's the end of both Countries. Not that everyone will be dead, the central governments would be gone and other countries would have to move in to prevent the starvation, sick and just otherwise nasty parts from crossing their borders. I imagine that Mexico would be happy to go back to the time when they owned most of the Southwest. And Canada would be right down probably to get warm as their own country would be 5 to 10 degrees colder.These would not be invasions, it would be mostly humanitarian in nature. Meanwhile, China would be heading north to it's old borders. Spain would have to do something Germany never could and that is control Germany and France. I am not saying that these are the countries that would do this but it would have to happen. Different Players, Same Tune.

Has any of this happened? NO, but we trained for it. Both sides training for it helped to ensure that it never happened including #2. But there is no way to train for #1.
 
More pertinent today, in my opinion, are the books by William Forstchen...

One Second After, One year After, & The Final Day

All very good... all rooted in the facts of what could happen...

One Second After by William R. Forstchen

I totally agree with this assumption. While I am not a real Newt fan, the does bring up some points if you remove the political rhetoric.

 

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