Interesting tidbit: when I describe my Soviet and early post-Soviet childhood to Americans, Americans of my age are surprised that their fears of Soviet nuclear attack, civil defense training ("duck and cover"), were not unique. "Whoa, you thought we were going to nuke you?! We thought you were going to nuke us." A popular (not very politically correct by US standards!) Soviet joke of this time conveyed the cynicism around the idea that once a nuclear war began, humanity would have any hope--<p>Armenian Radio (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Yerevan_jokes" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Yerevan_jokes</a>) was asked: "what do to if a
nuclear attack is imminent?"<p>Armenian Radio responded: "wrap yourself in a linen sheet and slowly, in organized fashion, without creating any panic, crawl to a cemetery."<p>To paraphrase War Games (a classic which I watched only after coming to the US), the winning move is not to play."
This is another interesting story about a Russian who may have saved the world: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov</a>
Oh look, another title edit that adds nothing and takes away from the original title that actually told us why we should care about Vasili Arkhipov. Get it together, mods!
It's a lonely and sad thought that the biggest heroes whose immense sacrifices and contributions to the well being of everyone around them are celebrated by... the blissful ignorance of everyone else.<p>Except in movies. There, we get to see and experience it all.
I was lucky enough to learn about this in high school - Andover. I forget the speakers name but he gave the speech between 2001 - 2005 (I can't remember). It was an incredible speech about Mutually Assured Destruction and how the theory was absurd. The speaker pointed out that no one thought that we would exit the Cold War without a horrible war. And then he asked, "Why did this not happen?" He pointed to Vasili's example as to how one SANE person can make a difference. He talked about several other examples. He ended the speech by repeating, "PEACE. PEACE. PEACE." At the moment I thought it was cheesy... but here I am more than 10 years later and I still remember it.
It's a shame that we have gotten ourselves to a point where we must rely on the level headed decision making of so few people to keep us from annihilation. To say 'saved' may be a bit premature. It's more of a shame that we have created such monstrosities with the gifts of technology and have kept them around and continue to threaten our very own existence with them. Here's to hoping for cooler heads and compassion to always prevail, for all our sakes.
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VPY2SgyG5w" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VPY2SgyG5w</a> is an hour long documentary about this man and the incident he is famous for
<i>"Three officers on board the submarine [...] were authorized to launch the torpedo if agreeing unanimously in favor of doing so. An argument broke out among the three, in which only Arkhipov was against the launch."</i><p>Opportunity for a playwright to write a really tight two scene piece there. Doubt if we could get it up to 50,000 words[1] even if we did the 'follow three scenarios with multiple endings' trick, and even if we had the Bobby Kennedy/LBJ dynamic in the committee going.<p>Edit: The K-19 'incident' would have made a major psychological impression on <i>anyone</i>, even allowing for the high threshold that I imagine Soviet navy commanders of that era had.[2]<p>[1] <a href="http://nanowrimo.org/" rel="nofollow">http://nanowrimo.org/</a><p>[2] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-19" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-19</a>
the guardian wrote about his story: <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/27/vasili-arkhipov-stopped-nuclear-war" rel="nofollow">http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/27/vasili-...</a>
Well, I'm glad the worst is over. It's chilling how many near misses there were. How many more near misses might we have endured, had the Cold War gone on, before the one not-any-kind-of-miss that would have destroyed human civilization?
An essay in the book <i>What Ifs? of American History</i> (Robert Cowley, ed.) by Robert L. O'Connell, "The Cuban Missile Crisis: Second Holocaust," details what might have happened if Arkhipov had not been successful and the <i>Randolph</i> had in fact been hit by a nuclear torpedo.<p>In the aftermath, the U.S. military executes air strikes on Cuba followed by an invasion. The Soviet forces obliterate Guantanamo with a nuclear strike, send nuclear cruise missiles at the incoming invasion force,and, most seriously, manage to launch two of the SS-4 missiles...one of which hits Washington D.C. and wipes out the entire National Command Authority. In response, U.S. forces execute the entire SIOP against the Soviet Union, an effort which gives "overkill" a new name.<p>The aftermath of "The Two Days' War" includes the near-extermination of the Soviet Union, radiation issues in large parts of the world, and a "nuclear twilight" causing worldwide food shortages and famine. Ultimately, the United States was viewed as the aggressor by the rest of the world, compounded by the actions of President Richard Nixon (elected in 1964, replacing Acting President John McCormack). The U.S. stood alone in refusing to join the Geneva Convention for the Abolition of Nuclear Armaments in 1966, and renounced UN membership in 1968, ordering the organization out of New York City. The American public felt Nixon had taken the wrong turn, and elected Eugene McCarthy to succeed him in 1972.<p>The essay is written as the report of an investigative commission written in 1972 and finally declassified in 2002, in part by the actions of U.S. Archivist Newton Leroy Gingrich (who never went into politics in this timeline) at the New Capital District in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado.
Should we extend Petrov Day to him too? <a href="http://lesswrong.com/lw/jq/926_is_petrov_day/" rel="nofollow">http://lesswrong.com/lw/jq/926_is_petrov_day/</a>