Sirens howled.
A voice issued an urgent warning from loudspeakers: “Air attack, air attack.
Looking for cover, looking for cover. ”This is not a scene from a war film or a crisis area, and not long ago either.
In fact, it happened only recently, on December 12th in Germany.
In the vicinity of Kaiserslautern, at the US Air Force Base Ramstein, soldiers and employees stationed there were terrified.
The announcements lacked the otherwise reassuring addition: "This is an exercise."
So the emergency just before Christmas?
The alarm was triggered in Ramstein because a Russian submarine fired four ICBMs a few seconds apart.
The incident shows that the US is not ruling out a missile attack on Europe and that alarm systems are constantly alert.
The military are now facing a fundamentally new type of threat.