High Risk Decisions-Stanislav Petrov

We have seen rivalry everywhere. In the 12th century, Lord Shiva and Lord Vishnu fought proxy wars in South India to show their respective powers. Rather, their cult fought against each other. Then the world has seen many wars with people dying for their kings, nations. Let their souls rest in peace. Then we have seen two world wars which brutally took the lives of millions of men, women and children. The USA dropped Atomic Bombs on Japan to take revenge for Pearl Harbor incident. One should agree that these wars were deadly, lethal and what not.

But the ultimate disaster would have happened on 26th September, 1983. Thanks to Colonel. Stanislav Petrov, a major nuclear war was prevented.


Background:


The relations between the Soviet Union and the United States were always tensed ever since the end of World War 2. Both being different factions, of different ideologies each had its own way to reconstruct Europe. Both these powers fought a superiority race in all fields ranging from science, technology, research, sports. Berlin Wall incident, Cuban crisis, shooting of Korean Airliner (which entered Soviet Airspace) by the USSR only strained US-Soviet relations.



There was always a doubt. Who would strike first? A war was eminent all the time. Luckily for humanity, Stanislav Petrov was the officer in charge on that day. He was deployed on the Serphukov-15 bunker, near Moscow. He was to monitor the Radar and Satellite warning system and notify his superiors of any impending nuclear missile attack against the Soviet Union. If notification was received from the early-warning systems that inbound missiles had been detected, the Soviet Union's strategy was an immediate nuclear counter-attack against the United States (launch on warning), specified in the doctrine of mutual assured destruction.


Shortly after midnight, the bunker's computers reported that an intercontinental ballistic missile was heading toward the Soviet Union from the US. Petrov considered the detection, a computer error, since a United States first-strike nuclear attack would involve hundreds of simultaneous missile launches to disable any means of a counterattack. Petrov dismissed the warning as a false alarm.

Later, the computers identified four additional missiles in the air, all directed towards the Soviet Union. Petrov again suspected that the computer system was malfunctioning, despite having no other source of information to confirm his suspicions. The Soviet Union's land radar was incapable of detecting missiles beyond the horizon, and waiting for it to positively identify the threat would limit the Soviet Union's response time to minutes. Time was running out. Had Petrov reported about these warnings to his superiors, definitely they would have launched a counter attack based on a false alarm. Imagine the consequences? Britain would have been entirely destroyed. Europe and the US would be in shambles. And what about retaliation? Soviet Union would have been half destroyed. The world would have been destroyed even before Lord Vishnu came as Kalki in a horse to remove evil. Maybe, the fate of the world can't be changed. Maybe, the world is just waiting for Him to come? Or He made Stanislav Petrov to make a proper decision to save our humanity?


As a Soviet-fan, I'm not supposed to talk of religion. However, I am an Indian, I have got freedom of speech to talk of anything which impresses, be it the USSR or God.



Coming back to the Serphukov Bunker, Stanislav Petrov spent painful minutes. If a nuclear attach was underway, missiles must have hit? He waited for a few minutes. Thank God. Nothing happened. He has saved the world from a major catastrophe. But why were the computer's wrong? The computer's were receiving signal from Soviet-Molniya sateilites. The Satellites picked up the reflected sun rays from the clouds. These were mistook for missiles. The Soviet Union never revealed this incident to the outside world as a improper defence system would embarrass the upper echelons of the Soviet Army. Especially, during the early 1980's, when the Soviet-US relations were dangerously low.

Later, Stanislav Petrov underwent intense questioning. He deviated from standard doctrine of counter attack. Suppose, if really the missiles had it the USSR, what would have happened? The standard Army doctrine was to obey the system. Eventually, he received no reward. He lost his job and was forced to take up retirement. He is currently living in Moscow with a small pension. But the world should be grateful to this person, who saved the world. If you do anything good, people will never accept it.

-Krishna Kumar.S