In the United States, an incident that took place 53 years ago, at the height of the "Caribbean crisis" and almost led to a nuclear war between the United States and the USSR, was made public. The commander of the launch crew of a secret missile base in Okinawa received an order to launch four missiles equipped with thermonuclear warheads. The officer did not follow the order immediately and contacted the command, which canceled the order. The details of the operation are still secret.
Captain Bassett
On October 28, 1962, Captain William Bassett received an order to launch four MGM-13 Mace cruise missiles with megaton thermonuclear warheads at Vladivostok, Beijing, Pyongyang and Hanoi, writes Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Similar orders were received by the crew commanders of three more secret US bases located in Okinawa - a total of 32 missiles were to take off. Verification of the decrypted document confirmed its authenticity, the international situation was critical - the height of the "Caribbean crisis" - however, Bassett was embarrassed by the fact that the declared level of combat readiness of DEFCON 2 (on the verge of nuclear war) did not comply with the order. The US military has been trained to use nuclear weapon at DEFCON 1 (nuclear war is inevitable).
The captain ordered the preparation of the missiles to be suspended for launch and ordered two soldiers to shoot the lieutenant standing at the launch console if he tried to launch before the level of combat readiness was increased or without it, according to Bassett's instructions. It seemed strange to the calculation commander that among the intended targets there was only one city Soviet Union- the main potential adversary of the United States at that time. “I also only have two targets in the Soviets,” an officer on duty from a nearby base told William.
When it all started, the captain warned us: this could be a real attack, or it could be the biggest mistake of our lives. If this is a failure and we do not launch, do not expect any reward or recognition, - George Bordn, a member of the launch crew, retold the words of the commander. - After the incident, he strictly forbade us to talk about what happened.
The senior calculation contacted the command and then canceled the order to launch missiles. William Bassett died in 2011 without telling anyone. Four years later, the US Air Force command allowed Bordne to talk about the incident in Okinawa. Journalists and scientists demanded that the Pentagon declassify official information about the incident half a century ago.
Lieutenant Colonel Petrov
A similar story was in the Soviet Union. On the night of September 26, 1983, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov took over as an operational duty officer in the Serpukhov-15 bunker, the command post of the missile attack early warning system launched a year earlier. Unlike the American counterpart, our satellites did not look at the territory of the United States, but at the sky above it, as it were, from the side, from a distant point in the orbit. Thanks to this, the rocket taking off was clearly visible against the background of a dark and cold sky, both in the optical and in the infrared ranges. The task of the operational duty officer was to report the launch of American ICBMs to the country's leadership.
We gave them extra time to think, 10-12 minutes. It’s too late to think for the remaining 15 minutes: it is necessary to give the order to the launch crews to spin the rocket gyroscopes and enter the flight mission, Petrov said.
The "beyond the horizon" viewpoint was used by the Soviet military to minimize false alarms due to light reflected from snow and clouds. However, that night, for the first time in a year, American bases, the sun and cirrus clouds in the troposphere were located in such a way that the light reflected from the latter deceived one of the four Soviet satellites that were watching the American sky at that moment, and he transmitted a message about a rocket launch. And then about three more - from the same base. Petrov had little choice: either press the button and shift the burden of decision-making onto Yuri Andropov with his "nuclear suitcase." Or do not press and take responsibility for yourself. Petrov did not press.
In those two or three minutes you can’t really analyze anything, - Petrov explained. - Remains intuition. I had two arguments. Firstly, missile attacks do not start from one base, they take off from all at once. Secondly, a computer, by definition, is a fool. You never know what he will take for a launch ...
After the incident, changes were made to the early warning system, and Lieutenant Colonel Petrov resigned from the army. The incident became known only 10 years later, and in the 21st century Stanislav Petrov became the owner of several rare awards - for example, a crystal figurine "Hand holding Earth" engraved with the inscription "To the man who prevented nuclear war" - from the UN and the Association of World Citizens. Or the Dresden Prize, awarded for the prevention of armed conflicts.
34 years ago, the RT-2PM Topol intercontinental ballistic missile entered combat duty, opening a new era in the history of weapons and protecting the world from nuclear war for the fourth decade. We learned how to launch it from anywhere in Russia and why Topol hangars have sliding roofs.
In 1985 Soviet army received a fundamentally new rocket. They made her elusive: they placed her not in a mine, as usual, but on a huge truck and sent her to travel through the vast Russian forests. Tracking down and destroying the Topol is almost impossible there, so the launchers crawling along combat routes guaranteed a retaliatory strike after a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union.
Our armored train
Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are a deterrent tool. Their task is to appear at parades, reminding the adversary that at this very time hundreds of the same missiles are on alert and ready to strike back if necessary. Reciprocal and final - there will be no winners in a thermonuclear war. However, there are always those who want to try - the United States, for example, since the 50s, one after another, has been creating plans for the destruction of the Soviet, and then the Russian nuclear arsenal with a sudden massive strike. After that, America, according to the idea of the Pentagon strategists, will be able to do whatever it wants with the enemy.
To prevent this from happening, even during the Cold War, nuclear weapons began to be hidden in submarines and bombers, and railways The Soviet Union went trains similar to freight, but they were driven by drivers in the form of the Rocket Forces strategic purpose, and in long wagons with folding roofs were RT-23 missiles ready for launch, which received the name "Scalpel" in NATO. The calculation was to get out of the preventive nuclear strike the maximum number of warheads for a retaliatory strike.
In the strategy of the Third World War, the factor of unacceptable damage is extremely important. Since the capabilities of weapons have reached the level of destruction of entire states, the aggressor must be sure of his impunity before the attack. As long as there is the possibility of a retaliatory strike with unacceptable damage, there will be no war, - said retired colonel of the Strategic Missile Forces, Doctor of Technical Sciences Dmitry Makarov.
Mobile "Topol" became a continuation of the concept of "elusive weapon". A giant truck with a rocket on its hump, crawling through the forests, can theoretically be tracked down from a satellite or reconnaissance aircraft, but it is completely unrealistic to predict where it will end up at "X hour". Even the crews of launchers do not know this - combat patrol routes are constantly changing.
uranium sickle
In NATO, the RT-2PM received the name Sickle - a sickle. A 22-meter solid-propellant rocket is safe to fire, does not produce toxic leaks, and can be stored in combat readiness for two decades. Each of its three stages ends with a wide cone of a rocket engine. The warhead also has its own engine.
The Topol, thrown out by a powder charge from the launch container, turns on the engine and rushes almost vertically upwards. One by one, the stages are worked out and separated, after three minutes in near-Earth space, at the top of the ballistic trajectory, there is a warhead - a cone of a meter diameter covered with heavy-duty ceramics, in which, in addition to a plutonium charge capable of destroying middle city, there is automatic guidance and a stock of decoys. The cone turns to the ground, the engine gives a series of short pulses, pointing the warhead exactly at the target, and the fall begins at an ever-increasing speed. The warhead accelerates to the now fashionable hypersound in the stratosphere.
We are just learning how to shoot down missiles in space, and closer to the ground, the warhead rushing at a speed of Mach 20 is invulnerable to conventional air defense systems. But the trajectory of a warhead diving from a sky-high is unchanged and can be calculated - this is what anti-missile defense is built on. To overcome it, "Topol" releases a bunch of false targets from foil, arranging a "blizzard" on the radar screens, and jams the anti-missile guidance heads with electronic interference.
Rocket with buffet
In an engineering sense, a mobile complex with an intercontinental-class missile was a completely new thing, the most unexpected problems arose - for example, with food for the military. Together with the missile, up to a hundred people travel along the combat patrol route: drivers, signalmen, launch crew, security, command. "Topol" can travel through the forests for a month and all this time the people accompanying him need to eat and rest regularly.
Prior to this, strike complexes - for example, "Pioneer" with a medium-range missile - were accompanied by specialized canteen cars, dormitories on wheels, and diesel power plants. We calculated that according to such a scheme, Topol launchers would need a caravan of nine vehicles, which would have a negative impact on stealth and combat readiness. Instead of a fleet of specialized cars, a universal life support vehicle was created: with a generator, supplies, a kitchen and places to rest. Since then, such a machine has followed every ICBM launcher, - said the deputy general designer for the Topol complex Vladimir Bukhshtab.
However, it is not enough to hide a nuclear missile by sending it on a cruise around the country. It is necessary to ensure its constant readiness for launch, otherwise there will be no containment. Guidance systems for ICBMs are inertial: sensors in flight monitor all movements of the missile, and the on-board computer, knowing the starting point, calculates the current coordinates and heading corrections. Before putting the Topol on combat duty, special units of the Strategic Missile Forces went through all patrol routes, equipping thousands of inconspicuous starting positions: with known coordinates and hard surface, so that the launcher could stand on supports strictly horizontally. Rocketeers will remember this titanic and top-secret work for a long time to come: now the Yars launchers use the launch pads arranged for the Topols, then someone else will. RT-2PM can also be launched from parks where rocket tractors are located. To do this, the roofs of the hangars were made sliding, and their locations were "targeted" along with field positions.
By the way
Shortly after the Topols went on combat duty, relations between the USSR and the USA improved dramatically. The countries agreed to reduce nuclear arsenals and began to conduct teleconferences.
If an unusual incident happened to you, you saw a strange creature or an incomprehensible phenomenon, you can send us your story and it will be published on our website ===> .
Third World War- is not excluded, but the probability of it, fortunately, is rather low. Let's take a look at why and what can be done to prevent it.
The worst scenario is a world war between the West - NATO, USA, EU with Japan, Taiwan, South Korea– and East – by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) with Russia, China, Central Asia as members, and India, Pakistan and Iran as observers.
At the same time, there will be four nuclear powers on each side, and the main issue will be the conflict between the West and Islam. At its center will be an explosive mixture of a divided territory (Israel-Palestine) and Jerusalem, a walled-off capital.
We've been through this before: cold war, the main issue of which was the conflict between the West and communism. In the center was an explosive mixture of split Germany and Berlin - the capital divided by the wall - and Korea, cut in two by the demilitarized zone. And at the same time without a direct, "hot" war, with the exception of those that were fought by proxy: Korea, Vietnam. Why?
Undoubtedly, one of the reasons was the factor of nuclear deterrence. They came to the edge, but turned away - as during the Cuban-Turkish missile crisis of 1962. And, of course, nuclear deterrence also plays a role today, limiting strikes against Israel, American support for Israeli strikes against Arab-Muslim countries, Syria-Iran in particular, and any attack against Russia-China. However, nuclear deterrence is not the stuff of which a positive world is made: no depolarization, and definitely no solution and reconciliation.
The Cold War system of NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries was polarized, with secret police monitoring contacts, speech and thought, looking for treason. But the world was not polarized: there was a huge movement of non-alignment. Europe was not polarized: there were 10 neutral or non-aligned countries. And in the end, a powerful anti-war movement arose.
The NATO+-SCO+ system is less polarized, but the world and Europe are more polarized. At the moment, there is no non-aligned movement and no powerful peace movement.
The UN vote showed that 3/4 of the world is united in their "yes" to Palestine and "no" to the US-Israel. Both of these states turn any of their moral superiority into moral inferiority through continued expansion-occupation-blockade and extrajudicial killings on foreign territory. The world is not against the US-Israel defense of the real borders of the [Jewish] national home or the borders of 1967, it is against force and excesses that seem to it incapable of changing the course of things. By reversing this policy, they could regain their moral high ground.
However, there are still no actors - carriers of a specific peace policy like the Helsinki Accords. The reason lies in the difference between the conflicts along the lines of the West-Islam and the West-Communism. Islam, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, covers more territory and population of the world than the West, but it has few friends outside - unlike the West, which is imitated and admired by Russia-China-India, Latin America and Africa.
Everywhere except Israel, Islam has a huge and growing diaspora due to immigration and birth rates. Not a superpower, not an alliance, just "Islamic cooperation" but present everywhere.
The result is uncertainty and fear: what do they want? A challenge to other worldviews guaranteed by freedom of speech and conscience. Islam offers the West suffering from materialistic individualism and selfishness a healing spiritual unity and complicity.
But Islam also threatens Western institutions with unwanted changes. Western secular states won the fight against the church thanks to atheism, which was also exported to the Muslim colonies as a pledge of their allegiance to the state and the empires behind it. Today, part of the Islamic diaspora strikes back, demanding loyalty to Allah and the ummah (community), placing it above loyalty to Western states.
For immigration to benefit the cause of peace, immigrants must respect the laws and customs of their host country, and they must be met with interest and respect in a mutually beneficial dialogue that enriches everyone with something new. If this process is disrupted by one or both of its parties, immigration should be stopped and the ummah built at home.
What about others dangerous points and zones in the world?
The saga in Afghanistan is coming to an end, and not just with the withdrawal of NATO, except for guarding what it was all about: the base for a possible war with China and the oil pipeline. There may be wars between India and Pakistan, but no other country has a strong position on Kashmir to engage in. The world's preoccupation with Israel is not caused by anti-Semitism, but by an alliance that could involve so much of the rest of the world.
North Korea has both nuclear weapons and missiles, but it will never attack or be attacked. The struggle for a peace treaty and the normalization of relations with the United States may bear fruit for the common good.
Taiwan and China will slowly converge towards a Hong Kong-style "one country, two systems" solution, with Taiwan becoming part of China, preserving a high degree autonomy. Common sense would require the same for limited Tibet. And in neither case do we have a conflict from which a third world war can be arranged. For it to happen, there must be strong ties - like the United States has with other NATO countries and Israel. Or like the ones that supposedly exist between Russia and China.
The opposition between the West and Islam remains. The lack of cohesion on the Islamic side helps here. But we're missing out on a non-aligned Hindu India aligning itself with the West in any significant confrontation. Indonesia and Egypt are on the side of Islam, there is no more neutral Yugoslavia, Latin America is the Christian West, and Africa is divided.
We need moderate characters at both sides. Tunisia-Turkey and non-aligned powers, Egypt and Indonesia. And the West - maybe Germany, experienced in conducting interfaith dialogue? Germany must play a major peacekeeping role!
Johan Galtung (Norwegian sociologist and mathematician, scientist and practitioner. Founder of the discipline "research on peace and conflict problems").
These days, when Russia and the United States of America are celebrating the 71st anniversary of their common victory in World War II, or the Great Patriotic war, as it is called in Russia, relations between the former allies have sunk to a very dangerous level.
One by one, American leaders have called Russia the greatest threat to America's security. Among them are President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. NATO's new supreme commander, Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, said the Western alliance must stand up to Russia and give Ukraine weapons to defend itself. Words are accompanied by deeds, and now the American destroyer URO "Donald Cook" began a series of maneuvers, including the landing of Polish helicopters less than 80 kilometers from the Russian military base. Thus, the Americans forced the Russians to take retaliatory measures and send their fighters, who fly around the ship. AT last days there were other similar incidents, and therefore at any moment you can expect a military clash that can lead to unpredictable consequences, including the unthinkable - to the Third World War.
To show its "toughness", Washington announced a fourfold increase in annual spending on US troops in Eastern Europe, as well as the deployment close to Russian border 4,000 NATO troops, including two American battalions to Poland and the Baltic countries. Angela Merkel also obediently sends one battalion, which will be located 160 kilometers from the city of St. Petersburg - apparently to remind the Russians of the Nazi blockade of this city, which lasted 872 days. It was one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history, resulting in the deaths of more than 1.5 million Russians, mostly from starvation. Today, we rarely hear Russians complain about German atrocities during the war years, as many of them believe that this is a thing of the past. Until recently, trade between Russia and Germany was actively developing, and even now, despite the sanctions, it is going pretty well. But if the Russian people see the German military near St. Petersburg, it will revive their most terrible memories. The important question is who benefits from this stupidity.
As they say in Washington and Brussels, all this, of course, is being done to protect the Poles and the Balts from the almost inevitable Russian invasion.
Speaking of paranoia, we should probably be more afraid of the volcanic eruption on Neptune, because no matter what we think about Putin, he is not crazy and is not going to start a war with NATO. He is well aware that the North Atlantic Alliance is much stronger economically and militarily, and that in the event of a nuclear war, our civilization will be completely destroyed. Moreover, oddly enough, Eastern Europe and many other enslaved countries from the communist yoke in 1991 was freed by Russia, not NATO. Clever Western politicians at that time urged all these countries to maintain and even develop trade and economic cooperation with Russia, calling it the best guarantee of their security and prosperity. However, those who were in charge of US foreign policy, and above all, Bill Clinton, had a different strategic opinion on this matter.
It was Clinton who launched NATO's "Eastward March," described by legendary diplomat George Kennan as "a strategic miscalculation of epic proportions." Another prominent American visionary, Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, called the course "the road to a future nuclear war."
Context
People's Daily 04/25/2016New Cold War?
Carnegie Moscow Center 16.03.2016World War III: in the command center
BBC 02/27/2016George W. Bush followed the fateful path of Clinton, continuing NATO expansion, but presenting it as crusade for the promotion of democracy. And Barack Obama expanded the list of US foreign policy catastrophes with his actions in Libya, Syria and Ukraine, which not only led to chaos and destruction in these countries, but also gave rise to a dangerous crisis in Russia itself.
Unfortunately, out of the original list of 20 presidential candidates—both Republicans and Democrats—only Donald Trump had the courage to tell us the obvious truth that, after Ronald Reagan, “our foreign policy becomes less and less meaningful. Logic has been replaced by stupidity and arrogance, which lead to one foreign policy disaster after another.” The results are clear to everyone: people are dying, resources are being wasted, and chaos is intensifying in the Middle East and southeast Europe. The direct consequence of this is that the situation for America and its allies is even more dangerous today than it was in Soviet times.
In these days, as we celebrate our common victory in World War II, it is time for reflection and calm analysis of miscalculations, as well as for reflection on what needs to be done in the future. The point is that we need to look for new approaches in international affairs that can save us from the unnecessary confrontation and risk of nuclear war that we face today.
Edward Lausanne is President of the American University in Moscow.
The intense tension between the US and North Korea, India and Pakistan and a number of other states, raised questions about the likelihood (or in the worst case, the inevitability) of a worldwide military conflict.
Let's take a look at the top 7 likely reasons why World War III could theoretically start.
With the economic downturn and rising inflation, the cost of food in developing countries reached the world incredibly high level. According to various estimates, residents spend between 50% and 70% of their income on buying food.
In this scenario, those below the poverty line are getting less and less food, while those at the other end of the pyramid of needs are accumulating more and more resources.
According to The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2018 report, 821 million people, or one in nine people on Earth, are hungry in the world. And over 150 million children under the age of 5 are stunted due to malnutrition.
In addition, the rapid growth of the world's population and climate change, for which many crops are not ready, and a decrease in the level of groundwater, as well as many other factors.
According to analysts of the American military magazine The National Interest, the Third World War will begin in one of the locations in which the interests of the world's largest powers clashed. These places include:
- South China Sea. There are a number of disputed islands claimed by China.
- Ukraine. Recent events related to the attempt of Ukrainian Navy ships to pass through Kerch Strait from Odessa to Mariupol, led to increased tensions between Russia and the United States. And the British edition of The Daily Express even admitted that the Russian-Ukrainian crisis could develop into an open military confrontation between the countries.
- Persian Gulf. There, at any moment, a military conflict between Kurds, Turks, Syrians and Iraqis can begin.
- Korean peninsula. Despite the fact that tensions in the region have eased somewhat during Last year, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is unpredictable.
About 75% of the planet is water, but only 2.8% is fresh. Of these 2.8%, only 1% is easily accessible to the world's population.
And if we believe scientists who predict that in the next 100 years the temperature on the planet will rise by 3.7-4.8 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels, we can assume that the value of water as the main resource for life will only grow.
Already by 2026 in the worst case, or in 2031 (with the most optimistic forecast), the average temperature in the world will increase by 1.5 degrees Celsius due to global warming.
Therefore, the struggle for freshwater resources may be one of the causes of the Third World War.
The world's non-renewable energy sources, such as coal, oil and natural gas, are disappearing too fast. For example, according to a statement made by the head of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation Sergey Donskoy in 2016, Russia's proven oil reserves will last only 57 years. And what will happen when the shortage of "black gold", "blue fuel" and other non-renewable resources will be felt throughout the world? Strong countries will certainly try to replenish their reserves at the expense of weak countries.
However, no one knows exactly how oil is formed, so it can also be a renewable resource. As well as there is no reliable information about the oil reserves of the Earth.
In Russia, for example, data on oil reserves have not been officially published since Soviet times. This makes it possible for businessmen and politicians to manipulate the numbers depending on the current economic situation.
3. Diseases
We live in an interconnected world, and the question is not whether an outbreak of a deadly disease will occur, but when it will occur. And, more importantly, whether the world will be ready for it.
And the fact that he may not be ready was shown by the outbreak of the deadly Ebola fever in Guinea in 2014, which spread beyond the borders of the country, affecting not only close states in West Africa(Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Senegal, Mali), but also the United States and Spain.
This case is unique, since such an epidemic began in West Africa for the first time, and local doctors simply did not have the experience of dealing with it.
Of course, the zombie apocalypse shown in Resident Evil is unlikely to threaten humanity. However, trying to prevent an epidemic by regulating the movements of tens of thousands of people and denying them the right to access the outside world is not a step in the right direction.
Such discrimination, instead of treating the disease, can lead to rampant violence and aggression for the right to life and health. Hitherto unknown diseases and the presence or absence of medical drugs could potentially lead to a catastrophic world war
Do you know that the World Wide Web is a military product? The development of the Internet began back in the distant 60s of the last century, when the US Department of Defense implemented a project to connect individual computers installed in various organizations of the defense complex. So the US military wanted to make communication lines less vulnerable in the event of a nuclear war. If some nodes were damaged,
So boom in the world information technologies very important for understanding the mechanisms of relations between nations. Information has become a powerful means of waging wars, both virtual and real. And those in power are those who have all the information.
The question of what information should remain private and what should be shared is a matter of considerable debate today. If something that is confidential is revealed to the world, and this information leads to world-class scandals (as in the case of Wikileaks), then we may already have begun the Third World War. And it is being conducted in cyberspace.
Growing investment in weapons, especially nuclear weapons, poses a potential threat to the world and future generations. For maintenance and modernization military equipment billions of dollars are allocated every year.
Although weapons of mass destruction are in most cases designed to deter a potential adversary, they have been used in the past. You probably already guessed what I will give as an example atomic bombings Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Trying to "keep weapons with weapons," countries enter into a crazy arms race, which can only end with a few missiles flying around the world in a few generations. After that, it will be completely unimportant who first unleashed the Third World War. After all, it will end the same for everyone.
