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The Man Who Literally Saved the World
99luftballon writes "Today is an important anniversary for Russian hero Stanislav Petrov, the Soviet missile commander who saved the world from nuclear destruction in 1983. Sadly there are plenty of other examples of this kind of thing. How long will we keep getting lucky?"
I'm sure there are other countries with nuclear weapons. The current count on nuclear weapons from Wikipedia comes to: Frankly, the India/Pakistan development of a nuclear arsenol worries me more than what happened historically between the U.S. & Russia. And don't even get me started on chemical and biological weapons.
My work here is dung.
The Soviet military did not punish Petrov for his actions, but did not reward or honor him either. His actions had revealed imperfections in the Soviet military system which showed his superiors in a bad light. He was given a reprimand, officially for the improper filing of paperwork, and his once-promising military career came to an end. He was reassigned to a less sensitive post and ultimately retired from the military.
That's gratitude for you.
Thank you Petrov.
Somewhat off-topic, but probably the discussion is going to go to this anyway.
Why doesn't the U.S. completely dismantle all of their nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, if they are going to go on crusades against any other countries that have them? (Or at least use it as an excuse for ones that piss them off; they don't seem to be going after Pakistan the same way they're going after Iran, but for the moment lets pretend they actually are serious in their concern.) I don't think Iran should have nukes. I don't think that the U.S. should have nukes. If there were no nuclear weapons, the world would be a safer place. But one cannot avoid seeing the stinking hypocrisy in the U.S. acting like they have some moral authority to decide who in the world is responsible enough have nukes, when there is only one county in the world that has ever used nuclear weapons... twice... on civilians.
So, why not get rid of them? They're not actually planning to use them some time, are they?
I think what kept the USA and the USSR from fighting more openly was mutually assured destruction. I also think Iraq has been invaded and North Korea hasn't been yet is due to North Korea having claimed to posses nuclear weapons and Iraq denying the same.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
How long will we keep getting lucky?
Until about ten minutes before we don't get lucky any more. The answer isn't less nuclear weapons, per se -- we'll always find a new way to kill each other. The answer is in getting people who want to kill others indescriminantly out of power.
Don't be daft. The Russians didn't trust the US in 1983 at all. They'd just told their operatives to expect a nuclear war after they'd shot down a civilian airliner and their strategic nuclear forces where on high alert. Petrov noticed that the patern of missile launches were not what would be expect in a preempive strike and concluded that it was a computer glitch. He didn't trust that his country hadn't been launched on by the US, whom I doubt he trusted at all, he used logic and determined that the data he was getting was bogus.
All propaganda to the contrary, the dislike and distrust of the US is not markedly different now than it was 23 years ago.
I'm glad he didn't think Americans were launching rockets in a strange pattern in order to fool guys like him.
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm very happy that this didn't turn into nuclear war, but it sounds strange to me that he "saved the world." Technically, he chose not to destroy the world based on information from a known faulty satellite. It's like pointing a gun at someone's head, declining to pull the trigger, and then having them thank you for saving their life. In any case, it's good to hear that level-headed people were chosen for this job for precisely this reason.
And Hitler loved his mistress and Mussolini his. Stalin doted on his daughter.
The lesson of history? That dictators can have tender feelings and still be homicidal maniacs.
Since this is an obvious no-brainer: why aren't we getting rid of nukes?
Consider a few facts:
* The USSR, when it existed, several times suggested getting rid of all nuclear weapons. The US rejected their proposals.
* The nuclear non-proliferation treaty requires that nuclear powers work towards nuclear disarmament. The US rejects all proposals calling for nuclear disarmament.
* Presently, 4 of the Central Asian *stan countries are organizing to declare themselves a "nuclear free zone" forbidding all nuclear weapons from their territory. What country is working diplomatically and is pressuring them to scuttle the nuclear free zone idea? The US.
Considering the US has the most nuclear weapons, engages in the most wars, threatens non-nuclear countries with nuclear weapons, other countries have an incentive to develop nukes. The ironic thing is that only the US has hundreds of thousands of Marines that can be deployed and a strong worldwide military deployment capability -- eliminating nukes will not weaken that capability.
But eliminating nukes does not fit into the US Pentagon's publicly stated goal of complete, worldwide military superiority.
Nukes won't be eliminated until the US foreign policy and militarism is changed in a substantial way -- and that is not happening. Until it does, we can expect more "close calls".
Let's say that by some series of events, it actually happened. Somewhere in the world, a nuclear weapon hit a hostile nuclear power. What would happen?
Here is the traditional answer: "There would be a retaliatory strike. Allies of both parties would get in on the act. The two sides would lob nukes at one another until everyone involved were destroyed, with serious, possibly apocalyptic damage to the world at large."
That made perfect sense in the Cold War, when the two largest powers were the US and Russia and nearly every other nuclear power took one side or the other. Nearly the entire world would be bombed outright, and the sheer area of the US and Russia alone would create a shitload of radiation. Nowadays, however, it seems more likely that at least one side of the war will be a small nation or alliance of small nations. It's unlikely that more than a few countries will be drawn in. How much radiation would there actually be at the end?
Also, how willing would other nations be to go into this? There's not a clear-cut capitalist/communist distinction anymore. It doesn't seem unlikely that only two nations would fight the war, especially if one of them were the US. To enter into a nuclear war would be certain death for every man, woman, and child in your country. Treaties be damned, I can't imagine many countries jumping at the chance.
Finally, what guarantee is there that it would become a nuclear war at all? The last thing a sane leader would want after a nuclear strike would be for the situation to escalate. Obviously, they couldn't just sit there, but I'd imagine that the retaliation would be primarily conventional, or one or two surgical blasts.
I just want to say that a nuclear war doesn't need to turn into Dr. Strangelove. It is quite possible for it to end with a whimper.
Case in point. Japan started the fight and they would not surrender. Very conservative estimates of an invasion of Japan's homeland put American deaths at a million and Japanese deaths as a multiple of that. As horrific the destruction caused by the 2 atomic bombs, those bombs saved American and Japanese lives.
This is the common lie/myth, as is the western belief that the Japanese would "fight to the death to protect the emperor." It's all a bunch of crap. YES, the emperor was advised that his 'house' was in danger if he continued the war...but the Japanese leadership was worried about a coup or revolt, NOT setting up plans for farmers with pitchforks to fight off GI Joe to the death.
The Japanese were on the verge of surrendering already. Go study WW2 history- it's patently obvious Japan was already losing AND that they knew it. The atomic bombs were almost completely unnecessary, except to establish US dominance in the world theater by demonstrating god-like firepower.
Try this google search on for size.
Incidentally, does the political division and the emperor's "stay the course" position sound familiar to you? Those who do not study history, blah blah.
Please help metamoderate.
Salient points, sure. But you've got to acknowledge the psychological effect that a horde of nuclear weapons has as a deterrent against military attacks against the U.S., and as leverage in negotiating conventions with other nations. Who would want to give that up? Nuclear non-proliferation treaties only favor you if you have nothing to lose anyway. So no, the U.S. will not be jumping on the peacenik bandwagon any time soon.
Consider the case of Richard Gatling, the inventor of the famous Gatling gun. You may have seen the gun in old Western movies. Once the design was tweaked, the Gatling gun became the most devastating weapon on the planet in the latter part of the 19th century. Its inventor believed it to be a peacetime weapon, too, just as nuclear weapons are today. He reasoned that the weapon was so powerful, and the loss of life resulting from its use so great, that anyone would submit rather than see it used them. Of course, the irony was that the gun was indeed put into action shortly after its inception--by Americans against other Americans in the Civil War.
And there you have it in a nutshell. We essentially used a weapon of mass destructions against our own people--the only thing that has changed is the technology--and you have this unrealistic expectation that we will now get rid of weapons intended for use against people in other nations? It's not happening. At least not in our lifetimes.
Your post seems to have missed the point.
The point Sting was making was not just that the Russians had tender feelings, but rather that they didn't want to cause a global thermonuclear war because it would result in the annihilation of millions of their countrymen, including their own families, for whom they had these tender feelings. In other words, he was saying that mutually assured destruction was, after all, a good deterrent.
The comparison with dictators is therefore not really apt. Hitler and Stalin had no such assurance of destruction hanging over their heads, and it's probable that they discounted any future possibility of punishment for their actions.
In other words, Hitler and Stalin were "homicidal maniacs" because they thought they could get away with it, while Russians like Petrov didn't push the button because they knew they wouldn't get away with it.
You cannot abolish something from existing, the basic knowledge of how an atom bomb works and even some of the engineering details are taught in undergraduate physics courses across the world. Given sufficient motivation and resources the simple knowledge that something is physically possible is all that is needed to do it.
Aha! Good point. Similarly, it is a waste of time trying to abolish world hunger, because you (apparently) cannot abolish something from existing, and people are taught how to make someone hungry, well before reaching college.
Yes, it's a different situation, but not that different. Just because we can't eliminate all nuclear weapons in the immediate future doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
I am the man with no sig!
The Economist did an excellent article earlier this year (one of their best efforts for a long time in an increasingly mediocre magazine) about the practical difficulties of nuclear disarmament. It's behind their subscription wall, but if you're interested I thoroughly recommend you go get a copy from your local library.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
I have to ask how old you are. Do you remember what was going on at this time? 23 years ago the citizens of Britian, Australia, and Western Europe were staging massive protests against US foreign policy and urging their leaders to break treaties and close US bases. It amazes when people try to rewrite history that I lived through and suggest everything was all hunky dory prior to Bush taking office. Hey, I don't particularly care for Bush either, but it sure wasn't paradise prior to his administration.
Agreed. The GP was quite revisionist. I recall quite clearly the hatred of Reagan, the labeling of him as an idiot cowboy, a religous nut who will bring about a theocracy, ... He was the "antichrist" to the American and European left. I recall the massive protests (as it turns out partly KGB funded, indirectly and covertly through greens and others) at Reagan's plans for modernizing NATO so that it could stand against the Warsaw Pact forces. I recall the horror for the notion that the Soviet state was something to oppose and do away with rather than peacefully coexist with.
In short, for those of you who were not in high school and college during Reagan's years, he was treated and referred to much like Bush Jr. today. However Reagan was a far better public speaker and came off a little better. Hated and reviled by the left much as the right hates and reviles Clinton.
Gee, given that about 95% of the world's population lives outside the US, I'd say that's a remarkably stupid statement. I'm a Canadian, and I like Americans (my grandfather was American, and I lived in and worked in the USA for a few years). I know most Americans are decent people.
But America no longer has a claim to superior process and innovation, which, unless you're sitting on enormous pools of oil, is the only basis by which a country can prosper long term. Europe and Japan caught up to you years ago, and the Asian tigers are making that trip faster than David Banh's degree. Get used to a world where there are more smart and empowered people outside America than in it.
Here's a cultural indicator. This year, the US didn't win the World Baseball Classic. Japan, which only learned the game after WWII, won by beating economic powerhouse Cuba. Baseball was invented in the US. This year, the US didn't win the World Basketball Championship. Spain and Greece battled for the crown, with the Spaniards winning. Basketball was invented in the US. And New Zealand - the land of 4 million people, 12 million sheep, and 2 million strangely satisfied men - defeated the US in the last America's Cup, which uses some pretty esoteric technology. I'm far too polite to mention the Ryder Cup. So, if you can't beat us on the playgrounds, how are you going to beat us in the war?
As a Canadian, I would like to offer some friendly advice. As a nation we have always been a junior partner, first in the Commonwealth, and now in NAFTA. We've learned to negotiate, and have made some very astute agreements, such as the Auto Pact. The days when the US had 40% of world GDP are over; your relative share is falling, and is going to keep falling for years. So learning how to get good agreements is going to be increasingly valuable for you.
And, ya, you could blow us off the face of the earth, not that I think is at all likely. But, really, where's the long term fun in that?
What was once true, is no longer so
I believe the nuclear winter scnenario as you describe it has long been disproven.
If it has neither of the references you provide demonstrate that fact. They are not to peer reviewed articles in scholarly scientific journals, not do they even reference such articles. Instead both are right-wing extremist propaganda sites which deal exclusively in disinformation.
Please note, this does not mean that I personally accept nor endorse the nuclear winter scenario. My point rather, is that you would be more pursuasive if you brought scientific arguments to the table rather than extremist political ideology. In fact, seeing that these particular sites deny the reality of 'nuclear winter,' I might have to review my long-standing scepticism toward the scenario.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
I do not think you need to apologize it is no leftist propaganda to know that the U.S behaved very badly in south America . It supported and helped in power some terrible military regimes it trained people who where in death squads on U.S soil. it had "military advisors " who were present in torture centers leftist Americans like to think it is all bush and abu griap but this shit was happening under democratic presidents as well.
.... How do you think our intuition and common sense work?.....
Anyone who can come up with an answer to that should win several Nobel prizes. Especially, how does female intuition work? It seems that common sense is gettng inreasingly uncommon these days as well.
All theory is gray
Sorry if this comes across as flamebait, but as a European I also worry about the USA in this respect. The second Iraq war was already irrational, but the new war threat against Iran is even more so, particularly because a conventional war would require many more soldiers than the US can reasonably supply, so going nuclear would be `reasonable'. And if the USA keeps spending like there is no tomorrow, I also worry that a few years down the line one of the less rational politicians decides that indeed there rather not be a tomorrow.
I keep hoping the US people are sane enough to prevent all that, but I thought the same when Mr. Bush was up for re-election...
What a silly bunch of non-sequitors!
The celebration (if any) is about an end-user (the person using the equipment) recognising that it had an error. The laptop analogy would be if your employee realised the laptop wasn't charging correctly and unplugged it before it blew up, and thus saved your office from burning down. You'd criticise Michael Dell's company, but you'd praise your employee. As far as I can see, the original article wasn't about praising the maker of the faulty equipment, but praising the man who had the experience and judgement to realise the equipment was faulty.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Because both the United States and Russia blew up hundreds, if not thousands of atomic and hydrogen bombs during testing?
The thing to remember is that from a human point of view, not all places are equal. A temperate site near a river with regular and moderate rainfalls is greatly more useful than a ice-scorched plain of arctic permafrost or a sun blasted desert. Humans, who are adaptable and clever can live in those places, so there is no danger of species extinction. But clearly, we have colonized the most useful places on the planet, and have mixed our labor with them to create vast pools of civilization capital.
What I'm trying to say is this: place matters.
Those bombs, used in a nuclear war, wouldn't be targetted at places deliberately chosen to have the minimum impact. Leaving aside "counter-force" strikes, they are targetted to achieve the greatest damage possible to that part of human society occupying the "enemy" country. I put "enemy" in quotes because looked at from the post-war side, residents of the countries engaged in nuclear war will feelgreater kinship with each other than there former leaders.
Another thing to remember is that the Earth is full of dynamic processes, many of which release energy into the environment, and a few of which even release radiation (radon spurs). A typical thunderstorm is equal to a Hiroshima sized bomb in its energy output. However, it releases that energy over thousands of square miles and several days, not in milliseconds in the space of a cubic yard or so. Even so, if you had the knack of being at just the point where individual bolts of lightning strike, you probably wouldn't survive long. It's the fact that we mostly deal with those strikes averaged over a huge area and long time, not in the split second at the poitn of contact, that makes human life adaptable to the fact of thunderstorms. We adapt to energy and radiation that is released at moderate rates when averaged over the places that are significant to us.
So, what I'm saying is not only place, but rates, and the geographic concentration of events that fall in those places, that matter.
Putting this together, it's quite probable that a thousand nuclear bombs detonated in the course of war that lasts a few hours could destroy civilization, even if those same warheads detonated in remote places over the course of decades did not.
Yet even so, there is no danger of human extinction. Between pardise and an environment so poisoned by nuclear fallout that human life is simply not possible, there are infinite gradations, although many of them can fairly be described as "living hells". But living they would remain. It is possible that a future chronicler of our species would have seen the war averted by Col Petrov as a signficant, but not cataclysmic event in the history of our species. Perhaps our population and technology levels would be set back one or two thousand years, put in the context of a civilization that is about 5000-6000 years old, and a species that is 200,000 years old. In other words, losing about 40% of the temporal gains of our civilization, and about 1% of the gains of our species.
This kind of thinking used to be known as "thinking the unthinkable". It is possible to construct scenarios under which we recoup much of the losses in a relatively short time, given adequate preparation. Some of these scenarios are even plausible, if not likely, given adequate preparation. From the point of view of our species, we would suffer a misfortune, but not a cataclysm.
The problem with the "thinking the unthinkable" mode of thought is that it ignores the fact none of us as individuals experience the fate of our species. We only experience our own fates. A nuclear war that is a bearable setback for the species is comprised of billions of individual cataclysms.
We must not forget that when remember what the Colonel has done for us, if not our species.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The second Iraq war was already irrational, ...
... but the new war threat against Iran is even more so, particularly because a conventional war would require many more soldiers than the US can reasonably supply, so going nuclear would be `reasonable'.
...
That is quite revisionist, but that is understandable given that the war has become extremely political. There is an argument for saying the war was a mistake, but irrational, no. At the time of the invasion there was a rational belief that Saddam still had WMD. Some in US Intel honestly believed so, others in US Intel were not sure but rationally decided to err on the side of caution, assume he still has it. Saddam was quite successful at making people think he still had them. When he got rid of the WMD that everyone agrees he had, all he had to do was let the UN inspectors watch. He was obligated to. With respect to European governments who were opposing the invasion, they were not viewed as entirely credible given their business relationships, which included support of Saddams WMD program(s).
Only if there is an occupation. The nuclear/military infrastructure could be bombed, special forces could raid key facilities and leave,
The problem with trying to understand why the Republican leadership in the Bush White House launched the Invasion of Iraq is that they have repudiated their own stated reasons for the war. They said it was a war to disarm Iraq of its nuclear weapons. Then Cheney says that even knowing what we know now -- that Iraq had no nuclear program, no chemical weapons, and no biological weapons, he still would have invaded Iraq. Launched a war in violation of the charter of the U.N.
That's why it was so important to stop the inspections and start the war in 2003, as the inspectors would have discovered that there were no banned weapons, that Iraq was not violating UN resolutions, that there was no loin-cloth of excuse to cover the naked aggression of the United States.
It's one thing to think your national leaders are incompetent and wish to revolt against them. It's quite another to have a foreign power invade your country. All your leadership analysis aside, individual Japanese had (and still have) very strong national pride and would have fought extremely hard to resist an invasion. We learned this lesson in Korea, we learned it in Vietnam, and we're learning it in Iraq--even if a populace hates their government, they will hate an invading army even more. I can't stand our president in the U.S., I voted against him and I wish he were out of office tomorrow. But if a foreign power invaded I would pick up a rifle and die wielding it rather than allow the U.S. to be invaded. Regardless of any ongoing diplomatic negotiations.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
As others have already pointed out, even at the time of the decision there was no solid information to support this, only veiled hints about incriminating intelligence. But that intelligence could not lead the weapons inspectors to a shred of proof of the existence of those WMD, so even at the time it was not rational to place too much weight on it. Moreover, it was very suspicious that during the discussion the arguments to go to war changed (WMD, Al Quada, dispose an evil dictator were all used), but the remedy was always the same: war. Clearly the facts and motivations were tailored to arrive at a desired outcome. I maintain that there was no rational argument to go to war.
Nevertheless, the points made by those European governments were very rational. Of course, like the USA they had their own interests to defend, but that's the nice thing about rational argument: you can ignore that and concentrate on the facts and the logical conclusions to draw from them.
(About action against Iran:)
Why do you think that will accomplish anything positive? Look at the smashing 'success' the Israelies had with these tactics recently...