Posted by:
anybody
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Date: January 26, 2023 08:36PM
There have been several incidents that almost triggered an accidental nuclear war -- but fortunately, common sense prevailed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alarm_incidentOn 26 September 1983, Stanislav Petrov, a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air Defense Forces, was the officer on duty at the Serpukhov-15 bunker near Moscow which housed the command center of the Soviet early warning satellites, code-named Oko.[10] Petrov's responsibilities included observing the satellite early-warning network and notifying his superiors of any impending nuclear missile attack against the Soviet Union. If notification was received from the early-warning systems that inbound missiles had been detected, the Soviet Union's strategy was an immediate and compulsory nuclear counter-attack against the United States (launch on warning), specified in the doctrine of mutual assured destruction.[11]
Shortly after midnight, the bunker's computers reported that one intercontinental ballistic missile was heading toward the Soviet Union from the United States. Petrov considered the detection a computer error, since a first-strike nuclear attack by the United States was likely to involve hundreds of simultaneous missile launches in order to disable any Soviet means of a counterattack. Furthermore, the satellite system's reliability had been questioned in the past.[12] Petrov dismissed the warning as a false alarm, though accounts of the event differ as to whether he notified his superiors[11] or not[8][full citation needed] after he concluded that the computer detections were false and that no missile had been launched. Petrov's suspicion that the warning system was malfunctioning was confirmed when no missile in fact arrived. Later, the computers identified four additional missiles in the air, all directed towards the Soviet Union. Petrov suspected that the computer system was malfunctioning again, despite having no direct means to confirm this.[13] The Soviet Union's land radar was incapable of detecting missiles beyond the horizon.[12]
It was subsequently determined that the false alarms were caused by a rare alignment of sunlight on high-altitude clouds and the satellites' Molniya orbits,[14] an error later corrected by cross-referencing a geostationary satellite.[15]
In explaining the factors leading to his decision, Petrov cited his belief and training that any U.S. first strike would be massive, so five missiles seemed an illogical start.[11] In addition, the launch detection system was new and in his view not yet wholly trustworthy, while ground radar had failed to pick up corroborative evidence even after several minutes of the false alarm.[12]
Petrov underwent intense questioning by his superiors about his actions. Initially, he was praised for his decision.[11] General Yuri Votintsev, then commander of the Soviet Air Defense's Missile Defense Units, who was the first to hear Petrov's report of the incident (and the first to reveal it to the public in 1998), stated that Petrov's "correct actions" were "duly noted."[11] Petrov himself stated he was initially praised by Votintsev and was promised a reward,[11][16] but recalled that he was also reprimanded for improper filing of paperwork with the pretext that he had not described the incident in the military diary.[16][17]
He received no reward. According to Petrov, this was because the incident and other bugs found in the missile detection system embarrassed his superiors and the influential scientists who were responsible for it, so that if he had been officially rewarded, they would have had to be punished.[11][16][17][18] He was reassigned to a less sensitive post,[17] took early retirement (although he emphasized that he was not "forced out" of the army, as is sometimes claimed by Western sources),[16] and suffered a nervous breakdown.[17]
Oleg Kalugin, a former KGB chief of foreign counter-intelligence who knew Soviet leader Yuri Andropov well, said that Andropov's distrust of American leaders was profound. It was conceivable that if Petrov had declared the satellite warnings valid, such an erroneous report could have provoked the Soviet leadership into becoming bellicose. Kalugin said: "The danger was in the Soviet leadership thinking, 'The Americans may attack, so we better attack first.'"[19]
In the effective altruism movement, September 26th is
commemorated as Petrov day.[20]
Russia isn't under threat, and the only person who wanted this war was Putin. As I said, the "frozen conflict" in the Donbass was keeping Ukraine out of NATO. Ukraine agreed to a long term lease for the Russian naval base in Sevastopol. Ukraine was no military threat to Russia -- but a democratic Ukraine was a threat to Putin's autocratic kleptocrat rule that he couldn't tolerate.
If you want to know more, watch this video about the 2014 Revolution Of Dignity at the Maidan. Many Ukrainians died to have what we in the West take for granted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7e6B64Iqqg