The Broken Chain of Command, T.L. Davis

Can we trust the military in a potential nuclear moment to do the right thing? From T.L. Davis at tldavis.substack.com:

There have been a few times in history when the decision of a single person has held back the waves of destruction of a nuclear war. Most notable of those is Stanislov Petrov, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Soviet Air Defense Forces and on duty in September of 1983. It was only a few weeks after the Soviets shot down Korean Air Lines flight 007. With international tensions running high, Petrov was informed of a missile launch from the United States. Shortly after that the system showed that another five missiles had been launched. They were, theoretically, in the air, on their way to Soviet Russia. But Petrov did not report the launch to superiors as he was supposed to, knowing that a counterstrike would be ordered based on his report. Several minutes ticked by as he waited for confirmation of the launches that never came and he did not report it until later.

These are the seconds and the people who hold in their very hands the future of the world. One would like to think they’re conscious of the awesome responsibility they hold and are ever vigilant in their search for proof of launch before they give the order to retaliate. But as the quality of individual troops lessen, their purpose for entering the military much more vague than a sense of patriotism and dedication to service, who will be making that decision for America?

One thing Petrov had going for him was the general suspicion of computers prevalent in 1983, so when he received an erroneous report from sensors that there was one launch, and then five more, he had reason to doubt the validity of what turned out to be a rare alignment of sunlight on high altitude clouds. Today’s military are much less skeptical of the accuracy of computer generated reports.

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