KGB Software Almost Triggered War In 1983 (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Who here remembers WarGames? As it turns out, the film was a lot closer to reality than we knew. Newly-released documents show that the Soviet Union's KGB developed software to predict sneak attacks from the U.S. and other nations in the early 1980s. During a NATO wargame in November, 1983, that software met all conditions necessary to forecast the beginning of a nuclear war. "Many of these procedures and tactics were things the Soviets had never seen, and the whole exercise came after a series of feints by U.S. and NATO forces to size up Soviet defenses and the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 on September 1, 1983. So as Soviet leaders monitored the exercise and considered the current climate, they put one and one together. Able Archer, according to Soviet leadership at least, must have been a cover for a genuine surprise attack planned by the U.S., then led by a president possibly insane enough to do it." Fortunately, when the military exercise ended, so did Soviet fears that an attack was imminent.

Comments

There were TV documentories on this

[jfdavis668]

How is this suddenly news? I have watch TV documentaries years ago about this event.

Re:There were TV documentories on this

[Crowd Computing]

The news is about the downloadable partly declassified document that pertains to the event. So the difference is like watching a CNN news report about a government scandal and then reading for yourself the Wikileaks source. Of course in this case it's not a leak but an official release:

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 533
Edited by Nate Jones, Tom Blanton, and Lauren Harper
Posted - October 24, 2015

Re:John Wayne

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

>> electing Rambo wannabe

Rambo came out in 1982 - Reagan was elected in 1980.