Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died

rt.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 147 posts

Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died

#61

Post by dingaling »

Twisell wrote: post #8

This remind me of a recurring theme in "Doctor Who" fictional stories (I'm bing watching right now). There no such thing as an unimportant person because countless time in the stories the world or even the universe have been saved by ordinary people and nobody will ever know about them. Only this is real life, this is deeply amazing. I feel so much gratitude and kindnesses for this man. RIP Станислав Евграфович Петро…

> There no such thing as an unimportant person

And on that theme, when I wore uniform we were told never to use the term VIP but instead NP, Notable Person. Which I thought was a good workaround as it separated fame from "importance"

Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died

#62

Post by random_upvoter »

As a religious person it is my belief that only divine protection saved us from nuclear annihilation during that era. If you think about the primitive state of that technology, the amount of brutal, stupid men that walked around in the military and the number of close calls, you really have to wonder how it did not happen.

Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died

#64

Post by rl3 »

majewsky wrote: post #58
4WIW wrote: post #25

It may be that our biggest collective luck was that the alarm happened at the time subcolonel Petrov was on duty. He was an analyst, maybe even chief analyst of the unit, he authored the playbook for the officers on duty; being on duty wasn't his main job (source: https://cont.ws/@adviser095/717098 ), he would go on duty from time to time. Due to his knowledge of the early warning system he was more likely to cast do…

> 1) The reported starts (5 in total) happened from a single base in the US which didn't make sense from the military point of view: the US would have put themselves at a grave disadvantage by sending just a few missiles There was an interview with Petrov (in the 90s or 00s) when he spoke about this point, and the interviewer said that in 1983, the US plans for a preemptive strike started with a "beheading strike", i…

One would think proper first strikes would be compromised of SLBMs.

Then again, it's not a proper Cold War strategic game theory play unless you're banking on your enemy to hesitate due to the unusual nature of the attack. SLBMs scream first strike, while a few birds out of many launching from farm country in the central United States in sequential fashion, not so much.

That said, I'm not sure what would have consituted "twitching" after Soviet C&C is wiped out, and if I was a planner at the time I don't think I'd want to find out. It would likely have been prudent to immediately follow up the decapitation strike with complete annihilation of Soviet nuclear retaliatory capability. Every deployed Soviet boomer accounted for and shadowded, with firing solutions computed. Every missile silo targeted. Presumably strategic air bases would be targeted in the first volley, though there would remain the possibility of strategic bomber patrols already airborne.

First strikes are really messy and entail a ridiculous amount of risk. Considering the stakes, it's no wonder neither side ever tried.

Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died

#65

Post by tqkxzugoaupvwqr »

Lxr wrote: post #26

Petrov's story is a really good example of why employing smart people and trusting them beats procedures and metrics every time. May he rest in peace.

You can’t take this case and generalize. In fact, the US’ strategy was a first strike with a handful of nukes and a second, huge wave after the first strike took out main communication/decision centers. So if this had been a real strike, having this intelligent person disregard protocol could have ended in a disaster for the Soviet Union.

…On the other hand, a not-so-intelligent person that blindly followed protocol would have caused the downfall of the US and Soviet Union and the death of hundreds of millions of people all over the world.

We all just got lucky.

Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died

#66

Post by gambiting »

tqkxzugoaupvwqr wrote: post #65
Lxr wrote: post #26

Petrov's story is a really good example of why employing smart people and trusting them beats procedures and metrics every time. May he rest in peace.

You can’t take this case and generalize. In fact, the US’ strategy was a first strike with a handful of nukes and a second, huge wave after the first strike took out main communication/decision centers. So if this had been a real strike, having this intelligent person disregard protocol could have ended in a disaster for the Soviet Union. …On the other hand, a not-so-intelligent person that blindly followed protocol…

>>So if this had been a real strike, having this intelligent person disregard protocol could have ended in a disaster for the Soviet Union.

It would have been a disaster anyway, if it was a real strike Soviet Union couldn't prevent it in any feasible way. The only thing they could possibly do was level the United States, but it wouldn't change the outcome for them.

Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died

#67

Post by Twisell »

Already__Taken wrote: post #52
Twisell wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I corrected for clarity. But some fans would cringe because you can refer to "Doctor Who" as the show or "The Doctor" for the character but "The Doctor Who" Make no sense so your initial correction might be even more confusing to some ;)

But you would use the phrase the Doctor Who show. As The wasn't capitalized is how I would read it.

So let's get to the bottom of this as english is not my mother tong and I will gladly learn new tricks. Does that mean that my sentence (with correction) is wrong because "the" is mandatory in this context?

Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died

#68

Post by tame_lame »

random_upvoter wrote: post #62

As a religious person it is my belief that only divine protection saved us from nuclear annihilation during that era. If you think about the primitive state of that technology, the amount of brutal, stupid men that walked around in the military and the number of close calls, you really have to wonder how it did not happen.

Love science and also believe in God too. When I read about incidents like this, this quote from psalms comes to mind: "When the earth totters, and all its inhabitants, it is I who keep steady its pillars."

Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died

#69

Post by gambiting »

wutbrodo wrote: post #29
forapurpose wrote: post #28

When AIs are making life and death decisions (because there are only microseconds to act), will they hold their fire in the name of humanitarianism? Would an AI have launched the missiles?

You've misunderstood the story. Petrov didn't defy high-level Soviet goals in the name of humanitarianism: the goal was to fire back if fired upon and _not_ to fire back if not fired upon. Petrov's achievement was making the right judgment call that the US had not actually fired on Russia (i.e. that it was a detection anomaly or something). Given that he wasn't deviating from the high-level goals handed down, I don't…

Correct, it's actually likely that a good AI would also conclude, just like Petrov did, that this is not an attack, given everything that was expected from a real attack at the time. If they simply wired a launch detector to the button that launches nukes, then that's not AI.

Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died

#70

Post by 0xbear »

majewsky wrote: post #58
4WIW wrote: post #25

It may be that our biggest collective luck was that the alarm happened at the time subcolonel Petrov was on duty. He was an analyst, maybe even chief analyst of the unit, he authored the playbook for the officers on duty; being on duty wasn't his main job (source: https://cont.ws/@adviser095/717098 ), he would go on duty from time to time. Due to his knowledge of the early warning system he was more likely to cast do…

> 1) The reported starts (5 in total) happened from a single base in the US which didn't make sense from the military point of view: the US would have put themselves at a grave disadvantage by sending just a few missiles There was an interview with Petrov (in the 90s or 00s) when he spoke about this point, and the interviewer said that in 1983, the US plans for a preemptive strike started with a "beheading strike", i…

This plan strikes me as idiotic TBH. The Kremlin is situated smack dab in the center of the most populous city in Russia, Moscow. You can’t take out just the Kremlin without taking out millions of people in the process. And even if you could, the USSR would have no choice but to respond. It’s like someone nuked the White House. Rockets would be flying within minutes.

Nowadays there’s an automated system in place that ensures a response even if the entire high command is taken out: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Hand_(nuclear_war)

Post reply on HN