This is a really cold soldier on February 14, 1950 in the Kluwani transit camp.
Look at Kluwani on a map. It looks like the page isn't loading,
but that's because it's all snow. "Alaska is big and empty and cold
but it is also vitally important to the defense of the United States."
This is all part of a landmark war game called Exercise Sweetbriar,
in which American and Canadian forces banded together because
they were worried that the cold war might become a literally cold war. Really.
I'm sorry but how amazing are these tracked vehicles?
I think you could definitely get tourists to ride in these things.
All right, let's set the scene. World War II ends in 1945, and let's be real, the Cold War,
U.S. versus USSR, it starts pretty much immediately, though if you want a landmark,
George Kennan's 1946 long telegram announcing the US policy of containment is a good place to start.
It sets up the Cold War as a battle for a way of life, one that is about "conceptions
of human society," not just politics. But along with that abstract battle of ideas,
people have to actually implement it. This 1961 movie states the general idea:
"It is total competition with an antagonist who is putting into it everything within his capability."
So what is the first thing you worry about when you worry about Russia?
the same thing Napoleon had to worry about: they live, breathe, and fight in the cold.
Fortunately, Americans knew some people who were familiar with the cold. They're called Canadians.
This amazing picture is from Exercise Musk Ox — Exercise Musk Ox — hard one to say.
One of many military operations that Canada conducted immediately after World War II.
And in the first decade of the Cold War these missions included most notably a Sub-Arctic war
game partnership with their southern allies, the Americans. And it was called Exercise Sweetbriar.
Life Magazine didn't play coy when it came to the Cold War. They said the Soviet attack
could come and questioned "how muscular is the Army?" Can you just imagine this
headline today? "How muscular is the Army." They featured a picture from Exercise Sweetbriar.
This 1950 war game saw 5,000 American and Canadian troops go from Whitehorse Yukon
to Northway Airfield, a 350 mile (553 kilometer) journey to fight a fictional foe.
This thing was massive. "At such close quarters the Cold
War has become a real factor in Alaskan life." This incredibly purple prose New York Times op-ed
put it plainly: "the possible aggressor coming over the Bering Sea is the strange
heir to the power from which secretary Seward bought the great Northern Peninsula in 1867."
Seward bought Alaska from Russia, now the USSR. "The romance of the hunt for gold has given
way to a more sinister sort of drama: the hope must be as in all such cases that the
plain intention in preparation to defend will discourage any intention to attack."
So let's go through the weird incentives that force 5,000 men to freeze for a pretend war.
Canada gets to draft off the US money and power to boost itself. I'm not just saying this as an
arrogant American — I've stolen this take from a Canadian Military History Journal. America gets to
go through Canadian territory and hang out with people who are good at being cold all the time.
And hopefully the USSR doesn't think about attacking through Alaska,
because they see that North America is able to defend itself in the cold. It's not so much
that an attack through Alaska was likely, they just wanted to prevent it from becoming likely.
There were really interesting practical tests too. I'm going to look at this now. They did an actual
questionnaire of people before and after they died of frostbite in the simulation,
and they developed a psychological profile based on their answers. So if you were interested in
playing basketball you were more likely to die of frostbite. If you liked working in cattle barns,
you were a little more likely to die of frostbite. I'm sounding like jeff foxworthy here.
"If you prefer car keys to q-tips..." You might die of frostbite.
"You groan but you know what i'm talking about." Basically, all of these are proxies for how much
of a good team player you are, how well you work with other people. If you're independently minded,
if you've got a sense of humor and a wild streak, you're gonna die of frostbite. Okay, Roger.
Later operations tested everything from gear to cold weather masks.
The operation ended as a success, but it was most important as a signal. The sub-Arctic was not
available for Soviet takeover. Exercise Sweetbriar just scratches the surface when it comes to the
icy expeditions of the United States military. We haven't even talked about Moosehorn,
the 1956 7,000 person exercise that did a lot of the same stuff that Sweetbriar did.
"Moosehorn was the longest army maneuver ever held in Alaska and the biggest. Over half the
Army forces stationed in alaska participated." What is the takeaway of all this testing? Part
of me thinks that the lesson here is one that Americans learned over and over again in the
20th century: that geography could be a major factor in war, whether it was learning to fight
in the snow or in jungles or in mountains. Whatever the circumstance, it was harder than it
looked and harder than it seemed from the outside. But i want to talk about mannequins and underwear.
I made a video a bit ago about nuclear tests where mannequins were blown up as part of an American
preparedness effort. It was a big demonstration of just how ready America was for a nuclear war,
and it turned out to kind of be a disaster. The same thing happened
in Sweetbriar. The Army discovered that a real ground war in sub-Arctic climates
it would be brutal. One report said Sweetbriar had lax hygiene practices, including dirty underwear.
All the exercises in the world couldn't put the suffering of war in some neat manila folder,
tucked away from the rest of the conflict. Each Cold War game proved
how devastating a conflict it would be if the Cold War turned hot, or in this case, cold.
All right that is it for this one. Normally, I try to have a gimmick where i'm like out in the field
doing something that relates to the video, but it is too hot for that for this video because
it's about a very cold time in history. If you haven't been to this channel before, I do personal
and history videos on here. I'd love it if you subscribed, it would really help out,
or if you liked, or give me a comment on this video if there are any other like war
games or war exercises that you're interested in. I'd love to know what they are, because i
come across so many when i'm researching these videos and every one seems fascinating to me.
So yeah, that's it for now. Thanks for watching and hopefully you are able to be a nice
temperate temperature for the rest of your week. Okay, I'll see you in the next one.