Proud People

Proud Prophet was a real-time national-command-level war game played in the United States in the midst of the Cold War, starting on June 13, 1983. Its intent was to test out various proposals and strategies for possible nuclear war that had been proposed in response to the Soviet Union's military buildup. These strategies varied from demonstration nuclear attacks to limited nuclear war to decapitation attacks. Proud Prophet indicated that, in a conflict with the Soviet Union, following the standard US military strategy in place at the time could lead to nuclear holocaust. The war game was necessary to "think about the unthinkable" by running through scenarios and selecting appropriate responses to nuclear strikes. The game simulated conflict in a number of regions, from East Asia to Europe and in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. It involved more than 200 military and other personnel and ran for twelve simulated days, stretched over seven weeks of calendar time. For the first time ever, the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff took part in a war game, although their participation was concealed. One of the main purposes was to test the National Command Authority's (NCA) decision making for multiple simultaneous situations. During the game, the NATO forces experienced hard-pressing Soviet biological, chemical, and conventional attacks. The Secretary of Defense responded with 11 low-yield nuclear artillery shells near the front line. The Soviet player responded in kind. Over several days the nuclear strikes became larger, more numerous, and deeper. A simulated hotline between the opponents was used to explain the limited intention behind nuclear attacks, but the messages were not believed. Some of the players became emotionally involved. By the seventh simulated day of nuclear operations, hundreds of nuclear attacks had been made in Europe and around the world, destroying every major German and Polish city, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Brussels. Half a billion people would have been killed in these nuclear strikes, and many more would have died from radiation and starvation in the aftermath. Large areas of the world would have been made uninhabitable for decades. After the wargame, the concept of managing or controlling nuclear escalation fell out of favor at the policy-making levels of the US government, as did a number of more aggressive ideas about the use of nuclear weapons. Attention turned instead to a buildup of conventional military forces, readiness for a rapid reinforcement of Europe from the United States in case of a Soviet threat, and Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative to develop a way to shield the US and allies from nuclear attack. The government report for Proud Prophet was not declassified until December 20, 2012, and was only declassified in part.