KGB Software Almost Triggered War In 1983 (arstechnica.com) 210
An anonymous reader writes: Who here remembers WarGames? As it turns out, the film was a lot closer to reality than we knew. Newly-released documents show that the Soviet Union's KGB developed software to predict sneak attacks from the U.S. and other nations in the early 1980s. During a NATO wargame in November, 1983, that software met all conditions necessary to forecast the beginning of a nuclear war. "Many of these procedures and tactics were things the Soviets had never seen, and the whole exercise came after a series of feints by U.S. and NATO forces to size up Soviet defenses and the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 on September 1, 1983. So as Soviet leaders monitored the exercise and considered the current climate, they put one and one together. Able Archer, according to Soviet leadership at least, must have been a cover for a genuine surprise attack planned by the U.S., then led by a president possibly insane enough to do it." Fortunately, when the military exercise ended, so did Soviet fears that an attack was imminent.
There were TV documentories on this (Score:5, Informative)
Re:There were TV documentories on this (Score:5, Informative)
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I second that. I knew about this incident at least 10 years ago. The Internet is plastered with information about this.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:There were TV documentories on this (Score:4, Interesting)
The Soviets were scared shitless of Reagan. Ronnie loved to fuck with them and he came off as a little crazy to them. I remember "the bombers leave in 5 minutes" thing back in 83. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The Soviets went on full alert, they were not amused. The amazing thing is that all that pressure had the effect of bringing about peace in the end. At least until the rise of Putin.
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Ronnie loved to fuck with them and he came off as a little crazy to them.
You know, those of us who lived to see the 1990's learned that he actually *was* crazy. Anyone who has experience with Alzheimer's knows that the personality changes and bizarre behavior can start a decade before the obvious memory loss.
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...all that pressure had the effect of bringing about peace in the end
Can you give me the name of your dealer? You must be smoking some awsome stuff, if you think the development in Russia since Gorbachev has been 'peace'. I know the general concensus is that the Soviet Union was exclusively evil, and there is no denying that Stalin, by and large, fitted that description quite well; I just wonder how much of the paranoia was due to us in the West being so hell-bent on destroying their system? Even the Soviet leaders knew that it would be a lot easier to govern a population t
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Do you not actually know any history?
Alas, I lived through much of it.
Soviet Russian names (Score:3)
That city was St Petersburg, then Petrograd, then Leningrad, now again St Petersburg... I wonder why they didn't pick the more Russian sounding name of Petrograd?
Speaking of which, while St Petersburg is the name of the city, the oblast name remains Leningrad. Also surprising is that while Gorky was named back to Novgorod and Sverdlovsk was named back to Ekateringrad, Ulyanovsk - named after Lenin - remains that, and didn't revert to the previous name of Simbirsk.
Would love to see a Russian leader who
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It was Peter the Great, who started the custom of naming cities 'burgs'
Peter's visits to the West impressed upon him the notion that European customs were in several respects superior to Russian traditions. He commanded all of his courtiers and officials to cut off their long beards—causing his Boyars, who were very fond of their beards, great upset—and also to wear European tight pants, as was the fashion of the day.
Boyars who sought to retain their beards were required to pay an annual beard
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I know that Peter the Great did that. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, when entities named after Communists reverted to their pre Communist names, like the examples I picked above, was there any particular reason why Tsar Peter's preferences would have trumped the fact that Petrograd, still named after him, but more Russified, did not get picked?
Also, how was it that the oblast retained the name Leningrad, or that Ulyanovsk didn't revert to Simbirsk, given that Lenin had fallen out of
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I stand corrected. What I meant was the end of the Cold War. And the fall of the USSR had a lot to do with Reagan. He went on a military toy buying binge that the already troubled Soviet economy could not keep up with. The ensuing arms race pretty much finished off their economy.
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>>And the fall of the USSR had a lot to do with Reagan.
No, the USSR was predicted to collapse sometime between the late 1970s or early 1990s by academicians and people inside the military who had the facts. The USSR couldn't even feed its own people, and they had some of the larges tracts of arable (and fertile) land in the world. 50% of their crops rottd in the firls because they had neither the trucks nor the roads to get them to market. This reality didn't suit the ideologues, the MIC, or the wholl
Reagan's mic test (Score:1)
Then there was Romald Reagan doing a mic test "We have outlawed Russia forever, we begin bombing in five minutes"
Re:Reagan's mic test (Score:5, Interesting)
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Not sure why this is being flagged as off topic. If the Reagan Administration was willing to overthrow a democratically elected government in the United States, no wonder the Soviets were scared.
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=abefore86rex84 [historycommons.org]
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Even if some Marine Lieutenant Colonel writes a memo advocating actions to take during nuclear war or mass insurrection, that doesn't either make it national policy or legal. It is nonsense.
Report says North authored plan to suspend Constitution [upi.com]
Reached by telephone Sunday at his home in northern Virginia, Brinkerhoff denounced as 'ridiculous' the report involving him and the Marine now at the center of the Iran-Contra scandal.
Saying he left government in 1982, Brinkerhoff added, 'There never was a plan to install martial law or martial rule. The whole purpose of emergency preparedness is and was to maintain civil rule.
'A lot of memos and lot of plans were written. We have a responsibility to plan for mobilization in case of emergency or war. As far as some evil plot ... it simply is untrue.'
The missing idea is known as MILITARY SUPPORT TO CIVIL AUTHORITIES: THE ROLE OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE IN SUPPORT OF HOMELAND DEFENSE [loc.gov]
That's not martial law.
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If the Reagan Administration was willing to overthrow a democratically elected government in the United States...
Please stop and think about what you just wrote. The Reagan Administration by definition couldn't overthrow the democratically elected government BECAUSE IT WAS THE DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED GOVERNMENT. (For the pedantic, yes, Reagan was part of the government, not the whole thing, but North's plan wasn't to arrest Congressmen.)
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You haven't been paying attention to the Right Wing echo chamber in recent years. President Obama will suspend the Constitution via executive order (never mind that George W. has issued more executive orders), activate the FEMA camps (hello, Oliver North), send all the white men to be executed by guillotines (paper cutters) and send all the white women to be raped by black men (white fear). Angry old white people believe this will happen any day now (For the pedantic, a democratically elected government can
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Nobody with any stature on the right believes any of those things.
No Establishment Republican believes that BS, but the base that listens to conservative radio does and they are the voters. Which is why Congressional Republicans are suffering a massive case of swamp fever and can't get anything done.
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Do you think vaccines cause autism? Because apparently all liberal Democrats do.
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Do you think vaccines cause autism? Because apparently all liberal Democrats do.
You seem willfully ignorant of liberal Democrats, as they believe in government healthcare. Republicans, not so much.
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-02-04/why-do-republicans-have-such-a-hard-time-with-vaccines- [bloomberg.com]
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Do you think vaccines cause autism? Because apparently all liberal Democrats do.
You seem willfully ignorant of liberal Democrats...
No shit? That's the entire point of the thread.
OF COURSE it's unfair to accuse all liberal Democrats of being 9/11 Truthers or thinking that vaccines cause autism. There's only a couple people in the dickhead left that believe those things, and that set includes NOBODY with any power. You're doing the converse, by claiming that a few people on the dickhead right represent all conservatives. And you're doing this because at this point, you're obviously a fundamentally dishonest person.
Since you're arguin
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And you're doing this because at this point, you're obviously a fundamentally dishonest person.
I used to be a Republican. I'm speaking from experience. Doesn't help that my Tea Party relatives in Idaho keep emailing every little thing that comes out of the right wing echo chamber.
Don't even bother typing a response.
You accused me of being a dishonest person and don't want me to respond? You must be new around here.
Gorbachev's off the cuff comment I heard live (Score:5, Interesting)
I was at an event where someone asked Gorbachev about the major economic changes in the early 1990s as the Soviet states re-organized into various coalitions after the USSR dissolved. In his reply, Gorbachev's main point was that it took longer for private industry to ramp up than had been hoped. I don't remember the exact words from the meat of his response; it was an "unimportant" preface clause that caught my attention. He replied:
"After Reagan defeated us Perestroika wasn't moving as quickly as we had anticipated and ..."
"After Reagan defeated us", that's how Gorbachev thinks of the fall of the Soviet Union. I'm no expert on US-Soviet relations in the 1980s, but Gorbachev certainly is. He knows the private discussions of the Politburo that historians can only guess about. And his four-word summary of the Soviet Union's fall is "after Reagan defeated us". Very interesting, I thought.
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summary of the Soviet Union's fall
The main reason for all the Reagan hatred. The US knew SDI wouldn't work, but the soviets didn't and spent themselves into history trying to keep up. They were kinda in awe of US technology. I was there. Very interesting times indeed.
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For any like me that didn't know, SDI most likely refers to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re:Coren22's "APKolypse" (Score:5, Insightful)
What the fuck is wrong with you? Have you considered seeking professional help? Just so you know your attacks on Coren now mean I hold him in much higher regard.
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I know I shouldn't do this as it is picking on the disabled. But you and I have a seriously different understanding of crushed if you think Coren came off badly. Mate I don't think there is anyone on this site that gets crushed as often and as repeatedly as you do. You might think Coren has a million sock puppets that are busy downmodding you but the truth is you are the red headed step child of the slashdot family and it's you that gets crushed, not the people you decide to stalk.
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Thank you for the defense, but it is all good. I think he honestly knows he is a huge troll, but he has this need to claim otherwise. It doesn't bother me, and for those who it annoys, just click the title of his posts and they don't exist for you anymore.
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No worries Coren. I figured you were pretty comfortable in your self and not considering ending it all because of APK. I was just in a grumpy mood last night and fancied kicking a troll.
I have to admit that APK annoys me less than all the Cow goes Moo and Gay Nigga auto posts.
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I think all the players knew that, by the early 80's, the Cold War would never be fought with guns (except by proxy), but rather by the manipulation of spheres of influence and politics. In chess, you never actually take the king; rather you maneuver the opponent into an untenable position. To some degree, you might call the Cold War one of the most civilized contests in human history, and certainly one of the most cerebral.
Hoped. Cuban missile crisis, etc. Win wo shooting (Score:2)
> I think all the players knew that, by the early 80's, the Cold War would never be fought with guns (except by proxy), but rather by the manipulation of spheres of influence and politics
I think HOPED it would end without nuclear war. The Cuban missile crisis, the events described in TFA, etc suggested that it was entirely likely that one day, eventually someone would fire a missile which would in turn trigger nuclear armageddon- unless one side won before that happened. The trick was how to win with
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I also believe their Soviet counterparts deserve half the credit. Both parties (Kennedy vs Kruschev, Reagan vs Gorechav) were matched pairs necessary for the resultant peace.
Gorbachev yes. Kennedy & Reagan vs US govt (Score:2)
One thing that makes Kennedy and Reagan stand out to me is that they did precisely the right thing at the right time -despite- everyone around them pushing to do the opposite. During the Cuban missile crisis, a lot of top people wanted to basically start WW3. The Soviet government, headed by Kruchev, pushed the US that direction.
Later, as the USSR was weakened to the point that the US could actually win the Cold War and end it, all of Reagan's advisors wanted him to play nice, to get along with the USSR
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Sounds like confirmation bias to me. Other interpretations:
1) Any collapse of the USSR would be a win for the USA, and vice versa because they regarded themselves as enemies fighting each other. The reason was irrelevant. Even if the USSR's collapse was mostly internal, it'd still be regarded as USA - hence Reagan - "winning", because the USA outlasted it.
2) Gorbachev was a traitor to Communism and wanted to see Russia move to a Western style system (like FW de Klerk was conservative for decades until sudde
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Virtually all highly rated US texts in 1980-1999 on Soviet/Russian economy were garbage.
So, what does this say about the CIA?
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Given recent history, and past history, that would be a sensible thought :)
Many wars have been launched by using a training exercise as a deception. The 1973 Yom Kippur War began as an Egyptian exercise, which they did so regularly that Israel treated them as routine. Many of the Egyptian soldiers didn't know it was real until they opened the ammunition boxes, and found live ammo instead of blanks, just a few minutes before the shooting started.
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War games designed to test the enemy's defences with feints are a bad idea. The US and South Korea do them off the coast of North Korea every year, and every year it just escalates tensions again. They must think that the risk is worth it to check NK defences, but it doesn't help diplomatic efforts.
Re:So it was the US that triggered it (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, sometimes I think it's fairly common that countries periodically have to do things which say "we know you're there, we're not afraid of you, and we can fuck you up".
So, think of China building artificial islands in the South China Sea and then claiming that is territorial waters. Sailing past and waving the flag is part and parcel of reminding them that, no, this is international waters and has been for some time. Would you have them cede the waters to China and just let them annex it?
Sometimes, you need to remind the other guy that you're still there, and reality isn't defined in terms of what they claim. And you usually do that by telling me "oh, by the way, we'll be doing this right here for the next little while".
For some countries, diplomacy requires a little show of force to demonstrate you're not as intimidated as they think you should be of their supreme leader's tiny penis and huge ego.
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They're not so much artificial islands as augmented. In my opinion the territorial claim by USA's ally, the Philippines, on these islands is quite weak. The claim: An island was claimed by a Filipino fisherman and subsequently confiscated by the government. Meanwhile the Philippines has a very strong claim on the (now Malaysian) territory of Sabbah, but they'll never get that back. There was a very ugly and bloody attempt that led to years of political unrest. [wikipedia.org]
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Obligatory shoutout to Stanislav Petrov (Score:5, Interesting)
The man who saved the world [wikipedia.org] in 1983.
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Every time I hear these stories, I think of the speech from Wargames where General Barringer says he sleeps well at night knowing humans are controlling the missiles in the silos, not computers. Little did the writers of that film know how right they were.
Re:Obligatory shoutout to Stanislav Petrov (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:John Wayne (Score:4, Informative)
>> electing Rambo wannabe
Rambo came out in 1982 - Reagan was elected in 1980.
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Well, I would have said "John Wayne wannabe", but the young whipper-snappers don't know who that is.
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Rambo came out in 1982 - Reagan was elected in 1980.
And the book [First Blood, David Morrell] was published in 1972...
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Trivia save! Thanks.
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Ever notice how these kinds of trolls (the ones who go around yelling "LIBERAL!" at anything and everything they don't like or understand) always use excessively diminutive language? "little heads" and implying that they cannot reach their own conclusions. I believe this is a specific type of projection; essentially the same fantasy that schoolyard bullies are enjoying when they physically abuse other boys they call "gay". Well, in their case, it is a repressed homosexual urge, but in the case of these G
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What I do notice is that from the right it does seem more often very intelligence / education centric (you are an idiot, a know-nothing, a sheep). When couched in a 3 line shit sandwich of insults with no actual intellectual content, I have to agree that it reeks of projection and insecur
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My favorite part (talking about both sides) is how the insult is always followed up with a straw man profile of the other person that is the WWI propaganda-poster-of-the-enemy version of whatever they represent
I disagree that the democrats do this. For all the issues I have regarding the left, the democrats are very good at guarding their own while the republicans tear each other down during their race to the top.
Just look at the difference during the debates. How often do you hear Bernie Sanders rip into Hillary? He even downplayed the email server issues that was plaguing Hillary.
The Republicans can learn a lot by watching how the Democrats treat each other.
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For example, you know the whole "Obama was born in Kenya" thing? Hillary's 2008 campaign started that during the primary.
Sanders didn't hit Hillary over the emails because he's not serious about running for President.
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It is a common tactic of the Left as well, they just don't come out and say it directly, but they like to treat the minorities like they can't get on without government help in every section of their lives, or that women can't get jobs anywhere they like right now, so they need help/to be tricked, in order to increase the numbers of women in STEM.
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You do know that the old guard in the Republican party hates Trump don't you? It's the party rebels that are cheering him on. I actually don't like The Donald at all. Sadly though, most of the people that hate him the most hate me too. It makes me want to like him because I loathe most of his most vocal detractors. Just to let you know, Fox News takes constant shots at him. They are actually worse than CNN about it.
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And some of us Republicans can manage to hate both Trump and the old guard.
GOP preferences (Score:2)
I liked the Newt group in 1994, but today, I just can't recognize them. Kasich of today is nothing like the Kasich who balanced the budget in Congress. I have no problems w/ him making OH a part of Obamacare if he thought that that was what they need, but for him to attack Trump on the issue of deporting illegals or automatic birthright citizenship for anchor babies, and then talk about picking winners and losers in the bank bailouts did it for me. Mitch McConnell today is nothing like the guy who oppose
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I don't really like a single person running. On either side. The USA is pretty much fucked.
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In 2008, I supported Obama just b'cos I hated both Hilary and McCain. There was no way I was gonna support McCain given how he was throwing Conservatives under the bus.
You don't like how McCain treated conservatives, so you voted for the guy who spent the past decade calling anyone who disagrees with him (normally conservatives) as evil, racist, and supporters of terrorism?
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"I saw thousands cheering in the streets"
Funny, I saw it on TV too, it just so happened to be occurring in the middle east.
"80% murdered by..."
Not sure what you are talking about there...
"According to Bob the Border Guard, those sneaking in are mostly criminals..."
No, it wasn't Bob the border guard, it was Fusion, a Univision owned magazine's article.
http://www.mediaite.com/online... [mediaite.com]
But don't let the facts get in the way of your dialog. Oh, and did you know, Hillary and Trump are good friends, your candidate is just as much pro business!
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I think these posts are done by a script he runs, I don't think APK honestly copy pastes these, as there are often numbering errors (1, 2, 3, 5, 4) or missing posts (1, 2, 3/5, but no 4 or 5), and if frequently misses some of my posts to reply to, though it appears he intends to post on every post.
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Hey dumbass, you are feeding a troll. His post is hateful and stupid. You shouldn't support such stupid people. Either that or you're trolling yourself in an attempt destroy this site. Either way, you need to be banned, and I will do everything in my power to make sure that happens.
I assume you've had a change of heart as I don't seem to be banned yet? In any case, thanks for letting me continue. I do appreciate it.
C17H19ClN2S (Score:2)
Looks like APK is off his meds again...
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Naa, that AC was sane in comparison.
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Thank you for the demonstration, it goes right along with what I was saying.
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You double posted your fake response APK, you really should be more careful of that, it might make more people see how it is you agreeing with yourself.
In Soviet Russia, software runs you! (Score:2)
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General Beringer: Dr. Falken, you picked a hell of a day for a visit!
Stephen Falken: Uh-huh... General, what you see on these screens up here is a fantasy; a computer-enhanced hallucination. Those blips are not real missiles, they're phantoms.
McKittrick: Jack, there's nothing to indicate a simulation at all. Everything is working perfectly!
Stephen Falken: But does it make any sense?
General Beringer: Does what make any sense?
Stephen Falken: That!
General Beringer: Look, I don't have time for a conversation ri
led by a president possibly insane enough to do it (Score:1, Insightful)
LOL! You gotta love these libs! So stupid, it's funny.
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For something comparable, the tough talk of Iran's leader affects our decision makers here and now. His quotes are quite often used by the GOP to argue their stance.
Either GOP is heavily bluffing, or they would factor in his blustery talk if there were a related international issue that required a snap judgement.
It's not silly, as you imply, it's dead serious.
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In what fantasy realm is the destruction of all life on earth the act of a sane man?
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You can't have been alive at the time. It really did seem that Reagan may have been crazy enough to attack the USSR under the belief he was doing gods work.
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Yes, I was alive then. The Soviets didn't buttsecks Reagan like they do The Zero.
I remember some of Able Archer (Score:1)
And anyone with any sense thought it was insane for him to ratchet up tensions with the USSR, as though being President was actually some kind of movie.
Yes, a lot of us *did* think he was nuts enough to do it. And if his handlers hadn't held him back, none of use would be reading or writing this.
Fscking psychotic arsehole.
mark
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And I remember all of Reagan's years, and Carter's too. I remember that after he had been president for 4 years, he won by the biggest landslide in history.
So apparently most of the voters disagreed with your characterizations. That's historical fact, no opinion required.
If I throw my opinion into it, I'd have to say we valued intangibles like human rights, economic opportunity, peace, ... far more than you apparently do today.
Don't blame the software... (Score:5, Insightful)
...Blame the model.
I read this article, the model was flawed, based on a "we'll attack when we pass some threshhold". Everything else was just to feed the model. They added a lot of things, so the model could only be calculated on a computer. But its a modeling error, the tool was a computer.
Re: I love how the report was originally... (Score:1)
I miss the old /. where people explained rather than complained. That was why your post was marked as a troll. You added no information.
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https://www.fas.org/sgp/otherg... [fas.org]
You could look up a classification guide, or just Google any of those dissemination controls.
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Well maybe not. He's just an idiot, he can't help it that his parents were sister and brother.
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Um, amiga3D's post is unmoderated. Logged in users start at a value determined by their Karma. With Excellent karma, you get a +1, and an additional +1 that is optional.
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I didn't really mean it to be insightful. It was spiteful and mean on purpose to show my disdain and disgust at the incestuous asshole's post. Not the one I replied to but the one he replied to. I am not really sorry if you were offended. Your sensitivities were simply collateral damage though. And I have some Karma to burn.
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War games are a common event for military organizations. Despite the fact that Able Archer was particularly aggressive, it did not result in anything but a build up of forces within NATO's own territory or International airspace or waters. If the Soviets had launched a preemptive strike under those circumstances, even if they had understandable fears, it would still be an aggressive action on *their* part. They would still have pulled the trigger.
Although I don't want to understate the problematic use of
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On top of all of that, it isn't like the Soviets didn't run their own exercises.
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That's sort of like building a large bomb in your house attached to a motion detector pointed at the sidewalk and when a pedestrian gets too close to your house, he trips it and the bomb annihilates the pedestrian and your entire house with you in it. You then point out that it's the pedestrian that triggered it, which is true, but hilariously misses the point.
If you build a system that causes you to launch a preemptive strike without an actual attack underway, it doesn't matter who triggered it. You're