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nato expansion in the 90s, wasnt as much as expansion as it was opening borders to refugees who were kicking the fence to get in with fear in their eyes
"Comrade General, NATO have launched a first strike against us!" "What? What size? How many missiles are incoming?" "Just one sir. One really small missile. From Norway." "Go back to sleep you idiot"
Anyone who thinks a single missile being sent out would be a nuclear first strike should not have any seat of power frankly, I mean what's the one missile going to do? Incinerate once city? Hit the president? Hit a silo? There are backup systems and backup structures that would be missed and could easily continue functioning for retaliation. EMP? Russia's a massive landmass, even with a good burst it wouldn't reach the Siberian silos, or western Russia if vice versa. Absolutely bizarre logic some leaders come up with.
😂 Right? But the scary thing is that there was a completely shit faced drunk Yeltsin on the button. Almost as bad as a deranged Orange Orang-Utan having control of the US nuclear codes. Oh, wait...
The attitude of Putin reminds me of a story from the Irish writer Paddy Crosby's autobiography. His mother intervened when she saw two little boys fighting and asked who started it? One of the little boys answered "He started it when he hit me back."
@@Archangelm127here 15:05 that's a typical russian "antifascist" for you. But remember, these guys are fighting against the mythical fascists in Ukraine😂
It's quite hilarious (and scary) that both the Soviet Union and later Russian Federation have loads of events in history marked by "wierd coincidences". A mirror flight that happened due to similar geographical features in both directions, a mutiny that ended peacefully due to a delay in decision-making, and now the world coming close to nuclear war due a rocket that *just* so happened to fly in the direction of a Nuclear state's capital (at least for a while). I've been watching this channel for a while, and this might be the first video I've seen where you get into rocketry. I'd say keep it up; rockets and the history behind them are just as interesting as aircraft.
@@nneeerrrd the facist in Ukraine are real mind you they just died so early in the war because like so few of them actually existed and were a joke to ukrainian politics im sure some Ukrainian facist coward is hiding somewhere but they aren’t that many
I just watched the mirrored flight a few days ago, that was an insane amount of coincidences. The locations, the bodies of water, the fact that there happened to be an earth quake in that area at that time which is why they didnt get intercepted... the two soviet fighters chasing each other at the end because one of them forgot to update their IFF and they each thought the other was an enemy. That one made me laugh.
With time, people tend to forget and grow more accustomed to the horrors of the current day accepting them as something common, part of their everyday life which happens "somewhere there". Only by constantly reminding it is possible to keep the minds from growing ignorant. You are one of the few who keeps doing so. Thank you.
In fact, our government is incentivized to promote this process because it makes it look like they're actually solving problems that in reality, we're just getting bored with and moving on from. An added bonus is that a happier and comfortable population is more likely to spend money and feel free to waste their time and gains on frivolous interests and pursuits.
Minor nitpick about the Black Brant: it cannot in fact carry 400kg to 1500km. There are payload/altitude charts in the manual and it can only achieve that maximum altitude when flying with a minimum payload closer to 100kg. As you add payload, unsurprisingly, max altitude decreases. (Not that this impacts any real substance in your video, just thought I'd clarify)
@@mikeb3539the Black Brant (and most sounding rockets used up until today) is a really simple machine. Sans the payload, it's essentially a rocket motor with fins. That helps with the reliability 😊
@@dmacpher can't go wrong with drag staging... Ignition is computer-controlled, but separation is caused by aerodynamic forces. I love me some delayed ignitions!
The whole world knows Ukraine has openly professing "Nazi" units fighting for it. . Which makes it even more funny that the Communists in the US send money/arms to those Fascists to fight The Communists in Russia...LOL . fucking clown world.
"On that day, the fate of all mankind hinged on the decision of just one person: Russian president Boris Yeltsin." Me: * remembers that news about Yeltsin getting drunk in a state visit to the US and wandering onto the streets in his underwear, trying to get a pizza. *
*Remembers that Yeltsin coined a new term in Ireland because he was so drink while arriving by plane it had to circle the airport three times to give him time to sober up.*
I'm not surprised Yeltsin made the right choice. He did, after all, possess a healthy amount of common sense. But this story does elevate my opinion of him even higher than it was.
He was an alcoholic that ruined the nation's economy, shelled the parliament for making the “wrong” decision, enabled the rise of Putin and finished term with a hitherto unseen approval rating of 2%.
If I had a nickel for how many times Russians have almost brought the world to an end, while also saving it from said end, I would have 3 nickels, which isn't a lot, but its strange it happened that many times...
I still think that Able Archer 83 was the most perilous moment. (This is also remarkable for combining a slow build-up with a very short actual decision span. It may be a coincidence or not that we don't hear much about this one and that NATO is still officially in denial of the implications.)
The Soviet armed forces never believed it was a nuclear threat, and they had the final say, so I don't think it was nearly as dangerous as those moments where one man had to make a very quick choice
@@jaspergood2091 Mind that in the GDR bombers were standing on the runway with running motors, ready to counter strike, and the response time was minimal. (About 2-3 minutes from detected launch to destruction.) Also, fleet and mobile forces had already moved into their assigned ready areas. (That NATO should have missed this, with all the tapped command lines, satellites, etc, is hard to believe.) This was the two blocks facing one another, both on high alert, NATO in its maneuver and the Warsaw Pact at DEFCON-1. NATO issued the nuclear strike command and it was on the Warsaw Pact side to decide in no time, if this was for real or really just a test (against all indications). This was not a lone data point or a single blip on a screen, this was based on general awareness. And it appears the RYaN model was fed somewhat deliberately: all stars seemed to align for the USSR's worst nightmare…
the Soviet armed forces in eastern Europe were well aware of that exercise, having been informed beforehand. So was the Soviet leadership. If some in the Kremlin chose to think that it wasn't an exercise, that too was nothing new. And it wasn't the exercise itself that caused the tensions around it, it was the Soviet actions prior to the exercise.
@@jwenting The point being that the USSR was pretty much expecting a Western strike to be started under the cover of a maneuver. Their scenarios pointed this way. And, as it happened, just then RYaN had predicted a Western first strike to be launched in the next few weeks, based on a variety of data, and there was a also a peculiar time window with the new missiles already in Europe, but still exclusively under US control. (And there was more, like a build up in mock attacks to test Soviet defenses, etc. And all this, while rhetorics were also building up. This was pretty much the hottest phase of the cold war - and the USSR was in panic.)
FANTSTIC editing and pacing, your videos only get better, you are a great story teller, thank you. Also, your choice of period video references is perfect.
I knew of this, but I didn't know the test rocket matched a D5 launch profile. That makes the Russian response a LITTLE more understandable. Not excusable, but understandable.
it didn't, only the launch site and initial course somewhat did. D5 has completely different staging and speed profiles for example, and a much flatter trajectory.
@@CativaBR Yeah. Individual capability & grit has never been the Russian's problem, it's always been how they used it (or don't) and their incredibly messed up governments. "There are no bad soldiers, there are only bad officers". (Not 100% true, either, but descriptive to this situation)
It confuses me why Russia was so surprised that east Europe turned away from Russia, even if they aren’t the same entities people are still going to see it the same
The west played them when they sided with them in WW2. Let them get away with murder (literal mass murder) then pulled the rug out from under them, lol. serves them right for trusting the west.
Russian elites are almost mirror of byzantine politics. They were not truly "shocked" they simply spun it that way to be viewed as victims instead of the transgressors they are. You should remember that to be a ln oligarch, Military officer, or even politician in Russian is considerably far harder than being an American Kingpin. The amount of acumen you need to survive as a local politician simply makes pentagon politics blush.
Fun fact, this is why the iconic red phone is on the presidents desk. There are similar ones in most nuclear powers offices. That way they can call each other and be like “hey dude! What the fucks going on? Please tell me some idiot didn’t inform us that you were doing tests?!”
The "iconic red phone" does not exist. It is an invention of fictional media meant to represent agreements and protocols to allow rapid communication between the leaders of nuclear states in an emergency.
At the back of his mind, Yeltsin had to be asking himself what America's motivation could possibly be for launching an attack now? Thankfully, a bit of vodka might have also slowed his reflexes a bit lol.
I honestly think a nuclear attack could have taken place and Yeltsin's thought would have been "what's the point of fighting back now?" Putin could see a bird flying over the Norwegian sea on radar and think it's Armageddon. When it turns out to be a false alarm he'd probably have the radar crew assassinated and blame the whole scare on NATO in one big coverup. For a man as tiny as he is, he has one massive and fragile ego. Im sure according to him, he could never do anything wrong or ever possibly over react to anything.
Exactly. That's why this isn't actually as 'special' an event as it seems- it couldn't have been hard for any level-headed, reasonable person to think 'this doesn't make sense- there must be something wrong.' Just one rocket, when the Cold War is essentially over, and everyone seems to be getting along better than ever- what sense does it make for this to be a Trident, of all things?
@@thatguyoverthere9634I’ve asked myself this question many times in regards to other possible scenarios. Like, what if one of our allies accidentally launched a rocket at us? Would we, or even should we, accept an apology? Although I’m also making an assumption that said ally would have gotten to the point where institutional problems have gotten so bad that one misfired rocket almost triggers a nuclear response, and I cannot think of any of our allies as been on the same level as Russia, 90s or otherwise.
It is not the fall of the Berlin Wall that launched the end of the east block... The collapse was already well under the way over one year already... The wall was just spectacular
"For the Ukrainians, it's just another Tuesday" Great quote and sadly so true. Good video of a little known event. Might have wanted to include a few Americans in that clip about "crazy" leaders.
And the saddest part is...this is a reality. World wouldn end after nuclear strikes, just a new, much darker world will be born. No country will collapse, no leadership will disappear and no war will be ended.
Trump was surprisingly tough on Russia. He was the only US president in like 60 years who sanctioned use deadly force against Russians in Syria, where they wasted around 250 Russians. During Obama era, Russians learnt the US troops in Syria were ordered to just take it in the ass and retreat when fired upon, Trump chose not to appease Hitler... I mean Putin. Also, Putin called Trump a "gay clown", which got translated into "bright and entertaining" by an incompetent translator :D Trump now thinks Putin respects him, which is only half the truth, for Putin respects strength and the US military is that strength.
4:20 that's a misleading statement, since a "1500km height" of that rocket is still a ballistic suborbital one, which is not directly comparable to orbital heights - because of very different kinematics, velocities and energies involved. But what's more relevant - a 1500km ballistic height is quite comparable to ones of ICBM trajectories.
I loved the ending of the video where you had the Reagan speech and talked about the modern political standings of the Right now a days. Me and my Father feel the same way. He was raised in the Cold War and believes strongly in kicking Russia in the teeth, but it’s hard now a days because our own political parties are now supporting Russia.
@@chesterhiggens Putin has been saying that NATO is his personal enemy for decades, you just don't understand Russian so you fall for propaganda in English.
The unfortunate truth is that the Republican party of old no longer exists. I've always been extremely liberal myself, but at least respected the ideology of the right up until the Obama era: at least I could tell that their ideals were always in an attempt to better the United States. The Republican party these days can't say that anymore. Moscow-funded politicians say and do whatever they can to get elected, so they can fill their pockets as much as possible before their term is up. Trump really was just the final nail in the coffin.
@@p_serdiuk Didn't he ask to join NATO a while back, only to get spitefully rebuffed and lied to about the continued expansion (with everyone but russia)?
I am happy you did not end up deciding to hire some over the top American to mispronounce all these Russian names when you got some random comment about your accent 🙂 Love your storytelling, somehow with a personal touch
Missile fired 3 minutes away from the main Russian ICBM-bases around Murmansk. But what do I know, I only went to school with a member of the Norwegian team who launched the missile.
@@IvanDmitriev1 Afrikanda was an air defense base, along with Kandalaksha. I'm just a fountain of useless Cold War trivia. Or a fountain of something... But I think I know what you were going for; at one time between Murmansk and Archangelsk, that area was the HQ for the Red Banner Northern Fleet and concrete igloos all over the Kola held nuke warheads for the various shipboard systems. Then there's the SLBMs and their warheads so that the way I'd always heard it put, was the Kola was a super sensitive area to the Russkies, with the largest concentration of warheads in any one place. This probably wasn't exactly true either (define a "place"?) but you know how we Americans love our idioms, one liners and quips. It matches our short attention spans.
Most of these events seem to be defused by MAI. Mutually Assured Incompetence. When Soviet belligerence creates a problem, the Soviet method of thorough incompetence created just enough balance to stop it from escalating too far.
If you don’t value your brain cells, watch some Russian news stations. They are constantly advocating for nuclear weapons to be used on literally anything and everything that inconveniences Russia, from Kyiv to the White House to just demanding that the entire UK be tuned to glass.
When Kennedy and Khrushchev met in 1963 after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy told Khrushchev during a conversation. The USA has nuclear weapons to destroy the USSR 10 times over. To which Khrushchev responded. And the USSR has nuclear weapons to destroy the United States only twice, but once will be enough for us.
As a rather right leaning European, I too find it disturbing how many people I would otherwise agree with buy into Russian propaganda and/or the idea that the West and countries standing up against Russia‘s bully tactics are responsible for escalations. Of course there are always two sides, but WTF!? Also, Shaman and his nuclear briefcase prop gave me shivers… eerie
Well, that was a really great video in my oppinion, the hunt for the storozevoy was also a good one, but in a more funnier way, whereas this was is good while staying serious. I first heard about this story thanks to The History Guy channel, your videos complements it by giving hindsight into the state of Russia during the event. I am amazed by the quality of your videos, and I don't understand why RU-vid doesn't support more good-quality content creators, it would improve the platform a lot I think. And it's such a shame that there ins't a comment section on Nebula, I find this platform way more convenient to find precise and good quality content thanks to it's simplicity, but it's a bit lacking in interaction with rhe audience in my opinion
Thanks Paper Skies, the quality of your videos is normally great, but this one was so insightful and analytical that I think you just raised the bar. Thanks
I appreciate you, Paper Skies and I think you are to the largest extent objective, neutral and generally marked by decency and common sense. I do believe, though, that reality is much more complex and (in my opinion) you are becoming progressively affected by the hardships your country goes through.
@@ZaAllahRus Given how often he talks about Ukraine, and even flatout said he is Ukrainian in this video, maybe pay a little bit more attention instead of scrolling comments while the video is running. You can read this in an asshole's voice, or the voice of somebody who is trying to explain something. Your choice, given how tone gets lost in translation to text.
Great content as always. I think the political right in the West is more interested in isolation and nationalism these days rather than promoting and exporting democracy after the black eye that is the GWOT.
The constant mislabeling of certain motions being brought to help Ukraine don't help either. Where news outlets and politicians will say "X billions of dollars of aid to Ukraine" when what is really happening is that money is being funneled into the American economy to make new munitions that are replacing the old stock we're sending to Ukraine. It's a lot of "we're tired of foreign wars we have no stock in" and "Zelensky is a corrupt crook" as well.
During the Cuban Cuban Missile Crissis, 1 of 3 Soviet officers on a submarine vetoed the launch of a nuclear torpedo, in response to debt charges from the US Navy.
Well then, I didn't know that we made a missile program here. Nor the fact that (of course) the one that we made would be seen as super reliable. When we put our heads to it, we make good stuff. Sadly, we lost a lot of the heads who were in such projects in the 60s. (thanks Diefenbaker.)
During the Cuba Crisis, the US performed an essentially non-legal blockade. In that blockade a US destroyer was hunting one of 3 Soviet subs. They were armed with nuclear torpedoes and the captains of the subs had made a pact. If one fired, they all fired. Fortunately, the Soviet submarine captain exercised restraint although it was being hunted vigorously by a....buckaroo.
Additionally, there is never much focus on that both the Soviet Union and the US carried out nuclear testing DURING the Cuban missile crisis, some of themeven exoatmospheric.
The phrasing "NATO expanding into warsaw pact countries" makes it look like NATO initiated this when it didn't. The correct desxription would be "Warsaw Pact countries moving into NATO" to properly describe who intiated the move. NATO doesnt make countires join it. It gets requests by countires who want to join it and then decides yes or no. If they weren't afraid of Russia these countries wouldn't have applied to join NATO. NATO didnt make them join, Russia drove them to join.
True. And ukraine might been in NATO too, if not deal with russia about "alternative" way of protection, and a couple of territorial disputes WAY before 2014.
@@coasteyscoasteys China at least. Do you remember whole: "We dont need our stuff, lets move it to china!" It was a good deal...until in 2023 it is one of worst ideas of all time.
Never heard of the black brant rocket before. Listening to everything its done it seems so impressive. Should've taught us about it in school. It seems more useful than other "Canadian cultural icons" like the canadarm, or other shit that nobody outside canada knows of
Yeah, I'm annoyed I've never heard of it either- the most reliable rocket ever, and still in use. Geez. But the Canadarm is cool- can't say anything bad about that.
You should watch a video by polyus about the black brant. Is other video are good too and talk about the Canadian aerospace industry during the cold War
@Ryuko-T72 It's not only the Black Brant. Another offshoot of the mentioned 'Propulsion Test Vehicle' was the CRV7 (Canadian Rocket Vehicle 7) ground attack rocket. It stood out as *the most powerful weapon in its class, being the first with enough energy to penetrate standard Warsaw Pact aircraft hangars* . The CRV7 remains one of the most powerfull air-to-ground attack rockets to this day and has become the de facto standard for Western-aligned forces outside the United States. A quick fact from Wikipedia: The weapon was originally quoted to have a dispersion of 4 milliradians, but testing with the McDonnell Douglas CF-18 Hornet demonstrated an even lower dispersion at 3 milliradians. This significantly surpasses the autocannon armament found on most aircraft; for instance, the widely used 20mm M61 Vulcan is rated at 8 milliradians, while the much larger and heavier 30mm GAU-8 Avenger is rated at 5 milliradians. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CRV7
@@louis-philippelacharite7201 Polyus is a great Canadian channel. I mentioned the CRV7 rocket in my previous comment and just found out that Polyus has made a video about it. Right on time. It should be a good watch. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-N8gHcRDUE28.html
Not living too far from this place in Norway, I remember this. And I remember that from my parent's living room, the day after this incident, looking out towards the mountains which the Andørja rocket facility was behind the clouds above were formed as one giant mushroom cloud and I remember thinking to myself: "In a parallel universe..."
i would like the explaination too the great war in the Fallout series that started the nuclear war was something like this between china and the usa :P would be intressting twist that the nuclear exchanges that ended the world was just a misstake xD
Слава Україні brother! 💙💛 I have voted Republican my entire adult life, honestly I can't figure out what in the world happened to the Republican party as of late. Republican party used to have a big set of 🏀🏀, now they are happy to give up Ukraine to Putin. Now we're stuck between Biden's disastrous internal policies, and Trump's insane agenda on foreign policy. I can't bring myself to vote Republican right now, it'd be the same as voting for Putin.
Probably because they are more worried about their own problems, then others. That's why to me, the Republicans are better then democrats in many ways, Pulling out of Afghanistan was good. Less troops in Syria, etc... Only reason why the war happened in Ukraine was because of Euro Maiden. Without it, no war would come. Z.
my man puts so much time and effort into making these epic videos and still didn't put the ad in the start or the middle bro do you hate money or they didn't care wherever you put it
I very like what's you're doin, but fall of the whole communism was not in the Berlin. It;s started in Poland in 1989 and that was the first country that liberates from soviets. After that that it was like domino, country after country from eastern block just fall down.
In the 90’s, we had a hillbilly president here in the U.S. Russian had their drunk guy, but more importantly, Salma Hayek..I think we can all agree on that. 🤘🏼❤️🤘🏼
Its quite amazing honestly how many times 1 person has "avoided nuclear war" the most memorable one for me that comes to mind whenever i hear such things is of course Vasily Aleksandrovich Arkhipov. And yes that was a copy paste but it just goes to show these things arent as uncommon as people think.
I would say yes that is true that we didn't get a nuclear war during the Cold War. The men in charge after we were the same in charge before. So it was USSR but only Russia was in it.
9:42 Well that is nothing new. Buddy was born in Russia but his family moved into Finland right after his birth. 20 years later he get conscription paperwork calling him to service in Russian army or get a arrest warrant (This was around 2008). After sending paperwork back explaining that he was not bound to serve in Russian military but actually had gone trough Finnish conscription service already... they sent another set of paperwork demanding he returns to country to serve and was informed he would be arrested at the boarder for running from the conscription. Only because his relative was bit higher at the time on Russian military the issue was finally solved but it took 5 years after issue was identified, so not informing about rocket test launch would not be shocked if it was lost into some folder since nation size, specially Russian size nations bureaucracy is so complex and when you combine zero fucks given attitude and corruption, well its not shock to see mistakes like this... Then again similar level of fuck ups has been seen probably every nation really.
It should be noted that most research rockets launch east to west so Norway launched directly over Russian airspace. But you launch west to east because that's the most efficient way to launch. It's just physics.
To be fair, the "incompetence" cuts both ways. In 1962 US warships dropped explosive charges on a cornered nuclear-armed Soviet submarine which could not communicate with its HQ. That was dangerously stupid.
