@mattblaze detecting an incoming flight of airborne jammers would have escalated readiness levels, even if it wasn't possible to vector interceptors to the real target needle among the straw.

I have mixed feelings about these cold war relics. On the one hand, they're artifacts of what was perhaps humanity's most dangerous folly to date, locking the world in a deadly game where the stakes only went up with each round. This doesn't seem like something to commemorate or celebrate.On the other hand, these objects, many now destroyed or decayed, serve as visible evidence of just how close to oblivion we are willing to go. And looked at from the right angle, they have stories to tell.