Which person if they never lived would have changed human history the most?
Stanislav Petrov.
It may be tempting to name someone like Isaac Newton, Genghis Khan, or religious persons such as Muhammad and Jesus Christ.
However, while these people certainly had a major impact on human history, none of them played a key role in directly preventing the (almost) extinction of the human race.
It was shortly after midnight, on September the 26th, 1983. Petrov was a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet army and the current officer in duty for one of their early warning satellites.
Petrov’s job was to look for an impending nuclear attack against the Soviet Union and to then immediately warn his supervisors. They would then initiate a nuclear counter-attack according to their mutual assured destruction doctrine.
While this nuclear threat was very real during the Cold War, it was probably with a sense of disbelief that Petrov processed what his eyes were telling him. One of the computers had lit up and was showing that one ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) was fired from the United States and was now heading towards the Soviet Union.
Petrov dismissed it as a false alarm. After all, it was just one missile, so it could be a technical error.
However, it didn’t take long for the computer to identify that four missiles had now been detected. Again, they were fired from U.S. soil and were headed towards the Soviet Union.
Petrov asked for additional reports and confirmation checks. Every single one confirmed the incoming threat. Petrov’s subordinates had all jumped up from their seats and were anxiously waiting for him to make a decision.
Stanislav Petrov did.
It is partly through luck and Petrov’s unique personality that we were spared a nuclear holocaust.
You see, Petrov was under the impression that the United States would only go for an all-out strike, rather than initially launching just a handful of missiles. He also knew that the satellite was new and could have some technical issues.
So, Petrov again dismissed all the reports as a false alarm, and refrained from informing his supervisors.
And it turned out that Petrov was correct. There were no missiles. It was a technical flaw in the detection software.
Petrov was only on duty as a last-minute replacement. He was also intimately familiar with the equipment and was able to guess that it was likely to be a malfunction.
I believe the false alarm was due to the sun reflecting of high altitude ice (or something similar).
But yes, if he wasn’t on duty that night, we’d probably have been bombed into the stone age. A chilling thought.
There was a documentary made on this incident.
The Man Who Saved the World — Wikipedia
Another chilling movie (fictitious) about an accidental nuclear exchange is The Bedford Incident (1965)
Anyway, we seem to have made it through all this madness and now we have iPhones!
It was from an interview with Petrov, but I can’t seem to find it. However, I did find this forum discussion, where they also mention the interview (and also can’t find it):
Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet officer who averted nuclear war, has died
Supposedly, the US had plans for a ‘beheading strike’, where they would first hit the Kremlin and a few bunkers, hoping that someone like Petrov would see it as a technical error and not retaliate. Of course, this would then be followed by an all-out strike with a now (hopefully) reduced chance of full-scale retaliation. The strategy makes some sense. Since then, there is an automated system that can still fire back in case high command is taken out (Dead Hand — Wikipedia).
Found one additional source that mentions that the Soviets were afraid of a preemptive strike: Stanislav Petrov, or how one man stopped Andropov’s nuclear holocaust
This was one of the bravest decisions in human history, and certainly the one with the largest potential consequences.
While Petrov was praised initially, he was later demoted and chose to retire. He has received no reward and his story only became known in 1997. Last year, Petrov passed away at the age of 77.
Petrov’s story is an example of how close we have already come to destroying ourselves, but also of the heroes that live among us and why humanity is worth preserving.
