How close are we to nuclear war?

For the first time in many years, the threat of nuclear war has burst into public awareness. Many proclaim we are at a pinnacle of danger not seen since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the US and USSR faced off over Soviet nuclear missiles situated in Cuba.

Indeed, October 27 marked one of the most dangerous days in history. Off the coast of Cuba, a U.S. Navy destroyer was depth charging a Russian submarine to force it to surface. The officers in command of the sub, out of radio contact, believed war had already broken out and prepared to launch a nuclear torpedo. But Vasily Arkhipov, the commander of the sub flotilla of which the vessel was a part, overruled the officers and stopped the launch, almost certainly preventing World War III. For that, Arkhipov is known as “the man who saved the world.”

That was a moment of maximum danger. But, contrary to what Joe Biden recently stated, “We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” there was another moment of peril in 1983 that is far less known. Daniel Ellsberg, who as a defense analyst advised the White House during the Cuban crisis, says it may have been even more dangerous. That was Able Archer 83, a NATO exercise that took place in the early days of November mimicking escalation to nuclear war in response to a Soviet invasion of Western Europe.

Able Archer was the tail end of a series of NATO exercises in which 19,000 U.S. troops were airlifted to Europe to conduct a simulated defense against the invasion. Able Archer went through steps from request for release of nuclear weapons to their delivery. It included B-52s sent to Europe, planes being loaded up with dummy nuclear bombs, and refueling exercises.

In this respect, it is remarkably similar to a NATO nuclear war exercise conducted over Europe from October 17-30, Steadfast Noon, in which dozens of planes from 14 nations conducted mock bombing runs. The U.S practiced sharing nuclear weapons with NATO partners using dummy bombs. At the same time, the U.S. announced speeded delivery of B61-12 bombs to Europe, an upgrade which increases accuracy. This is the so-called adjustable nuclear weapon, supposedly usable in a limited nuclear war, offering a range of explosive potentials from 0.3 to 50 kilotons. By comparison, the Hiroshima bomb was 15 kilotons. Meanwhile, the Russians were conducting their own nuclear exercises, Thunder 2022, from October 26-28, with launch of nuclear-capable missiles from land, sea and air.

The obvious contrast between now and 1983 is that, though the U.S. was then conducting a proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, it was on the fringes of the then USSR. The Ukraine War is in Europe close to the Russian heartland, with fighting at a far greater level of intensity. Could we be at an even greater level of danger now? The key issue that joins the present moment with 1983 is how each side perceives the intentions of the other. The crucial lesson of Able Archer is that misperception and miscommunication can cause a fatal error leading to a full nuclear exchange, especially at a time of heated rhetoric. Let us first look at 1983, then contrast and compare it with the present.

Though I participated in the nuclear freeze global uprising against nuclear weapons in the 1980s, in recent decades I have mostly focused on the slower-moving apocalypse of climate disruption. But seeing the momentum build toward potential global holocaust, I undertook in recent months to survey the best literature on an event I had heard about for many years, 1983’s close call with nuclear war.

Fortunately, recent years have seen publication of several books that delve deeply into the crisis, what led up to it, and its aftermath: 1983: Reagan, Andropov, and a World on the Brink by Taylor Downing; The Brink: President Reagan and the Nuclear War Scare of 1983 by Mark Ambinder, and Able Archer 83: The Secret NATO Exercise That Almost Triggered Nuclear War by Nate Jones. The latter contains many formerly secret documents wrested from the archives. From these I wrote a three-part series that starts here. I will briefly summarize the key points

First, it is key to know that then Soviet leader Yuri Andropov genuinely believed the U.S. planned a nuclear first strike on the USSR. Ronald Reagan’s white hot rhetoric fueled that perception. When Reagan became president, he proclaimed the end of détente and was to label the Soviet Union the Evil Empire and call for its system to be left “on the ash heap of history.”

In response, Andropov, still KGB chief in 1981, ordered RYaN, the Russian acronym for nuclear missile strike. Soviet intelligence across the world was instructed to track hundreds of first strike preparation indicators, from movements of military forces and political leaders to blood drives. Operatives responsive to their superiors tended to produce information that confirmed their fears.

Andropov’s anxieties were grounded in what the Soviets had learned during their own nuclear exercises. It is the most powerful argument for entirely ridding the world of nuclear weapons. In a nuclear war, the side that strikes first has overwhelming advantage. It can decapitate the enemy’s leadership and command and control systems, prospectively eliminating its ability to order a response, even as nuclear forces with which a counterstrike could be launched are destroyed.

Of course, a nuclear war of almost any scale would ignite fires sending a cloud of black soot into the stratosphere, shutting off sunlight and creating a nuclear winter that would crash agricultural production and kill billions. Any immediate advantage, if one were to be had, would turn into a pyrrhic victory, killing the “winners” as well as the losers. This fact known since 1983 unfortunately still has not entered the calculations of nuclear strategists.

Heightening the fears of Soviet leaders were plans to place cruise and Pershing II missiles in Europe, which the Soviets believed could reach Moscow in a few minutes and accomplish a decapitation strike. This has come back today with Russian leaders expressing concerns over NATO missiles placed in Ukraine even closer to the Russian capital.

Reagan’s announcement of the Star Wars missile defense program in March 1983 two weeks after he made the Evil Empire speech heightened Soviet worries. They believed this would make response to a first strike even more difficult.

The 1980s nuclear freeze movement set the stage for the INF and START treaties, which most likely would have never happened if it had not been for millions in the streets. It is going to take something similar again to move to the sane course of dramatic nuclear reductions and abolition. We are nowhere near that now, and it is our role as people concerned about our future and that of our children to build that movement.

Counterpunch