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'I Was Just Doing My Job': Soviet Officer Who Averted Nuclear War Dies at Age 77
A Soviet officer who prevented a nuclear crisis between the US and the USSR and possible World War III in the 1980s has quietly passed away. He was 77. In 2010 RT spoke to Stanislav Petrov, who never considered himself a hero. We look at the life of the man who saved the world.
A decision that Soviet lieutenant colonel Stanislav Petrov once took went down in history as one that stopped the Cold War from turning into nuclear Armageddon, largely thanks to Karl Schumacher, a political activist from Germany who helped the news of his heroism first reach a western audience nearly two decades ago.
On September 7, Schumacher, who kept in touch with Petrov in the intervening years, phoned him to wish him a happy birthday, but instead learned from Petrov's son, Dmitry, that the retired officer had died on May 19 in his home in a small town near Moscow.
On September 26, 1983, Stanislav Petrov was on duty in charge of an early warning radar system in a bunker near Moscow, when just past midnight he saw the radar screen showing a single missile inbound from the United States and headed toward the Soviet Union.
"When I first saw the alert message, I got up from my chair. All my subordinates were confused, so I started shouting orders at them to avoid panic. I knew my decision would have a lot of consequences," Petrov recalled of that fateful night in an interview with RT in 2010.
...
It was later revealed that what the Soviet satellites took for missiles launch was sunlight reflected from clouds.
Many of us feel that one person can't make a real difference in the world. Stanislov Petrov did.
R.I.P. Stanislav Petrov, the man who saved the world
The Guardian and other news sources report, that Soviet Colonel Stanislav Petrov has died, age 77.
Petrov has become (not very) famous, because in 1983 his quick decision making averted a possible nuclear war.
I think that we, humans, are bad at recognizing significant events that led to everything continuing as normal..
(Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Wednesday September 20 2017, @11:35PM (12 children)
why did Colonel Petrov decide it wasn't a missile?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 20 2017, @11:41PM
"I just couldn't believe that just like that, all of a sudden, someone would hurl five missiles at us. Five missiles wouldn't wipe us out. The U.S. had not five, but a thousand missiles in battle readiness."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 20 2017, @11:43PM
I read that he thought that it made no sense for US to fire just one, and that his systems were sometimes unreliable.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Grishnakh on Thursday September 21 2017, @01:21AM (6 children)
As others said, he didn't think the US would do a first strike with a mere 5 missiles; normal doctrine is that the first strike will be overwhelming, to try to knock out the other side's ability to retaliate.
The other factor is that he knew that these detection systems weren't all that reliable anyway. And he was right: they were being fooled by some atmospheric effect I think.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Thursday September 21 2017, @02:28AM (5 children)
So now we know that the proper play is to hit your opponent's five most valuable targets first and then go all out, right? They'll just assume your first volley is made out of sunbeams and rainbows.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 21 2017, @05:28AM
No, that still is not a winning move, Dave.
Five targets is definitely not enough, and it will trigger an all-out retaliation. The only possible course in a nuclear war to sort-of win, is to disable most of the nuclear capacity of the enemy in one, immediate, simultaneous strike -- and that's just plain impossible. Otherwise it's just Mutually Assured Destruction. Even if disabling most of nuclear capacity was possible, it still might be MAD -- nuclear winter, radiation and all that. And let's not forget agents and spies, and those fucking commie pinko peaceniks, which will definitely want to get back at you for destroying a country.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 21 2017, @05:29AM (1 child)
The only winning move is not to play. [youtube.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by unauthorized on Thursday September 21 2017, @06:18AM
No, the only winning move is to get their children [youtube.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 21 2017, @05:48AM
Petrov is off duty forever, so don't count on getting the same result.
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Thursday September 21 2017, @09:26AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 21 2017, @02:21AM (2 children)
Because MAD. The Cold War was "mutually assured destruction". Neither side could make a move without both sides dying. All the apocalyptic stories about the US "recovering" after a nuclear exchange? Utter bullshit. After a nuclear war, the people in the best position to take over the world would have been places like Argentina. Then again, I suggest reading 'On the Beach' by Nevil Shute. Mr. Shute suggests that NO ONE was going to be in a position to take over.
(Score: 5, Informative) by takyon on Thursday September 21 2017, @04:14AM
http://www.oism.org/nwss/s73p912.htm [oism.org]
http://www.oism.org/nwss/ [oism.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 21 2017, @05:40AM
Yup. From the 1950s.
We've known from the earliest days of the Atomic Age that detonating gobs of those newfangled bombs would bring on Nuclear Winter and that that would eliminate our species.
In fact, we had a naturally-occurring model[1] within the lifetime of the USA.
1816: The Year Without A Summer [wikipedia.org]
[1] Don't forget to add the radioactivity.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]