West Texas CEO
GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief
If you were to name a single action, battle, reform or any kind of decision that affected the known world the most what would it be?
There are so many I could pick, such as the discovery of penicillin, the birth control pill or the Magna Carta, or maybe the printing press; but I choose the Soviet nuclear false alarm incident.
If it wasn't for Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov, who was the duty officer who just happened to be on duty on September 26, 1983 at the Oko nuclear early-warning system, then a nuclear war would've broken out. He saw that a missile had been launched from the USA, followed by up to five others, and immediately called BS on it. His reasoning was that, if the USA was going to really attack, they'd launch a hell of a lot more missiles than just up to six. Guessing correctly that it was a bug in the computer he went against Soviet protocol, ignored direct commands, and did not issue a retaliatory order to Moscow.
Analysts thought that if he had in fact issued the order then the Soviet leadership, faced with only minutes to react, would've almost certainly launched the entire Soviet nuclear arsenal at the USA and NATO and its allies. If anyone else had been on duty except for this guy, who was a civilian employee tasked with maintaining the system, then they would've been military personnel who would've 100% responded to Moscow with the news of an attack. The inevitable response against Russia would've resulted in the deaths of hundreds of millions of people, devastated North America and Europe, and turned the earth into a radioactive cinder. But he happened to be the one on duty that day.
He received no commendation for his action, and was removed from his post, suffered a nervous breakdown, and the whole matter was swept under the rug by the Soviets embarrassed at the failure of the early-warning detection system. We found out about it only after the fall of the Soviet State, when he published his memoirs in 1998. I consider his action at averting what would've been World War III to be the single most important moment in recorded history.
There are so many I could pick, such as the discovery of penicillin, the birth control pill or the Magna Carta, or maybe the printing press; but I choose the Soviet nuclear false alarm incident.
If it wasn't for Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov, who was the duty officer who just happened to be on duty on September 26, 1983 at the Oko nuclear early-warning system, then a nuclear war would've broken out. He saw that a missile had been launched from the USA, followed by up to five others, and immediately called BS on it. His reasoning was that, if the USA was going to really attack, they'd launch a hell of a lot more missiles than just up to six. Guessing correctly that it was a bug in the computer he went against Soviet protocol, ignored direct commands, and did not issue a retaliatory order to Moscow.
Analysts thought that if he had in fact issued the order then the Soviet leadership, faced with only minutes to react, would've almost certainly launched the entire Soviet nuclear arsenal at the USA and NATO and its allies. If anyone else had been on duty except for this guy, who was a civilian employee tasked with maintaining the system, then they would've been military personnel who would've 100% responded to Moscow with the news of an attack. The inevitable response against Russia would've resulted in the deaths of hundreds of millions of people, devastated North America and Europe, and turned the earth into a radioactive cinder. But he happened to be the one on duty that day.
He received no commendation for his action, and was removed from his post, suffered a nervous breakdown, and the whole matter was swept under the rug by the Soviets embarrassed at the failure of the early-warning detection system. We found out about it only after the fall of the Soviet State, when he published his memoirs in 1998. I consider his action at averting what would've been World War III to be the single most important moment in recorded history.
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