Stanislav Petrov saved your life

[pecunium]

By way of deyo I got details of something I'd heard whispered around various watercoolers.

1983, the movie War Games came out. The movie opened with a test of the crews in missile silos. Many of them were said to have not launched when given what looked to be legitimate orders.

This was a tense time. People still went to sleep at night and wondered if some odd-fluke would cause the Soviets to bomb us. In 1984 the movie "Red Dawn" came out, about an invasion of the Rocky Mountain States by Russian paratroopers, and the subsequent resistance.

We were fighting a proxy war by helping the Mujahadin in Afganistan.

On Sept. 26, 1983 COL Stanislav Petrov was on duty, in a bunker outside of Moscow. His job was to watch the early warning radar, so that, in the event of a U.S. attack, the Russians could implement Mutual Assured Destruction.

He got a warning. A missile was headed for the Soviet Union. He decided the Americans wouldn't send just one missle, so he called it a false alarm.

A little later he got a string of missles on the radar. He decided (with great trepidation) that they too must be false alarms.

He was right.

What, one wonders, would have happened if he'd reported it; even with the caveat that he thought it a false alarm. Tensions were high. This was the time of Reagan. Big buildup of the Army; and deployment of the Pershing 2 SSSM, and howitzers with nuclear shells in Germany. The trident submarine, and a larger Boomer fleet. A president who thought nothing of joking he'd given the order to launch the missles.

Would the officers above him have been willing to roll the dice that this wasn't an attack, because it was only a small handfull of missiles, and they'd still be able to retaliate? No one will ever, Thank God, know.

All because Stanislav Petrov was on duty that night.

We need to celebrate, so I intend to raise a toast, on Sep. 26, in honor of him, with thanksgiving and singing.

Comments

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

I'll bring the vodka and the blini.

[theodora.livejournal.com]

Excellent. I'm reminded of one of the few West Wing episodes I truly love, Evidence of Things Unseen (http://westwing.bewarne.com/fourth/420evidence.html), which has a subplot specifically about this - one of the characters is about to go out to a base to serve as the legal defense for two guys who pulled a Petrov and are being court-martialled for it.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

Holy shit.

If I still drank, that would tempt me to toss down a stiff one.

[crisavec.livejournal.com]

I'd never heard so much as a whisper of that before, but it somehow doesn't surprise me.

Thank you for this

[ltsk.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to figure out how to describe the jaw-dangling, wordless, and slightly dizzy state in which reading the tale of Stanislov Petrov dropped me. Is there such a thing as a non-faith-specific saint? Like, a Humanist saint? 'Cause I think Stanislov Petrov qualifies.

[moropus.livejournal.com]

Glad to still be here. Would like to offer him his own holiday.

[pindar.livejournal.com]

I firmly believe that the Russians played a cool hand of poker on MAD because they knew that they couldn't assure mutual destruction and that the US weapons programme was years ahead of what the USSR was even capable of. The US knew that the Russians knew and that's why Reagan pressed ahead with "Star Wars", not because it was a viable defence strategy in the event of an attack but because he was pushing the Russians to spend themselves into a hole their economy couldn't get them out of just to keep up and thus force them to the negotiating table to sue for peace.

Reagan was much meligned for star wars, but his advisory team gambled successfully that they could drop the "big one" economically and thus hasten the end of the cold war. It cost the US dear in terms of the budget deficit, but I venture it was a price worth paying in the long run.

We did some interesting analysis of this on ICSC. I'd reccommend Global EWar 2006 as a good read on the development of the staff paper out of the early post cold-war ICSC thinking.

[lietya.livejournal.com]

I never knew that, but I too am grateful that Petrov was on duty that night. He deserves the celebration.

[cynthia1960.livejournal.com]

Next time I get a drink, it will be vodka in Petrov's honor.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

That's right, make me pay for the caviar.

TK

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

That's included with the blini.

(I make very good blini, by the way. One of the five Ukrainian recipes I have mastered.)

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Sep. 26th, 2006, location to be announced.

TK

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

I hope I can make it. *g*

Re: Thank you for this

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

He could be a brigadier saint under Erisian policy. (Only a brigadier, because only fictional people qualify for complete sainthood.)

[shelly-rae.livejournal.com]

Here's a hardy "Na zdorovje!" to Petrov (which is just about all of my Russian).
Anon

Re: Thank you for this

[cpolk.livejournal.com]

and he gets to be a pope, too.

Re: Thank you for this

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Thou art pope!

[jonsinger.livejournal.com]

Damn! Is there some provenance to this one? It sounds just a wee bit too large for life. (If it had been just one missile, I could have believed it; but the icing is thicker than I'm comfy with, y'know?)

Cheers —
jon

Na zdrovje --

[jonsinger.livejournal.com]

Hi.

My parents and grandparents said that, and they told me it was Russian; but when I took Russian in college, we were taught that "Za vasha zdorovje" was the Russian form, and I seem to recall the teacher saying that "Na zdrovje" (my folks always said it without the first "o") might be Polish, but it wasn't Russian. So go figure. Maybe it's a regional variant of some sort.

Cheers —
jon

Re: Na zdrovje --

[shelly-rae.livejournal.com]

It well be a regional variation. I learned it from my class of native Russian speakers when I was teaching ESL. Perhaps it's a young person slang version? Either way, it seems to work and fit the bill.
Anon

[trinker.livejournal.com]

*grin* Marked on the calendar in my Palm device.

Re: Na zdrovje --

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I wasn't going to bring this up, it's Polish.

There are a lot (and I mean a lot of loan words in Russian (for example, of the basic ranks (excluding, basically, such modern inventions as Warrant Officers) of the Army, the only one which is native to Russian is Private (riyadavoi=one who stands in line).

Most of the rest are either French (serzhant) or German (ephraitor).

The word for Colonel, is Polish, (polkhovnik=one who leads a polk).

At some point in the past, when the Poles had control of a large chunk of what is now Western Russia and Ukraine, the Polish toast, "Na zdrovie" came to be the drinking toast to health.

When at a formal dinner in Ukraine this past July, that was toast raised when we started. When out in Kiev it was the toast raised, when in the canteen at the military acadamy, it was raised, and one could hear it offered up by people at nearby tables who were celebrating..

So, it's origin is Polish, it's present status us Russian (and Polish, and Ukrainian).

TK