From his early life to the part he played in avoiding nuclear destruction, join us today
as we take a look at the man who saved the world.
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Number 10 Early Life Stanislav Petrov was born near Vladivostok
on September 7, 1939.
About a week before his birth, Germany had invaded Poland and World War II had begun
in Europe.
Petrov’s father, Yevgraf, was a fighter aircraft pilot during the war.
Petrov himself would ultimately graduate from the Kiev Higher Engineering Radio-Technical
College of the Soviet Air Forces.
In the early 1970s, Petrov became part of an organization tasked with detecting ballistic
missile attacks from countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
In 1983, Petrov was the on-duty officer when the early-warning system malfunctioned.
His moment of clarity most likely prevented a nuclear war.
Number 9 End of World War II In order to understand the magnitude of Petrov’s
decision, we’d have to return to the end of World War II.
As the curtain closed on the most destructive war in humanity’s history, one aspect became
clear- future world dominance would be decided by the strength of your nuclear arsenal.
The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in August, 1945, redefined the manner in which
war was to be fought.
The Empire of Japan had refused to surrender up to that point.
However, after the bombings and the Soviet Union’s declaration of war, Emperor Hirohito
finally yielded.
He announced the surrender in a historic broadcast, citing a “new and most cruel bomb, the power
of which to do damage is, indeed, incalculable”.
Hirohito warned that, should war carry on as such, it wouldn’t only lead to the obliteration
of Japan as a state but to the complete extinction of human civilization.
As news of the bombings broke, the Soviet Union, under Joseph Stalin, accelerated its
nuclear program.
It secretly gathered intelligence about the American Manhattan Project and also used captured
German scientists.
In 1949, the Soviets conducted their first successful nuclear weapons test, officially
becoming a nuclear power.
Number 8 Cold War Climate In the aftermath of World War II, the global
superpowers that emerged were the United States, with its Western allies, and the Soviet Union,
with its satellite states in the Eastern Bloc.
There were fundamental differences between the two superpowers which led to rising tensions
in a historical period known as the Cold War.
Some historians trace its beginning to 1947 and the Truman Doctrine, when the US pledged
to stop the global expansion of communism.
The struggle for world dominance gradually became a matter of capitalism versus communism
and of a liberal democracy versus a totalitarian regime.
While there wasn’t any large-scale armed conflict between the US and the Soviet Union,
hence the word “cold”, the struggle for global hegemony was expressed through proxy-wars
all over the world.
Number 7 Growing Tensions Both superpowers were arming up for an all-out
nuclear war.
Attacks, however, were deterred by a doctrine of mutual assured destruction.
In the context of total war this basically meant that the attacker would implicitly bring
about his own destruction.
The two superpowers were in constant competition not only in the context of nuclear arsenals
or sponsored wars.
There was massive espionage, propaganda campaigns, psychological warfare, sports rivalries or
technological competitions, such as the Space Race.
These all contributed to growing tensions between them, with sporadic boiling points,
such as the Cuban Missile Crisis.
This was one of the war’s closest calls, as the Soviets had entered a secret agreement
with Fidel Castro to build missile launching facilities on Cuban soil.
This would have placed the American eastern coastline in range.
The matter was swiftly resolved through negotiation as the Soviets agreed to remove the missiles
if the US promised not to invade Cuba, their communist ally.
Number 6 Cold War in 1983 Throughout the war, nuclear weapons were moved
around like chess pieces with each superpower placing the other in their scope.
In 1983, the end of the Cold War was nowhere in sight.
The Soviet Union was led by Yuri Andropov and Ronald Reagan was the US President.
The US had become more aggressive in its psychological warfare.
It deployed nuclear ballistic missiles in Western Europe that were capable of reaching
Belarus, Lithuania or Ukraine within minutes.
The US military had also stationed cruise missiles which were capable of striking further
east.
American bombers would fly towards Soviet space only to turn back at the last minute.
According to accounts from intelligence operatives on both sides, the Soviets were on edge believing
that Reagan’s military was secretly preparing a nuclear strike.
The Kremlin, Andropov and the KGB were on high alert.
In 1983, the Soviets shot down a South Korean passenger jet which had entered the Union’s
airspace.
All 269 people on board were killed, including a US Congressman and other American citizens.
The relationship between the two superpowers had greatly deteriorated.
The Soviet Union was tense, nervous and ready to respond with full force to any sign of
aggression.
This is why what happened next was extremely dangerous.
Number 5 1983 Nuclear False Alarm Three weeks after the Soviets had shot down
Korean Air Lines Flight 007, Stanislav Petrov was faced with the hardest decision of his
life.
On September 26, 1983, he was the on-duty officer in a bunker near Moscow, which housed
the command center of Soviet early-warning satellites.
A little after midnight, the computers reported that intercontinental ballistic missiles had
been launched from the US and were heading towards the Soviet Union.
It was a nightmarish scenario, the beginning of an all-out war that was sure to bring about
unparalleled destruction.
According to Petrov himself, sirens were howling, red lights were flashing and each second he
delayed announcing the warning was potentially vital.
The alerts on the computer screens changed from “launch” to “missile strike”.
Unbeknownst to him, the false alarm had been caused by an alignment of the satellites’
orbit and sunlight reflecting of high-altitude clouds above North Dakota.
It was an error that could have ended the world.
Number 4 Protocol Soviet protocol dictated that Petrov was to
immediately notify his superiors of the launch so that a counter-attack could be mounted.
Launch on warning was a nuclear weapon retaliation strategy that was a major part of the mutually
assured destruction theory.
It stated that a counter strike would be launched upon warning of an enemy nuclear attack, while
the missiles were still in the air and prior to them impacting.
The Soviet satellite early warning network was regarded as highly reliable.
Petrov’s responsibility was to promptly run the information up the chain of command
so that retaliatory measures could be taken.
He was a crucial link between information and decision-making.
Number 3 Petrov’s Crucial Intervention The reason why Petrov is often hailed as the
man who saved the world is that he went against Soviet protocol and took the warning exactly
for what it was - a false alarm.
Even though he had the weight of the world on his shoulders, Petrov kept his composure
as the five missiles were detected, one after the other.
The only aspect he eventually reported to his superiors was a system malfunction.
If he was wrong, the US may have gotten the first blows thus possibly crippling a Soviet
retaliatory response.
Had he transmitted the false alarm, given the Cold War context of 1983, his military
superiors could have launched a devastating attack.
The US and its NATO allies would’ve been forced to retaliate and the world, as we know
it today, might have never existed.
Just like in the warnings of Emperor Hirohito, the ensuing global nuclear warfare could have
put an end to human civilization.
In theory, this scenario is known as a nuclear holocaust and it’s absolutely terrifying.
Major cities would fall and modern technology would shut down.
The initial loss of life would be catastrophic and many more would succumb to widespread
radiation sickness.
Soot launched into the atmosphere would block out the sun and countless lives would be claimed
by the resulting nuclear winter.
Number 2 Moments of Clarity As the alarms were blaring around him, Petrov
claimed that he almost couldn’t move.
He knew what he had to do but something wasn’t right.
When talking about the 1983 false alarm incident in subsequent interviews, Petrov attributed
his decision to a few moments of clarity.
He didn’t view the launch detection system as trustworthy, since it was still rather
new.
There were also about 30 layers of verification and he felt that the warning had gone through
them too quickly.
Additionally, an attack from the US would’ve been all-out, with many more than five missiles
launched.
That being said, even Petrov himself claimed that he was never truly sure about the true
nature of the alarm.
It was ultimately a matter of trusting his instincts.
His decision of treating it like a false alarm was followed by the longest 23 minutes of
his life.
It’s the time it would have taken for him to find out if a real attack had been launched.
A number of analysts claim that, had Petrov not acted the way that he did, the aftermath
could have been apocalyptic.
Number 1 Aftermath Following the incident Petrov was intensely
questioned by his superiors and extensively investigated.
At the time of the nuclear false alarm, General Yury Votintsev was the commander of the Soviet
Air Defense’s Missile Defense Units.
He’d initially praised Petrov and even promised him a reward.
That never happened, as it would’ve meant the Soviets admitting the critical failure
of their early warning system.
Instead, Petrov was reprimanded for not describing the incident in the military log.
The man who’d arguably saved the world was being punished over paperwork.
He was reassigned, took early retirement and reportedly suffered a mental breakdown.
Petrov kept quiet for many years about his actions.
The incident became known to the public after Votintsev published his memoirs in 1998.
As more media attention was brought to Petrov, he started giving interviews and also received
multiple international awards and commendations.
Even though he was hailed as a hero, up until his death in 2017, Petrov maintained that
he was only doing his job.
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