- Joined
- Apr 28, 2021
On 26 September 1983, the world came to the closest it's ever been to a full on nuclear war. On that day Soviet Colonel Stanislav Petrov had to make a call that decided the fate of the world.
Colonel Stanislav Petrov was the watch officer on duty that day at the Serpukhov-15 bunker near Moscow, monitoring for a US missile attack on the Soviet Union.
Suddenly, the computer-based warning systems reported several US nuclear missiles approaching Soviet territory. In our timeline, Colonel Petrov believed the information to be false and did not alert the Kremlin to the data he was receiving. Given Cold War tensions at the time, such information would likely have convinced the Soviets that the US had launched a first strike in an attempt to "cut off the head," and they would have been forced to launch their nuclear weapons in the false belief that it was a counter strike. It was later found out to be a computer error and Colonel Stanislav Petrov made the right call averting an all out nuclear war at the height of the cold war.
Since then, the threat and fear of the atomic bomb has gone away for two generations only for it to return due to recent events.
This thread is about discussing and reminding of the danger we might face if a nuclear conflict does arrive.
The big long term danger is not the immediate or prolong deaths from being to close to the explosions or change of weather patterns from it. The real danger is the unleashing of radioactive nuclear particles into the air, water, and soil around us.
Colonel Stanislav Petrov was the watch officer on duty that day at the Serpukhov-15 bunker near Moscow, monitoring for a US missile attack on the Soviet Union.
Suddenly, the computer-based warning systems reported several US nuclear missiles approaching Soviet territory. In our timeline, Colonel Petrov believed the information to be false and did not alert the Kremlin to the data he was receiving. Given Cold War tensions at the time, such information would likely have convinced the Soviets that the US had launched a first strike in an attempt to "cut off the head," and they would have been forced to launch their nuclear weapons in the false belief that it was a counter strike. It was later found out to be a computer error and Colonel Stanislav Petrov made the right call averting an all out nuclear war at the height of the cold war.
Since then, the threat and fear of the atomic bomb has gone away for two generations only for it to return due to recent events.
This thread is about discussing and reminding of the danger we might face if a nuclear conflict does arrive.
The big long term danger is not the immediate or prolong deaths from being to close to the explosions or change of weather patterns from it. The real danger is the unleashing of radioactive nuclear particles into the air, water, and soil around us.
