Able Archer vs. Norwegian Rocket

In terms of PODs, it seems fairly well established that Able Archer 83 and the false alarm incident is the closest we've ever come to a catastrophic nuclear exchange. In terms of chilling close calls since then, Yeltsen had the Russian version of the football open during the Norwegian Rocket Incident in 1995. With some treaties, very significant arms reductions and some cooling since the end of the Cold War, would this have made any difference? I was getting ready to go to kindergarden in Milwaukee, so I imagine I'm dead, but would this differ much from a 1983 exchange, or pretty much be the same in terms of fallout and post war situation?
 
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The Able Archer 83 and the Soviet nuclear false alarm would have been worse than the 1995 Norwegian Rocket Incident since it was during the MAD period. Nukes were pointing at each other's countries and their allies. By the late 1980s, with Mikhail Gorbachev seeking rapprochement with the West, both sides moved towards nuclear disarmament. Yes, a significant amount of nuclear weapons would have been disarmed by the time of 1995, but the U.S. and Russia would still have a lot at their disposal.

If Yeltsin did launch the nukes, it would have been a limited exchange. Perhaps few cities and military bases on both sides are attacked but not as worse as in 1983.
 
The Norwegian rocket incident would have been such a cruel irony, coming after the end of the Cold War and the "end of history" and completely reliant on how an incompetent alcoholic in the process of destroying the Russian economy via corruption would respond.
 
In terms of PODs, it seems fairly well established that Able Archer 83 and the false alarm incident is the closest we've ever come to a catastrophic nuclear exchange.

The Test Tape fiasco of 1979 was worse, as it got almost as far as going to notify Carter to get the Football going, before it was determined that it wasn't a massive Soviet attack on NORAD's screens

In the early morning hours of November 9, 1979 Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security advisor to President Carter, was awakened by a horrifying phone call. According to NORAD, the Soviet Union had just launched 250 missiles headed straight for American soil. Brzenzinski received another call not long after the first, and NORAD was reporting that it was now 2,200 missiles. This was the moment that every American living through the Cold War had feared. And U.S. officials had no plans to notify the public.

Brzenzinski didn’t even bother waking up his wife. He assumed that he and everyone he knew would soon be dead, so there was no sense in troubling her. One can only imagine the dismal post-apocalyptic world flashing before his mind’s eye as he thought about his next steps.

“I knew that if it were true, then within about half an hour I, and my loved ones, and Washington, and the majority of America would cease to exist. I wanted to be sure that we’d have company,” Brzenzinski told a biographer in 2011.

What Brzenzinski meant was that he wanted to make sure if the attack was real that the Soviet Union would be little more than a giant hole in the ground. If we were going down, our Commie adversaries were going down with us.

But Brzenzinski wanted confirmation before calling the president and launching missiles at the Soviets. There had been other false alarms in the past, but this one looked legit. Thankfully, before he could notify President Carter he received a third call that no other warning systems had picked up signs of an attack. NORAD would continue to keep a close eye on the skies, but this appeared to be yet another false alarm.

So how did it happen? A computer program that simulated a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union had been fed through NORAD’s network. Terrifyingly, NORAD and everyone else in the network mistook their own drill program as a real attack.

https://gizmodo.com/the-computer-simulation-that-almost-started-world-war-i-1686123550
 
IMO Able Archer '83 was more dangerous. NATO's exercise had many similarities with the activity the USSR expected to see before an attack, as predicted by Operation RYaN. It seems probably that the Soviets sincerely believed that a bolt-out-of-the-blue nuclear attack by the US was within the realm of possibility, which is why RYaN was set up. Those on the US side of the Cold War knew NATO would never perform a surprise attack concealed as an exercise. It'd be maskirovka in the fullest sense, and maskirovka on that scale is not part of the rather sportsmanlike rules of war that the West believed in. Overall, IMO, I don't think NATO ever really understood how genuinely afraid the Soviets were of the United States. We knew we wouldn't strike first or start an offensive war, but the USSR didn't know that. (I think the same thing applies the other way around -- the Soviets did not want to strike first or start a major war, but the Americans thought the USSR planned day and night of the best way to paint the world red.) Anyway, RYaN perceived the NATO exercise as possibly the early stages of mobilizing for an aggressive war.

Perhaps the most important reason why Able Archer brought the world close to war is the fact that there was a semblance of context. Suppose AA really was a cover for starting WW3. The days and weeks leading up to the event, and especially the event itself, gave plenty of evidence that a surprise attack really was in the works. That is, the Soviet leaders would have been hearing about NATO's activities for several days, if not longer. OTOH, the Norwegian rocket happened without context. It was a sudden blip on Russian radar screens. The Cold War was over, and the Russians didn't observe any sort of military buildup. They didn't observe anything at all before the radar return came in. Because there was no context of NATO aggression, the Russians in 1995 would be likely to recognize the signal for what it was, a single rocket launch the details of which were not properly communicated to Russia.

Able Archer, OTOH, had context. NATO was simulating a war, and troop movements, communications, etc. were consistent with preparations for war. As a result, the USSR had a hair trigger. We can be grateful that no one launched a rocket or tried to send bombers into Soviet airspace during Able Archer. Suppose Andropov were woken up at 3 am on some November night with the news that the air defense radars had detected bombers or a missile. He'd been hearing about the military buildup for weeks, particularly in the last week. And now his staff awakens him with news of incoming bombers and possible missile launches? The cheget (nuclear football) would be opened and Andropov would be poring over the various attack options as his staff desperately tried to keep him informed of the latest radar returns. One scenario is that, by skill or by luck, Soviet air defense decided that there wasn't really an attack -- and this would have to happen very quickly, because Andropov might well have had to make his final decision only 15-20 minutes later. The other scenario is that -- remembering that it really did seem like NATO was about to strike -- there many not have been time to make a properly informed decision, under the doctrine of "use it or lose it." In that situation, given that everything pointed to war, Andropov might have even given the launch order.
 
Why was the Test Tape fiasco overlooked by the Soviet nuclear false alarm?
Probably because dentete was still in its last throws. The timing too. Late ‘79 had far more going on than in ‘83. Iran, the recession, and anti- US government sentiment. People weren’t really paying attention to the Soviet Union until when they invaded Afghanistan the following month ending detente. 1983 saw more of a foreign focus since things at improved on the home front and with Reagan’s Evil Empire and the Strategic Defense Initiative the ‘83 False Alarm blends so much better with the era than with the ‘79 tape fiasco and the America of the late 1970s.
 
Probably because dentete was still in its last throws. The timing too. Late ‘79 had far more going on than in ‘83. Iran, the recession, and anti- US government sentiment. People weren’t really paying attention to the Soviet Union until when they invaded Afghanistan the following month ending detente. 1983 saw more of a foreign focus since things at improved on the home front and with Reagan’s Evil Empire and the Strategic Defense Initiative the ‘83 False Alarm blends so much better with the era than with the ‘79 tape fiasco and the America of the late 1970s.

1983 was a clusterf*ck if you ask me. First FleetEx83 in the North Pacific plus the deployment of Pershing II missiles to West Germany then Reagan calling the Soviet Union an Evil Empire followed by the shoot down of Korean Airlines Flight 007 over the Sea of Japan as it intruded Soviet airspace, followed by the false alarm and then Able Archer. Seems that the world was get stop closer to a thermonuclear war at that time. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed.
 
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