The Man Who Literally Saved the World 796
99luftballon writes "Today is an important anniversary for Russian hero Stanislav Petrov, the Soviet missile commander who saved the world from nuclear destruction in 1983. Sadly there are plenty of other examples of this kind of thing. How long will we keep getting lucky?"
How much to people trust America now? (Score:3, Interesting)
Sting said it best (Score:4, Interesting)
I couldn't say it better than Sting:
What might save us, me, and you
Is that the Russians love their children too
Re:Why Only U.S. & Russia? (Score:5, Interesting)
What worries me is that, at some point, the Russian government wasn't able to pay all it's employees' wages. What does that say about a rich and determined party being able to acquire some of the stored weapons? Even if such a scenario is highly unlikely, I'm still more worried about that than about what a state with citizens and territory might do with nuclear weapons.
"How long will we keep getting lucky?" (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Why Only U.S. & Russia? (Score:3, Interesting)
Because the vast majority of weapons belong to those 2 countries? Because those 2 countries have been engaged in a cold war (sometimes called WW3 by some analysts) practically since the end of WW2?
To be more worried about India/Pakistan I find a strange postion to take. Obviously the real worry should be attached to the owners of the largest arsenals as these are the countries that could truly wipe out the world. India and PakistaN could not.
As for chemical and biological weapons, America and Russia lead the way there too. Russia felt compelled to develop biological weapons particularly during the 70s and 80s as they could no longer afford to keep up with the cost of the nuclear arms race and biologicals offer similar levels of devestation for a fraction of the cost. America then saw that and began to match Russia on the biological front. At it's peak Fort Detrick was turning out nearly 10kg of weaponised anthrax a week.
Re:Gratitude (Score:2, Interesting)
What I wish they did is what they did for Y2K. Put a military officer from the other country in the head quarters of the other. Then they could call and state what the exact situation was. It added an extra level of failsafe.
Re:Well, as long as IRAN doesn't get nukes... (Score:3, Interesting)
This is completely false.
If the number of deaths by war were plotted over the course of human history you would see a a line that increased every year and each year the increase grew steeper. Around 1945, by coincidence I'm sure, the number of deaths by war has dropped to about a million per year and it has stayed there ever since.
Nuclear weapons, as illogical as it may sound, save lives.
there is only one county in the world that has ever used nuclear weapons... twice... on civilians.
Case in point. Japan started the fight and they would not surrender. Very conservative estimates of an invasion of Japan's homeland put American deaths at a million and Japanese deaths as a multiple of that. As horrific the destruction caused by the 2 atomic bombs, those bombs saved American and Japanese lives.
Re:Why Only U.S. & Russia? (Score:5, Interesting)
Between you, she, and a host of the current MTV generation, you guys have no concept of:
The significance of the Berlin Wall [wikipedia.org] - you used to be able to buy pieces of it when you were in grade school.
Life before the internet.
Life without cell phones.
A time when you couldn't buy telephones in the store - they had to be leased from the Bells and from their stores.
61 cents a minute to a town 90 miles away was the normal fee for intrastate long distance.
Life before VCRs; and yeah, the Wizard of OZ was on every Easter and that was your only chance to see it.
There was a smoking section in airplanes and the ashtrays in the arm rests used to open.
A time before the Space Shuttle.
A time when rocket trips to the moon were current events. My 6th birthday had the Apollo capsule on the cake.
A time before Star Wars.
A time when your local TV weatherman hosted a kids show on their station. It's kind of against regulations now.
And as far as I matter, Cuba has always been shut off to the US. I eagerly await the day when travel from the US will be allowed.
Re:Well, as long as IRAN doesn't get nukes... (Score:3, Interesting)
Also consider Iraq. The Japanese were just about a militant as the Iraqies. Given even the limited industrial capacity of current iraq, they do a lot of damage to the US. Imagine a near technological peer beign just as militant, and you've invaded their home land. The bomb completely demoralized Japan. any hope of conditional surrender or resistance died. In Iraq, the militants are fairly certain the Us will not nuke them all so it has no effect and the US has the head aches they do now.
WMD Threats Continue (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, what really scares me are biological weapons (think Smallpox's Variola Major or other very nasty bugs) that can be transported with less readily available detection (Frank Herbert's "The White Plague" is a good read, so is Stephen King's The Stand, and then there is the movie 12 Monkeys http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/12_monkeys/ [rottentomatoes.com]). My High school biology teacher (back in the mid 80's), who sevred as an officer in the Army a few years before, said biological weapons concerned her much more than nuclear for several reasons:
* easier to obtain the needed materials
* less technology needed to deploy
* time delay between deployment and noticable effects
* ease and speed by which pathogens can spread
So yes, I can see why the risks are significant and recurrant. There's plenty of Fear, Hate, Ignorance and Mistrust going around for possibilities to crop up. I just hope there are enough people like Stanislav Yefgrafovich Petrov, in the right place, and at the right time, to help save us from ourselves.
Thanks, Stan
Re:How much to people trust America now? (Score:4, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83 [wikipedia.org].
When someone tells you, "Don't worry, they can't intercept these messages", he's wrong.
Re:MAD (Score:4, Interesting)
It's much more that the North Korea/South Korea border is the most heavily militarized location in the world. The US estimated that if we were to invade North Korea, there would be more than 50,000 casualties in the first three months of fighting.
Re:Why Only U.S. & Russia? (Score:5, Interesting)
Because both the United States and Russia blew up hundreds, if not thousands of atomic and hydrogen bombs during testing?
Re:luck? (Score:3, Interesting)
There were other large explosions long before that happened. During the seige of Ft. George outside of Niagara On The Lake, Ontario, in 1812, for example, an artillery shell hit a magazine. The resulting explosion was described as "resembling a large cauliflower", and was seen from as much as 30 miles away. The fort itself was levelled, and an American general was killed by debris from the explosion more than 15 miles away (a shard of wood stabbed him in the heart). Sound like something that's typically associated with nuclear explosions?
Re:Well, as long as IRAN doesn't get nukes... (Score:5, Interesting)
Adding to the reasons you have given, consider that the US had very valid concerns that Japan may be nearing completion of its own nuclear weapon [wikipedia.org] . Immediately before Germany's fall, in May of 1945, U-234 [wikipedia.org] (almost an ironic name) was captured by US forces. Its mission had been to transfer to Japan enough Uranium for two nuclear weapons, two fully disassembled ME-262's, full documentation of Nazi Germany's nuclear efforts to date, centrifuge technology, a V-2 rocket expert, etc.. While unknown at the time, the Japanese Navy may have even had a sneak attack capability against the mainland US in the form of the I-400 [wikipedia.org] submarine aircraft carriers.
U-234 surrendered to US forces after the Germany's fall - but the US had to face the very real possibility that there had been other submarines that may not have surrendered. I guess my point is that you can't divorce the reality of the situation from the perception of the decision makers at the time. With some risk of attracting flames, some believe the same applies to the run-up to the Iraq war.
Re:the "saved lives" myth (Score:3, Interesting)
From the article YOU linked to: (after the first bomb fell, emphasis mine)
Even after the first bomb fell, and even after the Soviet Union declared war and began the invasion, they still weren't willing to surrender. Can you explain how they were on the verge of surrendering?
wouldn't work (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:the "saved lives" myth (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the misunderstanding lies in the disconnect between the civilian and military leadership in Japan. The ambassadors were negotiating terms of surrender, but that didn't necessarily mean that the military leaders in the country were ready to surrender.
Re:How much to people trust America now? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is modded insightful? What nonsense.
23 years ago the Soviet Bloc was extremely distrustful of the US - the possibility of imminent nuclear annihilation has a way of doing that, especially when you're already living in a ruthless totalitarian machine - but much of the rest of the world regarded the United States as a democratic bastion protecting them from the Soviet empire. Western Europe, in particular, was totally reliant on the US for protection from the massive Russian ground army. Furthermore, the US was genuinely viewed as a (relative) beacon of democracy and human rights in comparison to the ruthless and inhumane Soviet countries.
Today Western Europe views the United States as the biggest threat to world peace, as does much of the rest of the world. There are stats about this, I can find them if I have to. The US has also lost its role as the leader of the democratic and human rights-aware world, and continues to decline on those fronts at an alarming rate (especially the latter).
I think I speak for a lot of non-US citizens when I say that it is a tragedy that America cannot be relied upon to do the right thing, even on paper. In my opinion a hell of a lot of anti-American sentiment stems from people who depserately want the US to truly lead, and are appalled at the way it is actually behaving.
Put it another way - 23 years ago citizens of Britan, Australia, and Western Europe would never have seriously felt that they might be 'disappeared' by US intelligence agencies from a third-party country, tortured, detained for years without any recourse to the law, and eventually tried in an extra-judicial process with the possibility of the death penalty. Today that has in fact happened, and continues to happen if President Bush is to be believed.
Re:the "saved lives" myth (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why Only U.S. & Russia? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a little older than Sesame Street.
I grew up in a small town near 2 bigger cities that each had TV stations.
1 town had a morning kids show, the other had an afternoon movie show that gave away money to callers and an afternoon kids show.
Back then, the TV lineup was, local kids show, Sesame Street, Captain Kangaroo; then you had your Saturday morning cartoons.
Today there are 5 cable channels and 1 satellite channel dedicated to programming that is appealing to children.
There is an audio snippet here about A History of Local Children's TV Programs [npr.org].
Basically, a `concerned` parents group urged the regulators to make it against regulations for a local TV personality to endorse products.
Well, the local outlets got their money from the local economy and the money was used to purchase syndicated content i.e. cartoons,movies.
It was cheaper for a supermarket, appliance store, local dairy, or car dealer to pay someone to say 15-30 seconds of good things than it was to produce a commercial for 15-30 seconds and pay the airtime.
Some stations kept their show, some didn't. It depended upon if the host was doing it for `public service` or not.
Syndicated packages became available (You just don't get Gilligans Island, you get Gilligans Island, Petticoat Junction, F-Troop, and Green Acres) and the local stations had more content for cheaper.
Cable became wide spread and today, we have the Wiggles.
Re:the "saved lives" myth (Score:5, Interesting)
Did you read anything else from the article? The population was ready to revolt, and half of the military and civilian government were dead-set against continuing the war. They tried to establish diplomatic ties with Russia to save their country and avoid invasion; the US demanded unconditional surrender, the Japanese not surprisingly said "pass", but KEPT WORKING ON HOW TO END THE WAR. Christ, man! Read the article.
US history books make it out like they were rabid, crazed defenders of their almighty emperor that would have fought to the last man, and that our atomic bombs "shocked" them back to "reason" and "saved lives". It's all a blatant lie.
Fortunately (Score:2, Interesting)
They're nuts enough to do it.
50th anniversary of the first Maralinga bomb test (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Why Only U.S. & Russia? (Score:3, Interesting)
or Apollo 1
or a first time TV (large Black and White)?
Or How about a time when you had drills to head under the desks to avoid nuclear bombs (yeah, right)?
Or how about the day that Kennedy was shot?
Or how about remembering the a Cuban Missle crisis (from the perspective of describing some house hold situation only to be told that it was the crisis and your father sat on a runway in Kentucky a B-47 with a very nuke aimed for one-way trip to the USSR)?
Time marches on. I have asked my father and my grandmother from time to time about things that they remember. Turned out that my grandmother knew the Wright brothers and played in their house. Likewise, she described getting around in a horse drawn sleigh in the winter. OTH, My father has known and had dinner with Carl Sagan. In addition, he describes the stars (and taken picts of) from a B-47 Nav Window which are radically different than today (less pollution of all kinds). While I remember the skies being full of thousands of Canadian geese or sparrows, he tells of flocks that were 10's of thousands (very different than today).
One interesting person that I met was a women who worked on ENIAC(first year, no less). She knew all the folks; was the first women director for lockheed and worked in the 60s at skunkworks; Actually was able to get them to allow women to work in pants by threatening to wear a miniskirt to a board meeting). Back in 94, I tried to get funding to film her and get her story on-line, but companies like MS laughed at it. MS said nobody would ever care about this crap and there was no money in it. In light of youtube and others, I bet they would give their left nut now, to have that video. She and others would have been worth it. I do hope that somebody will persue ppl like Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, John Glenn, etc. Far better to do ameuteur type interviews rather than the professional ones.
Re:Why Only U.S. & Russia? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Here's a question. (Score:3, Interesting)
Scenario 1:
USSR: *whoosh* *boom!*
USA: Hey, you nuked Nashville!
USSR: Yeah, so?
USA: I ought to nuke you right back!
USSR: Quit while you're ahead. Try it and I'll nuke every city you have. Which is better, no Nashville or no anything?
USA: Ulp, OK, but we're going to say really nasty things about you in the press.
Scenario 2:
USSR: *whoosh* *boom!*
USA: *whoosh* (2000 times) *boom!* (2000 times)
USSR: *whoosh* (2000 times) *boom!* (2000 times)
Scenario 3:
USSR: Hm, maybe nuking Nashville isn't such a hot idea. Let's not.
The USA wants scenario 3. If USSR believes that nuking Nashville will lead to scenario 1, the USA won't get scenario 3. It is in the USA's interest to ensure the USSR believes in scenario 2. This means the USA must be prepared (and obviously so) to follow through on scenario 2, even though it is irrational to do so (once Nashville is gone.)
There are arguments that this is why anger evolved. If you have a reputation for violently losing your temper, people will try hard not to offend you - because you will act irrationally (and to their detrement) if they do.
Re:That list is clearly missing one (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:How much to people trust America now? (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, organized baseball was being played in Japan as early as 1900. There was even a baseball diamond included in the design of Hibiya Park when it was opened to the public in 1903. US All-Star teams made several trips to Japan in the pre-war years to play both Japanese university and professional teams. Babe Ruth was such a giant sports figure in the country that it was once proposed (and rejected) during the war that he broadcast a surrender message to the Japanese people.
Ronnie Reagan's famous insane radio broadcast... (Score:3, Interesting)
"My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes." (August 1984).
This got re-broadcast in the mainstream media around the world (I heard it on the BBC) and heck it scared lots of people. This guy was insane, he really really wanted to bring down nuclear war on us all. Parent poster is right there was a lot of negative feeling in Europe about Reagan and the US postioning in the 80s. Probably the other posters are right - the anti-American feelings were (and still are) probably a lot to do with the fact that people desperately *want* to believe in the USA and are so disappointed when their leaders come out with nothing better than the corrupt and hypocritical rubbish spouted by other tin pot dictators round the world.
Re:How much to people trust America now? (Score:4, Interesting)
But the GP is right nevertheless: The demonstrations at this time, and the reservations were about US politics, and distrust of US military. While we protested against US politics, we still went to the US and had many friends there. (25 years ago, there was also a peace movement in the US, not like today.)
Currently, I experience a growing dislike of US in total, that doesn't differentiate between people and politics any more; a dislike that is spawned by media reports that the US citizens actually side with the Neocon politics and that a new McCarthy area might be at the horizon. So, I know many European folks who say that they don't will go to the US privately any more, as long as they look as being a nation of nutcases.
What's frightening me most is that I, having been derided 25 years ago as US-foe (which I wasn't), am now derided as US-friend. Yes, being a "US-friend" is reason for mockery today. (And that without having changed my position much.) This illustrates the change of view that the GP meant.
Re:A no-brainer -- why aren't we getting rid of nu (Score:3, Interesting)
Nuclear disarmament is a joke. Both the USSR and the US only decommissioned their old, outdated weapons. Ones they would have had to get rid of anyway due to warhead and propelant shelf-life. Sure, we many have less by volume today, but the actual warhead power and modern "distribution" systems more than make up for the deficiency.
Re:Thinking the unthinkable/places/individual cost (Score:2, Interesting)
I don't think those percentages are sensible. Both technology and population have increased exponentially - there would be very little difference in most ways between a 2000-year setback and a 5000-year setback. Look at this page on population growth [umich.edu]. When you say "set back one or two thousand years" in terms of population, you really are talking about the deaths of 95% of the human race.
From a technological perspective, being kicked back a thousand years doesn't necessarily mean the remainders of the human race can actually operate at 1000CE levels. The easily accessible natural mineral resources have been used up. Whether the 'unused stock' in the form of buildings and machines would be sufficient to sustain 1000CE-level technology for several generations doesn't seem to be an question to answer.
So no, I'd say we would lose more like 90+% of the actual gains the species has made.