About those naval exercises: in 1978, another period of “tension” between the Empire and Russia, I was given a free trip to Japan (to carry my ex-wife’s bags, another story.) Part of our ten days, there were three, at the Suginoi Hotel, a large spa resort in Beppu, on the southern island of Japan.
This place had many public baths, with varied themes. One day, I chose the “Hanging Gardens” by chance. Typical custom: get naked, wash thoroughly, then enter the huge steaming pool with islands and greenery and a glass roof.
So I’m in the giant ofuro, relaxed and half asleep, when there’s a commotion near the shower area. Three US Navy officers there, all high-intensity tested. They stripped down, skipped the cleaning, and dove into the pool (about a meter deep). Seeing me, the only other gaijin in the place, they continued on their way. They were a rather happy bunch, perhaps showing the effects of too much Suntory, sake, or Kirin. The Japanese in the pool either got out or retreated to distant corners.
It appears that these three people were part of the crews of a US guided-missile frigate and a US guided-missile destroyer, making a “stopover” at Beppu. We talked, they heard I was a Vietnam veteran (army, boo!). Two of them claimed to be the tactical officers of the two ships. I turned a little towards politics.
Japan at the time had done it. “Rule” that nuclear weapons are not allowed on Japanese territory. These guys came from ships that were playing bumper cars with Russian warships in the Sea of Japan. They explained how they had “tagged” a Russian destroyer in the game, by sliding alongside it and hitting it beam to beam.
I just had to ask a question about nuclear weapons on board, given the Japanese ban. They dodged the question. I asked how likely it was that a real war would break out in these waters, and they admitted it was quite likely, almost as if they couldn’t wait to put these communists in their place. These guys were drunk, so as an old-fashioned liberal hippie, I asked again if there were nuclear weapons in the pool of weapons available. Yes, just like their Russian enemy. We must maintain the supremacy of forces, or at least parity, after all. They began talking tactics and boasted that they held the keys to American anti-ship missiles.
And they recognized that the theater was on a trigger, the level of hostility between the competing testosterone-infused forces was quite high. They were quite cavalier about the fact that suddenly large ships, including their own, could be incinerated and headed to the bottom. I will not allow communists to survive for bragging rights if they were to die.
The reason for this delegation of launch authority appears to be that the “horizon time” for radar detection of incoming Russian surface-to-surface missiles was only minutes to seconds, so the decisions to fire were delegated to them because there was no time for a “chain of command.” So World War III could have easily started here, due to the ease of triggering by both sides or false returns on radar. This is one of many ways it could have started, and it is not hard to find the many events in the Cold War where misadventure, stupidity, and Murphy’s Law could have been triggered and almost were.
And sure, the delegation stuff may have been macho bullshit, but logically it made sense.
War is the natural state of humanity, given the data. And we buffs have no idea how close we are to proving that Liet-Keynes observation in “Dune” that the most enduring principles in the universe are accident and error.
Another vignette: My ex and I were escorted by a driver who was a former commander in the defeated Japanese navy. He spoke English fairly well, and during the conversation he made it clear that, 33 years after the surrender, he felt no guilt or remorse about the war or his role in it. His main observation was that if only Yamamoto had not attacked Pearl Harbor, it would now be the Japanese who would run the imperial game in the “Indo-Pacific,” not the Americans.
Stupid humans.
