THIRD WAR FOR ARMAGEDDON FULL

The combined death toll there (between 136 million and 288 million) swamps the death toll of any war, genocide, or other violent catastrophe in human history. The inevitable US counterstrike would kill 20 to 40 percent of the Soviet population, or between 54 million and 108 million people. Petrov prevented a nuclear war between the Soviets, who had 35,804 nuclear warheads in 1983, and the US, which had 23,305.ДЄ 1979 report by CongressвЂ™s Office of Technology Assessment estimated that a full-scale Soviet assault on the US would kill 35 to 77 percent of the US population - or between 82 million and 180 million people in 1983. And it was the system mistook the sunвЂ™s reflection off clouds for a missile. He and others on his staff concluded that what they were seeing was a false alarm.

There were reasons for Petrov to think ReaganвЂ™s brinkmanship had escalated to an actual nuclear exchange.Д«ut Petrov did not report the incoming strike. Months earlier President Reagan had announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (mockingly dubbed вЂњStar Wars,вЂќ a plan to shoot down ballistic missiles before they reached the US), and his administration was in the process of deploying Pershing II nuclear-armed missiles to West Germany and Great Britain, which were capable of striking the Soviet Union. The Reagan administration had a far more hardline stance against the Soviets than the Carter, Ford, or Nixon administrations before it. Reporting it would have made a certain degree of sense.

THIRD WAR FOR ARMAGEDDON FULL

вЂњIf he did, Soviet nuclear doctrine called for a full nuclear retaliation there would be no time to double-check the warning system, much less seek negotiations with the US.вЂќ вЂњPetrov had to make a decision: Would he report an incoming American strike?вЂќ my colleague Max Fisher explained. First, it was just one missile, but then another, and another, until the system reported that a total of five Minuteman ICBMs had been launched. Stanislav Petrov, that it could say with вЂњhigh reliabilityвЂќ that an American intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) had been launched and was headed toward the Soviet Union.

The Soviet UnionвЂ™s missile attack early warning system displayed, in large red letters, the word вЂњLAUNCHвЂќ a computer screen stated to the officer on duty, Soviet Lt. On September 26, 1983, the planet came terrifyingly close to a nuclear holocaust.

Third war for armageddon