World War Three: Inside the War Room (2016 BBC docudrama)

[Bill Ryan]

Dear Friends: I've just come across this, and was so riveted from start to finish I immediately felt it deserved its own thread.

It's a February 2016 BBC docudrama about a NATO conflict with Russia, not in Ukraine but in Latvia. But some of the parallels are unnerving. Much of the dialog is improvised (this was based around a filmed war game, see below), but it's extremely realistically done.

And if this is how real-world strategic decisions are truly made, it's terrifying.

I read that the BBC had it completely removed from YouTube. I came across it accidentally on Dailymotion, and I downloaded it immediately. There are no comments, and no record of the number of views. But trust me: this is stunning. It's VERY VERY good. And it's so topical and prescient, it's uncanny.

The background to the making of this is told on this BBC page (https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2016/05/inside-the-war-room). The personalities are real ones, and while the BBC turned it into an edge-of-your-seat docudrama, this was an actual 'war game', a very serious one, which was filmed with a whole bunch of hidden cameras in one room in one long sitting. The intense discussion on how to respond to rapidly escalating international events is punctuated both with dramatic archive footage and some VERY good acting.

The only comment I could find anywhere was on the IMDB page. (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5475138/reviews/?ref_=tt_ov_rt)
Chilling and mandatory to watch for world leaders
Seeing the escalation in Ukraine, and the similarity with this simulation played by prominent former cabinet and military leaders, gave me the chills and I will have a hard time to sleep.
Do not watch if you want peace of mind.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3q8go9
https://avalonlibrary.net/World_War_Three_-_Inside_The_War_Room_(2016_BBC_docudrama).mp4

(https://avalonlibrary.net/World_War_Three_-_Inside_The_War_Room_(2016_BBC_docudrama).mp4)https://avalonlibrary.net/World_War_Three_-_Inside_The_War_Room_(2016_BBC_docudrama).mp4

[grapevine]

The docudrama became increasingly frustrating as it went on, more so with the realisation that the "panel" were people with 'real qualifications and experience' at dealing with such issues. There was no suggestion of diplomacy or calling Mr Putin and unfortunately no Henry Fonda to turn the tide.

I think we couldve done a much better job on the forum tbh . . . ;)

[Bill Ryan]

The docudrama became increasingly frustrating as it went on, more so with the realisation that the "panel" were people with 'real qualifications and experience' at dealing with such issues. There was no suggestion of diplomacy or calling Mr Putin and unfortunately no Henry Fonda to turn the tide.

I think we couldve done a much better job on the forum tbh . . . ;)I couldn't agree more. At first I thought it was just extraordinarily good, first-rate acting, but after watching the film I discovered that these were all real people, professionally charged with tackling situations exactly like this.

OMG!! I mean, making major military decisions, with huge geopolitical consequences, on a 5-4 round-the-table vote?!

And as I wrote, the close parallels with the actual situation today, 8 years later, were unnerving... about what to 'signal' to Putin if he was considering using tactical nuclear weapons, and so on. Not one person suggested picking up the phone.

~~~

The Henry Fonda reference was (I presume!) to the 1957 timeless classic 12 Angry Men (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_Angry_Men_(1957_film)) (about 12 people in a jury room debating a vertict), which many, including myself, regard as being one of the very greatest films ever made. It's a marvelous multiple character study, one for the ages. But he also played the US President, also saving the day with remarkable diplomacy, humanity and wisdom, in the 1964 Armageddon-averting film Fail Safe. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fail_Safe_(1964_film)) Both films, especially the former, might be on anyone's must-see 'bucket list'.

:focus:

[Bill Ryan]

Here's a pretty interesting (and concise) 6-minute discussion about the film, which had aired on BBC2 the previous night. Apparently (I'd completely missed this in the real world) Russia was pretty unhappy about the way it had been presented. Maybe someone might dig up what had been posted on Tass, RT, Sputnik and so on at the time.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srpt8Xb8TFg
The video text:

BBC has premiered “World War Three: Inside the War Room,” a show that details a fictitious future where Russia invades Latvia and launches a nuclear strike on Britain. The show presents Russia as a “bad boy” and threat to world peace. “WWIII: Inside the War Room” is modeled after Russia’s conflict with the Ukraine and has been called a form of “psychological warfare.” Nik Zecevic and Elliot Hill debate the agenda of the film, as well as the impact it could have.

[Bill Ryan]

Maybe someone might dig up what had been posted on Tass, RT, Sputnik and so on at the time.I found this, on RT, quite a detailed report. Russia wasn't happy at all.


https://rt.com/uk/331207-bbc-russia-invasion-show/

BBC’s WWIII: New show peddles ‘Putin’s invasion’ & nuclear attack on UK

https://mf.b37mrtl.ru/files/2016.02/56b28b9dc36188e60c8b45fa.mp4
https://mf.b37mrtl.ru/files/2016.02/56b28b9dc36188e60c8b45fa.mp4

A fictitious vision of the future compiled by “western strategists” in which Russia invades Latvia and then launches a nuclear strike on Britain has premiered in a new BBC show titled “World War Three: Inside the War Room.”

The nearly one hour long program (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06zw32h), which premiered on Wednesday on the UK’s BBC Two channel, features a war room packed with former top British military and diplomats playing a war game on the European continent.

In the fictional scenario, which as the BBC said was “developed over many months of research and in consultation with military, diplomatic and political experts around the world,” the so-called pro-Kremlin separatists have taken over dozens of towns on the Russian-Latvian border, with Moscow then invading the NATO member state to support them.

A ground offensive against “Putin’s troops” is launched by the US and UK, the show suggests, after which according to the BBC, Russia pushes the red button and launches a nuclear strike on a Royal Navy warship, before the war room is told that Putin has mapped London as the next target.

“Following the crisis in Ukraine and Russia’s involvement in Syria, the world is closer to superpower confrontation than at any time since the end of the Cold War,” said the BBC’s preview for the show, which fused fictional scenarios with archive footage.

“This program aims to examine a scenario that has been considered by western strategists for some years, namely unrest among Russian speaking populations in the Baltic, who have in the past complained of discrimination, and subsequent potential Russian military involvement in the Baltic States,” the BBC said in comments to RT.

“That is called psychological warfare,” British historian and Russia analyst Martin McCauley told RT (https://www.rt.com/op-ed/331172-bbc-film-wwiii-russia/).

“The way you influence people is by repetition, keeping on with saying the same thing. If you represent Russia as a bad boy and president Putin as an ogre, the one who just threatens the world peace, gradually people will accept that,” he said.

It’s not the first time lately that Russia has been portrayed as an aggressor against a European state. In fall last year, Norway showed its most expensive television series, the ‘Okkupert’ (Occupied), featuring Russian invasion (https://www.rt.com/news/313077-norway-russia-invasion-tv-series/) into the state. The Russian embassy in Oslo didn’t express any formal protests and there were no reprisals from Moscow, with the embassy spokesman saying that “hysteria isn’t Russia’s style.”

[Bill Ryan]

An excellent (and critical) discussion of the program, published by Prospect Magazine immediately after it aired.

(I'm mindful of posting too much on this thread too quickly. Do watch the docudrama first.)


https://prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/48474/the-bbcs-inside-the-war-room-should-never-have-been-made

The BBC's "Inside the War Room" should never have been made

With the angry crowd wielding Russian flags, it looks just like a scene from Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region. Men in balaclavas storm a local government building and remove the flags from its façade. Except this time, they are the Latvian and EU flags, and the setting is not Ukraine but Latvia’s eastern region of Latgale, near the Russian Border.

This is the opening of World War Three: Inside the War Room, which was broadcast on BBC Two tonight. In it, ten political, diplomatic and military figures war-game an imagined scenario in which Russia becomes militarily involved with Latvia and Estonia.

The one-hour programme jumps between fake documentary scenes set in Latvia, and scenes set in the “war room,” where the ten figures debate how to respond to Russia’s hypothetical moves and, ultimately, whether to engage in nuclear warfare. This makes for a charged 59 minutes of midweek television yet, given the current tensions along NATO’s eastern edge, the BBC’s decision to broadcast it is surprising.

The programme reflects genuine concerns about Moscow’s ambitions in the Baltic region since Russia annexed Crimea in March 2014. Some observers have warned that the three Baltic States—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—might be next. (Note that the first two of these countries have large ethnic Russian minorities).

In an interview (http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21638345-russia-wants-prosecute-former-deserters-army-country-no-longer-exists-going-after) a year ago, Lithuania’s defence minister Juozas Olekas told me that his country is “in a different situation” to Ukraine since it joined NATO in 2004, and so perhaps Russia will stay away. Still, as the BBC programme shows in its compelling “war room” scenes, it is unclear exactly how NATO members would or, in practical terms, could respond to a Russian attack on one of the Baltic States. A focus of the next NATO summit, in Warsaw in July, will be strengthening the Alliance’s presence along its eastern flank.

Strategists have been thinking ahead, imaging possible scenarios in the Baltic. For instance, a Finnish magazine outlined three hypothetical storylines involving Russian attacks on Finland’s Åland Islands, the Swedish island of Gotland, and the city of Narva, on Estonia’s border with Russia (the article can be read in English here (https://disciplescientist.wordpress.com/2015/03/04/what-if-russia-demands-a-naval-base-in-finland/)).

Meanwhile, there have been dubious efforts to depict Latgale as a potential Latvian Donbass, and shadowy online calls to establish a “Latgalian People’s Republic” (like the Republics of Donetsk or Luhansk), which the Latvian security services deemed to have been fabricated from outside Latgale.

Hypothetical scenarios are one thing, the BBC’s programme is another. Inside the War Room is not a documentary about Moscow’s influence in the Baltic States, featuring interviews with Latgalians (many of whom resent (http://www.lsm.lv/en/article/features/latgales-pre-election-message-dont-call-us-disloyal.a100803/) being stereotyped as disloyal to Latvia).

Instead, it sets a violent takeover in a living, breathing region of the world where speakers of Russian, Latvian and the local Latgalian (which some consider a dialect of Latvian) nestle side by side. It is not like in the civil service FastStream exam I sat as a student, which involved hypothetical sudden developments in a crisis-ridden country with a made-up name; it is closely connected to the real world.

Even before its broadcast, and with almost no details about its content, the programme has raised eyebrows in Latvia, prompting heated comments online. Jnis Srts, director of the Riga-based NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence (STRATCOM) commented (http://www.delfi.lv/news/national/politics/bbc-uznem-filmu-par-krievijas-iebrukumu-latvija-drosibas-eksperti-mierigi.d?id=47012625) that the genre of entertainment should not be confused with reality.

The Russian media has picked up the BBC programme too. TV Zvezda, a television channel run by Russia’s ministry of defence, announced it in an article with the headline (http://tvzvezda.ru/news/vstrane_i_mire/content/201601311618-sa53.htm): “Britain will not reply to Russia’s nuclear strike—Daily Mail.” More broadly, by portraying Russia as fearsome, Latvia’s ethnic Russians as separatists, Riga as helpless and its Western allies as hesitant, the programme inadvertedly echoes some of the Kremlin’s narratives.

Video footage is a particularly sensitive matter, in the context of the use and abuse of images during the conflict in Ukraine. The BBC programme is not a documentary, but could be assumed to be so, or depicted as one. Its news-like scenes set in Latvia and the Baltic States, complete with authoritative voiceover in BBC English, could easily be construed as news reports. Some viewers will say that World War Three: Inside the War Room is just a television programme, yet already its repercussions have been wider.

[SilentFeathers]

And if this is how real-world strategic decisions are truly made, it's terrifying.


It's 2024 now, there's even more extremely idiotic people in power and in these think tanks now.
Yes, it's terrifying, considering the ones with humanity's future in their hands are completely insane and living in a psychotic reality.
We are truly living in a very likely extinction level event timeline....

[kfm27917]

https://danielnagase.substack.com/p/message-to-all-us-nuclear-submarine