Doomsday Clock: 'It is 100 Seconds to Midnight'

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Closer than during the Cuban Missile Crisis or on the 26th of September 1983 when the Soviet systems deployed to detect US ICBM launches reported that one missile had been launched and was on it’s way to Moscow?

PS. Raise a drink to Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov if you’re enjoying not being a pile of radioactive ash today.

There was also the commander of the nuclear sub during the Cuban Missile Crisis who prevented a launch when contact with Moscow was lost(default position was Moscow has been hit)

Edit: Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov

I think that one was even more worrying because the captain and first officer of that sub had already decided to launch and in normal circumstances they would have had the authority to launch a nuke. The person who prevented the launch wasn't the commander of that particular sub and wasn't always on it.

There have been other acknowledged incidents too. There have probably been some that are still classified. False positives on detection systems, failures of communication, people forced to make decisions on incomplete and possibly misleading information, nuclear bombs accidentally dropped...there are a variety of circumstances that happened and which might very well have triggered a nuclear war during the cold war period. We can forget that people on each side genuinely thought that the other side might launch a nuclear attack at any time and so were primed to launch a retaliatory nuclear attack at any time.

This "clock" is pointless. It's an opinion that serves no purpose other than generating headlines and fear. It's not a clock in any sense of the word. It makes no difference if it's declared to be 2 minutes to midnight, half past six in the evening or a femtosecond to midnight.

EDIT: Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov was the commander of the flotilla that included that sub. It was the captain and political officer of that sub who authorised the launch and who would usually have had the authority to do so by themselves. Had Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov been on one of the other vessels in his flotilla at that time, a nuclear bomb would have been launched and would have destroyed several US Navy vessels.
 
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