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Notes from Cold War 1.

AlbertGrand

Active member
Joined
Mar 20, 2015
Location
England
Just for anyone not old enough to remember the first Cold War, I thought it might be an idea to post some articles from the 1980s that have weird similarities to what is happening today. I have library access to a UK newspaper archive. Rather than post momentous events such as Cuba missiles or Afghanistan, let's go with day-to-day stuff that would appear on page 7 or so, to give an authentic feel of what the early 80s were like. Like this, from April 1983...



Honestly, this could be a post from SitRep! :shock:
 
AlbertGrand said:
Just for anyone not old enough to remember the first Cold War, I thought it might be an idea to post some articles from the 1980s that have weird similarities to what is happening today. I have library access to a UK newspaper archive. Rather than post momentous events such as Cuba missiles or Afghanistan, let's go with day-to-day stuff that would appear on page 7 or so, to give an authentic feel of what the early 80s were like. Like this, from April 1983...



Honestly, this could be a post from SitRep! :shock:
Click to expand...

That was a 'nice', I suppose, trip down memory lane. Yes it is remarkably the same strategy. Asia ally with us, Russia, because we are encircled by ABMS. The new twist is the economic warfare that could not have happened until Moscow became semi-capitalistic. But cheerio, my good sir, I like the old news clippings. They do give us insight. He who does not know the past is bound to repeat it, type of stuff :D
 
ArmyATC said:
AlbertGrand said:
Just for anyone not old enough to remember the first Cold War, I thought it might be an idea to post some articles from the 1980s that have weird similarities to what is happening today. I have library access to a UK newspaper archive. Rather than post momentous events such as Cuba missiles or Afghanistan, let's go with day-to-day stuff that would appear on page 7 or so, to give an authentic feel of what the early 80s were like. Like this, from April 1983...



Honestly, this could be a post from SitRep! :shock:
Click to expand...

That was a 'nice', I suppose, trip down memory lane. Yes it is remarkably the same strategy. Asia ally with us, Russia, because we are encircled by ABMS. The new twist is the economic warfare that could not have happened until Moscow became semi-capitalistic. But cheerio, my good sir, I like the old news clippings. They do give us insight. He who does not know the past is bound to repeat it, type of stuff :D
Click to expand...

True.
 
AlbertGrand said:
Just for anyone not old enough to remember the first Cold War, I thought it might be an idea to post some articles from the 1980s that have weird similarities to what is happening today. I have library access to a UK newspaper archive. Rather than post momentous events such as Cuba missiles or Afghanistan, let's go with day-to-day stuff that would appear on page 7 or so, to give an authentic feel of what the early 80s were like. Like this, from April 1983...



Honestly, this could be a post from SitRep! :shock:
Click to expand...

Have you run across any old articles about any trouble with Ukraine from the '80's?
 
ArmyATC said:
AlbertGrand said:
Just for anyone not old enough to remember the first Cold War, I thought it might be an idea to post some articles from the 1980s that have weird similarities to what is happening today. I have library access to a UK newspaper archive. Rather than post momentous events such as Cuba missiles or Afghanistan, let's go with day-to-day stuff that would appear on page 7 or so, to give an authentic feel of what the early 80s were like. Like this, from April 1983...



Honestly, this could be a post from SitRep! :shock:
Click to expand...

Have you run across any old articles about any trouble with Ukraine from the '80's?
Click to expand...

Not much so far. The format is quite hard to search, especially as the British press used to refer to anything from the Soviet Union as Russian. Even The Times refers to football team Dynamo Kiev as 'Russian'.

I did come across a spate of letter bomb attacks in London on various airline targets, with a 'Ukrainian nationalist group' among those suspected, but responsibility was later claimed by an extreme Scottish group!

I'll keep looking though. It's pretty interesting, and scary too, some of the parallels between 83 - undoubtedly the worst year of the Cold War since the 60s, after ex-KGB man Andropov took over in Moscow - and now. I've read quite a few pieces saying that Putin admires Andropov of all the Soviet leaders, so perhaps this isn't surprising.
 
ArmyATC said:
AlbertGrand said:
Just for anyone not old enough to remember the first Cold War, I thought it might be an idea to post some articles from the 1980s that have weird similarities to what is happening today. I have library access to a UK newspaper archive. Rather than post momentous events such as Cuba missiles or Afghanistan, let's go with day-to-day stuff that would appear on page 7 or so, to give an authentic feel of what the early 80s were like. Like this, from April 1983...



Honestly, this could be a post from SitRep! :shock:
Click to expand...

Have you run across any old articles about any trouble with Ukraine from the '80's?
Click to expand...


You do know on Sept 26, 1983, the world did almost become toast. Here is your daily mail, the is one from the guardian as well. Maybe this will help your archive search, but it wasn't declassified for sometime, I'm afraid.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-505009/September-26th-1983-The-day-world-died.html
 
ArmyATC said:
You do know on Sept 26, 1983, the world did almost become toast. Here is your daily mail, the is one from the guardian as well. Maybe this will help your archive search, but it wasn't declassified for sometime, I'm afraid.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-505009/September-26th-1983-The-day-world-died.html
Click to expand...

Yep, I remember the programme referred to. I'd never heard of Operation RYAN before, and the worrying thing is, the west doesn't need Oleg Gordievsky to see a similar attitude in Moscow right now, it only has to look at Russia Today TV, as John Stone points out.

Also around that time was the US invasion of Grenada, which was being talked of in the press at least six months before it happened - predictions by the Grenadian leader of what would happen were almost spot on. So even then it was easy to pick up on military activity that could lead to war.

Let's just hope there are spies and government officials looking to do the right thing and pull us away from a repeat. :?
 
AlbertGrand said:
ArmyATC said:
You do know on Sept 26, 1983, the world did almost become toast. Here is your daily mail, the is one from the guardian as well. Maybe this will help your archive search, but it wasn't declassified for sometime, I'm afraid.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-505009/September-26th-1983-The-day-world-died.html
Click to expand...

Yep, I remember the programme referred to. I'd never heard of Operation RYAN before, and the worrying thing is, the west doesn't need Oleg Gordievsky to see a similar attitude in Moscow right now, it only has to look at Russia Today TV, as John Stone points out.

Also around that time was the US invasion of Grenada, which was being talked of in the press at least six months before it happened - predictions by the Grenadian leader of what would happen were almost spot on. So even then it was easy to pick up on military activity that could lead to war.

Let's just hope there are spies and government officials looking to do the right thing and pull us away from a repeat. :?
Click to expand...

Oh yes, brings back memories. We seem about the same age. I also remember this led to Iran Contra and , eventually regime change and hostages in Iran.

That is my concern, some of these decisions, no matter how well planned have unintended consequences. I was training with your very professional SAS for Bosnia. One day was a live fire Excercise in which I was providing LAnding Zone tactical air traffic control out of a HUMVEE. Although rehearsed many times, when the range went live, an aircraft not even associated tried to practice air assault in very close proximity. When I radioed him to instruct, he was so rattled he almost flew tree-top level right into the live zone and I lost comms with the range to alert them. The participants could not see his approach, and had trouble hearing anything. Luckily, SAS took charge, saw the danger from an observation tower, and loss of life was averted.

But the point is, as the 'walking into War' thread points out. Historically events have been set in motion that are unforeseen and uncontrollable. We are blessed to have made it this far, no need to tempt fate ;)
 
A bit of light relief....

A Soviet functionary refuses to believe that a British newspaper can be critical of government ministers without... er... consequences... :lol:

 
AlbertGrand said:
In 1983... USSR tries to strip Greece out of the America/NATO orbit...

Click to expand...

Huh. That's similar to what's happening right now to an extent.
 
jayfeather31 said:
AlbertGrand said:
In 1983... USSR tries to strip Greece out of the America/NATO orbit...

Huh. That's similar to what's happening right now to an extent.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

What's interesting is that in the subsequent 30 years, the Papandreous and PASOK mellowed so much that they became part of the establishment, and so Greek radicals had to form a new party and re-start the whole process of distancing from US/NATO, that initially began in 81 but calmed down in the Gorbachev era, all over again.

I don't think Greece as a nation well ever feel completely happy in an alliance that also includes Turkey.
 
Russian subs in Scandinavia were a thing in 1982...



And here's a TV news report with details of these 'mini-subs'.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--_XSwySZWk[/youtube]
 
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