The date is November 9th, 1979.
The world is locked in the icy grip of the Cold War, a power struggle played out economically
and politically between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Many however fear that after decades of a very uneasy peace, a full-blown military clash
is inevitable, and both sides know that such a war will be fought with nuclear weapons.
The United States, fearful of being outmatched by the Soviets, has for a long time stockpiled
nuclear weapons and enjoyed a historical numerical advantage over the Soviet Union.
Just one month away from 1980 though, the US has shrunk its nuclear stockpile to around
21,300 weapons, while the Soviet Union has increased it to a whopping 30,000.
Most of these are smaller, tactical nuclear weapons meant to be employed against airfields
and military formations, but a few thousand are the feared 'city killers', weapons so
powerful they can eradicate entire cities with one blast.
The United States is confident that the threat of nuclear war is at its highest only during
times of political crisis- such as the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
Yet when it comes to nuclear weapons, a first strike will determine the winner, and thus
the US has spent billions on building the world's best early warning system.
A picket line of over-the-horizon radars runs across Alaska, into Canada, and finally ending
at Greenland's east coast, all of them aimed towards the Soviet Union on the other side
of the globe.
In space a network of thermal imaging satellites are on constant alert for the tell-tale heat
plumes of an ICBM climbing into the sky, while a second set of smaller radars and satellites
constantly scan the oceans for an attack by submarine-launched weapons.
American hunter-killer subs constantly prowl for Soviet ballistic missile submarines, and
thanks to an incredible underwater detection network that spans the world, Soviet subs
have an extremely difficult time evading their hunters.
The US is confident that it can detect and respond to an attempted Soviet first strike,
and while tensions with the Soviet Union are at a historical low, the fear of a bolt-out-of-the-blue
attack keeps thousands of American military personnel on constant alert.
Buried half a mile beneath a mountain in the Colorado Rockies, and hardened to survive
everything but a direct nuclear blast, the North American Aerospace Defense Command-
or NORAD for short- is a joint operation between the American and Canadian military.
The agency's primary mission is to detect and respond to nuclear launches anywhere in
the world, but it also monitors and protects all air space across the North American continent.
Networked to NORAD via numerous redundancies is every major military command in the US
and Canada, as well as the top government leadership of both nations.
This information superhub is at the time the world's largest concentration of computing
power, and the heart of the world's largest communications network.
It is however, not immune to human error.
It is 2:59 AM, and deep within the heart of NORAD, an engineer inserts a tape into a computer
networked directly into the defense network's missile warning system.
Three seconds later in the 'big room', the nerve center for NORAD, monitors across the
room come to life displaying missile launch warnings within the Soviet Union.
The picket line or early warning over-the-horizon radars scattered all the way from Alaska to
Greenland confirm launches all across the Soviet Union, though the missiles are still
too low in the atmosphere to calculate the origin of their launches, or their final trajectory.
Twenty seconds later, space-based thermal-imaging satellites confirm hot pings from within the
vicinity of known Soviet missile sites.
The alert is immediately broadcast to air defense units in Alaska and Canada.
At Eielson Air Force Base deep in the heart of Alaska, ten pilots on alert scramble to
throw on their flight gear as ground crew rushes out into the freezing thirty-below
winter weather to prepare the alert aircraft for emergency take-off.
A separate warning sounds at Strategic Air Command Air Force bases around the globe,
and in the US pilots rush to their waiting B-52 nuclear bombers.
A portion of the B-52 fleet is kept on constant alert and fully armed with nuclear weapons.
The pilots rush through their pre-flight checklists and will be on their way to targets deep in
the heart of the Soviet Union within fifteen minutes.
Flying 24 hour patrols for the last nineteen years, the alert also reaches a Strategic
Air Command Looking Glass aircraft.
Aboard this converted Boeing 707 is a suite of the world's most advanced and jam-proof
communications gear, and the aircraft is connected to every American military network in the
world.
Also aboard the aircraft is a general officer and his battle staff, who upon receipt of
the alert immediately begin preparations to take over command and control of the United
State's nuclear forces in the case that SAC headquarters are destroyed in the first round
of nuclear exchange.
In Andrews Air Force Base, just miles outside of Washington, flight crews scramble to prepare
and launch the National Emergency Airborne Command Post.
This converted passenger liner is hardened against EMP blast and connected to the rest
of the military's command and control networks via several satellite and radio redundancies.
From here the President, or his successor, will command the nation through its first,
and likely last, nuclear war, and command any surviving forces in the wake of nuclear
annihilation.
All of this is happening concurrently within twenty seconds after receipt of the first
nuclear launch alert, NORAD's warning already sending thousands of men scrambling as they
prepare to retaliate against the Soviet Union and prevent a nuclear decapitation first-strike
attack.
Thirty seconds after the alert, the phone rings in national security advisor's Zbigniew
Brzezinski's home.
On the third ring Brzezinski picks up- the voice on the other end is stressed, but professional,
and says simply: “We have confirmation of Soviet nuclear launch- 250 confirmed bogeys
with final trajectory into the continental US confirmed.
The President has between three to seven minutes to decide on retaliation.”
Shaking himself out of his sleep stupor, Brzezinski asks the military aide on the other side of
the line to confirm that Strategic Air Command has launched its planes.
He also asks for further confirmation of launch before he alerts the President.
The aide responds with a simple, “affirmative”, and hangs up the landline.
Stunned and in disbelief, Brzezinski looks over at his sleeping wife.
He decides not to wake her- he and everyone else in Washington will be dead within twenty
to thirty minutes anyways.
Better that she sleep through the end of the world.
At Eielson Air Force Base, the jet engines of ten F-104 interceptors roar to life.
The planes taxi to the alert runway and within moments begin screaming into the sky by pairs.
The ten interceptors tear into a sky rocked by a winter storm at full afterburners, racing
to gain altitude and turning towards the Alaskan coast.
Five will fly west, and another five will fly north.
Soon more will join them, but for the first fifteen minutes of World War Three, these
ten planes are all that will safeguard the United States from waves of Soviet nuclear
bombers.
Though they are armed with air-to-air missiles, the F-104s also carry a single nuclear-tipped
air-to-air missile with a .25 kiloton yield- they can run no risk of a Soviet bomber evading
them or their missiles.
Arcing away from Eielson Air Force Base, each pilot looks over his shoulder at the quickly
fading lights of the base, thinking of their families below which are blissfully sleeping
through the start of World War Three.
Even if their mission is successful, each man knows that they will never see their families
again- Eielson Air Force Base is a prime target for a Soviet first-strike via either submarine
launched ballistic missile, or ground-based ICBM.
The air base will launch as many of its fighters and interceptors as possible before being
reduced to nuclear rubble, its pilots on a one-way mission to down as many Soviet bombers
as possible before being forced to ditch their aircraft or attempt to find a surviving civilian
airfield to land on.
A full minute and a half after the first launch alert is received by NORAD, the big wheels
of a B-52 begin to turn as the aircraft slowly lumbers down its airstrip.
In moments it will be airborne, laden with nuclear gravity bombs which it will drop deep
within the heart of the Soviet Union.
It will soon be joined by dozens of its brethren, launching from airfields all across North
America, and each one turning north towards the Soviet Union.
At Andrews Air Force Base, the National Emergency Airborne Command Post has lifted off, though
without the Secretary of Defense or the President as planned.
The plane must get out of the immediate vicinity of Washington DC and the general airspace
of major eastern seaboard cities in order to avoid being downed by the incoming nuclear
strike.
The plane will instead later land at a designated and still operational airfield to take on
board any surviving civilian leadership, taking off once more before the second volley of
Soviet nuclear weapons can strike.
All across the heartland of the United States, ten-ton blast proof concrete doors roll back
across hundreds of missile silos.
Buried three hundred feet into the ground, each silo houses a single Intercontinental
Ballistic Missile, with pre-programmed targets in the Soviet Union.
The missiles contain up to a dozen independently targeting warheads, along with decoys and
counter measures meant to confuse Soviet interceptors.
Each major Soviet city is targeted by at least two warheads, many by three or more, in order
to ensure a successful nuclear strike and total destruction of their target.
Along with cities, the missiles target large swathes of the Soviet Union's fertile eastern
grasslands, the breadbasket of the nation.
Warheads targeting these areas will detonate only upon impacting the ground, blowing hundreds
of thousands of tons of dirt and debris across the countryside and causing giant plumes of
radioactive fallout.
The fallout will make farming impossible for decades, and ensure that the Soviet Union
starves to death.
The opening round of World War Three will not only determine national survival, but
extinction itself.
It is now two minutes after the first alert, and using the Extreme Low Frequency communications
system the United States Navy has set up around the globe, American nuclear ballistic missile
submarines receive an alert order.
Each sub deploys a small buoy to the surface and links up with the nation's military satellite
communications network while remaining safely submerged and hidden from view.
The subs wait for orders as the crew prepares to deliver their deadly nuclear-tipped cargo.
Deep in the depths of the Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic, as well as the Gulf of Mexico,
American nuclear attack submarines receive a similar order- only their job is much different.
With the aid of the Navy's SOSUS underwater surveillance system, the US has been able
to track nearly every single Soviet ballistic missile submarine for over a decade.
Soviet subs have thus been unknowingly stalked by technologically superior, and far more
silent, American nuclear attack submarines every time they leave Soviet territorial waters.
Commanders of attack submarines around the world prepare a firing solution on their quarry,
hoping to knock the Soviet ballistic missile submarine fleet out of the water before it
can fire a single shot.
Seconds later, a second phone call rings in national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski's
home.
The military aide on the other end is blunt and direct.
NORAD now detects 2,200 incoming Soviet missiles, and SAC has confirmed the launch of its strategic
bombers.
The aide tells Brzezinski however that there is some issues with ground-based and satellite
assets, which when queried directly report no missile launches.
Brzezinski thanks the aide and commands him to keep him informed as he hangs up the phone
and calls the President.
The call with the President lasts only a few brief moments, both men know that they have
only minutes left before a response to a Soviet attack is impossible, and waste no time on
words.
Brzezinski looks over at his still-sleeping wife, wondering if this is the last day of
his life.
Perhaps, the last day of the human race.
The confusion between NORAD's systems and direct queries with early warning assets is
troubling- could the Soviets be jamming their communications or somehow spoofing their early
warning systems in order to prevent a counterattack?
Could the entire attack be nothing more than a computer error within NORAD's systems itself?
Can he, or the President of the United States, afford to be wrong?
Thousands of feet up in the Alaska skies, the F-104s speed to their designated air defense
zones, coordinating with ground-based radar.
Soviet bombers should be inbound by now, as they are much more difficult to detect over
long distances versus the launch of thousands of ICBMs.
Yet ground-based radar reports nothing but normal civilian air traffic over the Bering
Sea, and absolutely no sign of Soviet aircraft over the Kamchatka Peninsula.
The US Air Force's PAVE PAWS early warning radar system is also giving troubling readings.
Technically still under construction, some sites on the east and west coast are already
operational and scanning the Pacific and Atlantic ocean for both ICBM and submarine-launched
threats.
Yet these early phased-array radars detect nothing.
Phased-array radar technology is new though, and once more the question of equipment reliability
looms- can the United States really afford to be wrong, and decide that no threat exists?
It is now three and a half minutes after the first launch warning, and direct queries to
space-based assets are showing negative launches.
Ground-based radar across the northern hemisphere confirms this- there are no detected Soviet
launches.
NORAD is wrong, even as its computer screens show Soviet ICBMS mere minutes from unleashing
nuclear annihilation across the United States.
One minute later, the President issues a stand-down order for all American nuclear alert forces.
Still in bed, next to his sleeping wife, Brezezinksi lets out a deep sigh of relief.
The Soviet nuclear attack is almost certainly an equipment malfunction, as even right now
NORAD technicians are scouring the computer network for errors.
In just a few minutes they'll discover the computer tape inserted into a unit used for
training, and realize that the tape was a training exercise simulating a full-scale
nuclear attack against the United States.
In the subsequent investigation though, no answer will be discovered as to how the computer
managed to inadvertently feed the false data to NORAD's early warning systems and issue
a real-world threat.
For now though, that doesn't matter.
All that matters is that Brezezinksi will get to see his wife in the morning after all.
He, and the rest of humanity will get at least one more day on this planet.
He looks at her sleeping next to him and decides not to wake her.
No point telling her the world almost ended eight minutes ago.
What would you have done if you were in the US President's shoes during this incident?
Tell us in the comments, and if you enjoyed this video then check out what a real nuclear
war between the US and Russia would look like in What If There Was A Nuclear War Between
The US and Russia?
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