This book is quite decent. The only downside is that it weighs about 3 kg - that's four pheasants and two shrews in imperial units - and you can use aThis book is quite decent. The only downside is that it weighs about 3 kg - that's four pheasants and two shrews in imperial units - and you can use as a combat aircraft of its own. If you're a military buff and you like pictures and technical details, you get a handy [sic] volume to peruse here.
The premise is spy movie worthy: a Soviet sub sinks in the Pacific, the Americans go after it.
Thus begins an audacious mooThis is a pretty solid book.
The premise is spy movie worthy: a Soviet sub sinks in the Pacific, the Americans go after it.
Thus begins an audacious moon-landing-quality secret program by the CIA of hauling a 3,000-ton submarine equipped with nuclear weapons off the bottom of the Pacific, roughly 5 km down. Needless to say, this takes some clever work.
The book covers a lot of interesting elements - the pure engineering effort behind it, the CIA games, the political masquerade and subterfuge, the crazy eccentrics who ran the programs, the Average Joe drill workers who got to share the experience with the top scientists, and then of course, the deed itself. Josh Dean does a good job of giving all these details the right dose of attention and flair.
And let's not forget the name of the ship that went after the sub - Global Marine Explorer - GloMar. Now this is the stuff Ian Fleming would have dreamed of putting in his novels.
The first 2/3rds of the book read like a blockbuster. Toward the end, the energy tapers off a bit, and I won't spoil what happens with the sub. But the last part could have been stitched together ever so slightly better. However, it's still a darn interesting book by all means. I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to work with or under the likes of Lockheed's Skunk Works Kelly Johnson. Some of the most impressive feats of engineering happened in the 60s and 70s, but we also have the glamor of time to gloss over some of the grittier bits. Still.
Overall, solid. 4.5/5.0. Much recommended to anyone who loves bigass toys!
This was a thoroughly entertaining read. Nothing like cliche 50s and 60s poster to brighten your day.
This short work is mostly images from obscure andThis was a thoroughly entertaining read. Nothing like cliche 50s and 60s poster to brighten your day.
This short work is mostly images from obscure and not so obscure publications on UK's civil defense (or one should spell defence) during the Cold War, and various ways the government and the local councils (marginal constituencies as they are called in Yes, Prime Minister) prepared for the eventuality of a nuclear war. The author adds his view on various topics, with some extra commentary and explanations.
If there's one downside to this book is that it's a booklet. Too short! I read it in about an hour, and I wish there was more to it. The structure is also a bit jumbled, with a linear walkthrough the nuclear topic, and then some extra focus on different organizations and volunteer bodies that existed in the UK throughout the era. A slower pace, with more depth would be appreciated.
This is a great book. And as always, reality trumps fiction.
You've all seen spy movies. I've seen them. Some good ones, too. But when you actually reaThis is a great book. And as always, reality trumps fiction.
You've all seen spy movies. I've seen them. Some good ones, too. But when you actually read a story about an actual agent behind the enemy lines, then you realize how things are so vastly different and so much more interesting than the supposed glamor-and-guns nonsense you see on the screen, or even read in fiction books.
The story of Adolf Tolkachev is sad, fascinating, full of compelling detail. I was amazed by how much depth there is in the book, even though it essentially depicts a twenty-odd meetings between CIA operators in the Moscow station and the disgruntled Soviet engineer handing them secrets about Soviet latest aviation radar technology. The stuff that helped the Americans save billions of dollars, years of research, and gave them technological supremacy well into the 90s.
And yet there it is. Meetings between the handlers and Tolkachev. The secret signs, the notes, the letters, the personal items that Tolkachev would request - like toothpaste, pencils and erasers for his son's architectural projects, Western music, books by dissidents, and then some rubles after all. All of this adds a complex human dimension to the story of betrayal and intrigue.
You know how it all ends. Still, you read it and enjoy every page.
Solid 4.5 stars. A bit academic sometimes, but overall a fresh and compelling read.
In a way, this book gives a wider overview of the conditions that lSolid 4.5 stars. A bit academic sometimes, but overall a fresh and compelling read.
In a way, this book gives a wider overview of the conditions that led to the Able Archer 83 confrontation between the US/NATO and USSR, as I've written in my review of 1983: Reagan, Andropov, and a World on the Brink several weeks ago.
Rodric gives an indepth analysis of the social, political, cultural, and scientific backgrounds that had driven the nuclear powers in the Cold War, and the unanswerable question of MAD. I really liked the first third, as it sheds a lot of light on the scientific breakthroughs and the respective communities that had developed the nuclear weapons on the two sides of the world. A fascinating read, especially how whimsical, eccentric and naive some of these academic minds were.
The middle section is mostly military thinking and doctrine - five decades of not being to formulate the answer to how one uses the nukes. Then, the last part focuses on the political games, including the Cuban Crisis, Able Archer, and some other incidents, none of which had mercifully evolved into war.
There's no happy ending - only uncertainty about the future. But on the positive side, none of the doomsday predictions conceived in the past 60-70 years had come to pass, so that's some solace for the future generations.
The one thing missing, I think, is the French side. Because the French had their own, independent military industry and did a lot of things on their own, unlike the British, which often relied heavily on the US. The French story is quite interesting, including their own interpretation of MAD, their own nuclear patrols with Mirage IV, and so forth.
Overall, I liked the book. It's a bit scattered sometimes, and there's some self-argument, which feels like an academic essay, but all in all, the author does drive a consistent theme, and does lead to a conclusion, and it's not an easy task encompassing half a century of political bickering into a coherent work - especially since the military minds and the leaders on both sides rarely had a coherent, consistent view of their own motives and actions - as well as of those on the opposite side.
On a completely different note ...
If anything, if there's one argument against AI taking critical roles in society, it is this. We had 70 years of mishaps, accidents, posturing, false alarms, fear, confusion, badly designed systems, and paranoia wrapped in some 70,000 warheads. And yet, we survived, exactly because of the imperfection of the human condition. Machines would have made a decision a long time ago, and this review would never have been written. Food for thought.
On one hand, it is the account of all that transpired in the year 1983, when the world almost weny supernova. It is alsThis is a great, sobering book.
On one hand, it is the account of all that transpired in the year 1983, when the world almost weny supernova. It is also a tale of how ridiculously precarious the Cold War was.
Taylor does a great job introducing the setting - the build of massive nuclear arsenals, the lack of communication, the severe misunderstanding among the sides. But then, it gets better. No failsafe mechanisms on American nuke protocols for about 10 years - a real Dr. Strangelove situation. Then, we have nuclear-armed bombers crashing in the American and British countryside. The Soviets do their fail deal by invading Afghanistan and then shooting down a Korean liner. But wait, would that not make the world dangerous?
How about missile defenses systems spewing false alarms. Now, imagine everything being relegated to AI without human oversight. Reality much? Back in the 60-80s, humans supervised the machines and aborted disasters. What does the future of AI/ML holds for us? A nice lesson of how not to do things.
Let's add Reagan's Star Wars idea to the mix. Plus the deployment of medium-range ballistic missiles in Europe. Forget not the Soviet spies who report on seemingly bizzare activities in the West, but hey, they're getting paid to report so they do. Agents, double agents and triple agents, in embassies and all the way up in the NATO high command.
This book reads like a movie, except it's a hundred times better than any movie, because reality trumps fiction. It's amazing to see how frighteningly silly and naive things were - like the use of the phrase "evil empire" to describe the Soviets, an indication of complete misunderstanding of how things work on the other side, and then we have a repetition of most of these themes and buzzwords 20 and 30 years later.
1983 is a fascinating read - the 80s breezed by, not entirely without difficulties, but for most people, while there were many cardinal concerns and worries, they never quite knew how close the world came to thernonuclear incineration. The scary part is, neither did the West really. NATO went on with strategic WW3-simulation exercises ignoring the panic on the Soviet side, because they didn't believe the other side would take their annual drill seriously. It's not bad intent, it's not malevolence, not even wicked scheming. Far worse. It's blissful ignorance to how dangerous political games can be when cultures don't understand one another.
He is truly the finest (military) historian, and it shows. Stephen also happens to have a strong love for cryptoAnother excellent book by Mr. Stephen.
He is truly the finest (military) historian, and it shows. Stephen also happens to have a strong love for cryptography, and he continues his earlier works here. In fact, you should read his earlier works, which include Battle of Wits, the complete story of WWII codebreaking, as well as Blackett's War, on U-boats and science.
Here, the story picks up where the previous two books ended. Even early on during WWII, the Americans and the British decided that they should extend their espionage and codebreaking efforts against the Soviets. We get a glimpse of the pioneer efforts, which touch on the Bletchley Park project and legendary Alan Turing, but then we also get introduced to Friedman, Sinkov, Rosen, and other giants of this era.
Then, the Cold War stars in earnest, and the early signal intelligence collections work eventually become the big and powerful organization that is NSA today. It is fascinating reading into its birth and early history, the colorful battles of bureaucracy and politics, the internal scheming, and how different leaders of the agency shaped its future. As always, Stephen weaves a beautiful tale, full of anectodes, personal stories, and cool factoids. Like the fact IBM charged bazillions for its consultancy services, which isn't at all different from the IT sector today. Or the hundred little ways the Soviets used their (inferior) technology to fight the West, mostly by resorting to ingenuity and tricks that a technologically superior adversary like the USA does not naturally embrace.
Stephen focuses on the history - although the bulk of declassified documents allow him to paint only a partial picture of the 50-60s, with focus on the Korean and Vietnam Wars, the delusions of military and political leaders, and the vital importance of real-time information in the air supremacy battles against the Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese, and Soviet pilots. Then, of course we also have the Berlin War and the Cuban missiles crises, and how these were difused through smart use of intelligence. In general, the main focus on SIGINT shifts from codebreaking, which soon proven out to be remarkably impossible (even the 50s Soviet ciphers were foolproof), but more around preventing nuclear blunders due to political posturing. WWIII was mostly averted by NSA providing the American leaders with timely information of whether the Soviets had genuine military intentions or they were just bluffing. Cool stuff.
But then, a mathophille that he is, Stephen also tells us about the concepts of language higher statistics, probabilities, messages in depth, and many other fancy ideas that make this field so engaging. The book has five appendices, each giving you a teaser of the enormous scientific background behind cryptography.
I just wish the book was longer...
Anyway, yet another gem. You can't go wrong with Budiansky. And if you love science and mathematics, you will enjoy this work even more.
As classic spysy as spy stuff gets. Tweed is back, and so am I. Now, I must admit I was reading a lot of Cold War era books at this time, roughly 20 pAs classic spysy as spy stuff gets. Tweed is back, and so am I. Now, I must admit I was reading a lot of Cold War era books at this time, roughly 20 plus years ago, so I had a whole plethora of piniat ... books in the genre to compare, including but not limited to (fine print, within 30 days) The Fourth Protocol, The Janus Man, a whole bunch of Ludlums, some techno thrillers from Clancy and even a turbo-techno thriller from Dale Brown (NOT Dan Brown).
The Janus Man is another book by Forbes, and that one I thoroughly enjoyed. Precipice is a slightly less interesting work, with a slower and more predictable plot. There was a lot of drinking, a lot of snow in Switzerland, the usual colorful international cast of villains - think Bond and the world being so much bigger before we had Google Street - and an ending that is a little bit cliche. Likable not as powerful as The Janus Man. Probably because the story felt smaller. I guess you need a good ole nuclear threat and a bunch of Soviets to make it spicy. You can even see in the film today. Once upon a time, it was all about glamor as the enemy was big and red and menacing and far far away. Now that the world's become a fragmented village, we have more focus on characters and how vulnerable our top psychos all are. But you need larger-than-life spy agents to enjoy this genre, otherwise, it's missing the point.
Ergo, Precipice fell a little short ... mwuahahahahaha.
This is another proper spy book. And it starts by stating the obvious. There's a traitor in the MI6, and now we follow a bunch of characters around, tThis is another proper spy book. And it starts by stating the obvious. There's a traitor in the MI6, and now we follow a bunch of characters around, trying to figure out who among it is. You know the players, you know what they do, and you suspect every action. As typical of the genre of that type, there's a lot of geo-hopping, something that James Bond established in the previous decades, so you need at least a dozen exotic yet weird locations to support the plot. This was before you could go on Google Maps and see what gives for yourself.
We will also get to see the charming Tweed character in several other books. All in all, laid-back rainy Sunday kind of thriller book, the modern day equivallent of Poirot's mysteries. Wossname. You get the idea.
There was a man named Tweed, Double agents he set to mislead, About face, National disgrace, For hunting spies was his creed.
Two years after I jotted this one sentence, I should elaborate more.
The book can also be called: how to assemble a nuOne of the best spy books around.
Two years after I jotted this one sentence, I should elaborate more.
The book can also be called: how to assemble a nuclear weapon in 13 easy steps. Combine that with some solid, classic 80s Cold War era spy tactics and half a dozen sub-plots converging toward a decidedly gray-day industrial-era English brick house standoff, and you get yourself an excellent thriller. The best part is, it's visual. You are reading this book and you see it like a film unfolding before your eyes. In a way, it's the quintessential culmination of the brutal dogmatic standoff between the West and the East. But in a polite, reserved kind of way. James Bonds, sans the cheesy cliches. And more rain.
I read this book a long long time ago, and I still clearly remember the initial report on what the Soviets would do if nuclear weapons were used in Europe. Amazing. And probably quite accurate, too.
Does it allow for a limerick? Well, the action happens in the UK, so of course it does!
There was a man named Kim, To untrained eye, he looked quite dim, Polonium and plush, Gunfire and rush, The prospect of war was rather grim.
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