A Ghost From The Cold War

From Richard Fernandez:

When the track of a test Trident D5 SLBM hovered over the Southern California coast this week it came like a ghost from the Cold War past. The track’s sudden appearance, according to CNN, startled a population for whom “Duck and Cover” was a dim memory. 

“Panic and speculation spread Saturday night when a bright white light shot through the night skies in Southern California. Residents posted a flurry of videos on social media, together with theories of aliens or meteors. Others made panicked calls to law enforcement officials.” 

Although the public was quickly told not to worry, being only a “planned missile test”, their first instincts were correct. Strategic nuclear missiles are like Gozer the Destructor, things to be feared, only real. They come not from the familiar world of social media and the Kardashians, but from another dimension, another plane of reasoning. 

The D5 is a bona fide ghost and we should treat it with all the respect due to a real demon. The 80′s have been calling to us lately and it may be best to recall all we have forgotten about the universe that the ancients once spoke of. 

The philosophical essence of the D5 is perhaps best captured by the British Navy, the only other force on the planet armed with a it, in a quaint instrument called the letters of last resort, which are kept in a safe in each of the 4 British Vanguard class boomers. They are to be opened only in the event the British government is no more. 

If they are ever read, each represents what is effectively the last will and testament of what was once the United Kingdom.