How would you have done as Petrov

Being in the Akhrimov-15? Bunker, how would you have acted? Start World War III immediately, or risk being nuked without retaliation possible?

I, personally, was born after the Cold War and so don't know. I might even have preferred risking a "First Strike".
 
Being in the Akhrimov-15? Bunker, how would you have acted? Start World War III immediately, or risk being nuked without retaliation possible?

I, personally, was born after the Cold War and so don't know. I might even have preferred risking a "First Strike".

Remember his only call was 'Do I report this to the chain of command?' He didn't have the power to activate a strike himself. But he would have known that a strike, given the reaction time available, would be the decision his superiors would have taken. So his decision was more 'do I risk this not being a glitch and passively wipe out my people or risk this being a glitch and wipe out the world'.
 
Sorry for being that ambiguous. By "risking a First Strike" I meant "not informing my superiors and risking getting nuked by the US with no retaliation"
 
Given the climate, the comments by the guy in charge of the US, the fact that the US was conducting military exercises adjacent to Soviet Waters*, and the fact that it took the KGB an operation to determine if he was or was not willing to risk the first strike, I'd call my superiors and button up.

*See "Fall From Glory: The Men Who sank the U.S. Navy" by Gregory Vistica.
 
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