According to the article, Petrov actually died on May 19th.
Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died
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Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died
#102Im pretty sure, similar stories happend in the US, but as the winner gets to write history, this page did not made it to print.
Anyone with the appropriate level of SIOP access (these days called OPLAN 8010-12) won't be talking.
Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died
#103Petrov'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…
Even if communications network were destroyed the early warning burnkers could launch rockets that would fly over silos and broadcast directly the launch order.
Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died
#104According to the article, Petrov actually died on May 19th.
Yes, but it seems as though no one outside of Petrov's family knew about it until just now.
Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died
#105I first heard of his death in a very niche subreddit and only by chance. He died in May and only now we know it. I was wondering how long it'd take for mainstream media to pick up. He was truly a hero, without his reaction a good chunk of this planet would be nuclear wasteland.
Mainstream media? This is an rt.com article, a mouthpiece for the Kremlin.
As far as I know, they had this story before anyone else did.
Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died
#106The prevalence of close calls on the Soviet side, and their likely existence on the American side too, suggests thst the MAD system is robust to false positives.
When I play Russian Roulette, and I pull the trigger four times with no ill effects, that does not indicate that the revolver is robust against false firings. This is the poster child for survivourship bias.
How robust are we talking about? Do you think the odds of a nuclear war in your lifetime are <1%? I certainly do not.
Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died
#107Obligatory post on this thread due to my username (chosen to honor him).
Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if there are other, still classified instances where the weapon has almost been launched. If lt. colonel Petrov was aware of the limitations of the early warning system then there must have been other faults as well - I bet there have been problems with the early warning system on both sides...
I recently read the non-fiction book Command And Control by Eric Schlosser. It's structured around an incident when a Titan II missile blew up in its silo in Arkansas, throwing the warhead out of the silo and into the air. Anyway, it uses that incident to go back in history and explain the development of nuclear weapons and how the command and control systems we have today came about. A lot of it was driven to preven…
This was made into a documentary and is currently available on Netflix. If you can spare 90 minutes check it out, it's a hell of a good watch.
Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died
#109So, how many Western countries will erect a statue for him?
And in those countries, how many generations will pass before the mob demands the statue be torn down?
Re: Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died
#110Glory for a true hero. Thank you, Mr Petrov.