Shana Tova, and happy Petrov Day
Take the day, reflect on the year that's been, and try not to destroy the world
Today is Rosh Hashanah, the holiday that marks the Jewish New Year. As we enter year 5783 (according to the Hebrew calendar), it’s worth taking a moment to reflect on the year that’s been. I hope that it was a healthy and happy year for all of you, and that this coming year is a good one as well.
But today is more than just Rosh Hashanah. It’s also Petrov Day – perhaps one of the most significant, but least well known, anniversaries in the human tradition. 39 years ago today, the brave, level headed actions of Stanislav Petrov, a little known Soviet military officer, may just have saved the world.
Petrov’s Story:
September 1983 was a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. In addition to all the generic animosity of the Cold War in the 1980s, on the first day of that month, the U.S.S.R. had shot down a Korean civilian airliner, killing 269 people, including a U.S. Congressman who was aboard.
With both sides on edge – and nuclear weapons defense systems on constant alert – the stage was set for something to go terribly wrong. And it did. On September 26th, 1983, Soviet missile defense systems reported the launch of U.S. based nuclear missiles – five in total, headed directly at the Soviet Union. The actual culprit for the alarms was sunlight, reflecting off the clouds above a U.S. military base, but at the time, the Soviets had no way of knowing that.
But Petrov – the commanding Soviet officer on duty at the time – kept his head. He reasoned it was unlikely that the U.S. would launch a first strike with just a few missiles, and decided that it was more likely that the warning was a false alarm. Ignoring the blaring warning signs from the computer systems, Petrov calmly reported to his superiors that the systems were reporting a false alarm. In doing so, he broke with official Soviet policy, which called for a launch response on warning.
He was later reprimanded for his actions, and retired from the military a year later. He lived out the rest of his life in relative obscurity, before dying in 2017 at the age of 77.
This year, let’s not destroy the world:
Petrov’s story, to me, is a reminder of the fragility of the world we live in. A response by the Soviet’s could have sparked an all out global nuclear war, and then I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this, and you wouldn’t be sitting here reading it.
While the Cold War is over, existential threats to the security of the human race remain. We still have far too many nuclear weapons. We’re not ready to defend against the next naturally occurring pandemic – let alone one that is bio-engineered to be far more devastating than Covid-19. The development path of artificial intelligence is highly uncertain, and significant risks seem possible. Climate change will exacerbate conflict between nations, making the world more unstable, and more fragile.
We’re not going to solve all those problems today. But each of us can honor Petrov – and celebrate the New Year – in a smaller way.
Today, if given the chance to destroy the world, don’t take it.
And then let’s all do the same tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that.
And then, hopefully, we’ll be able to say “Shana Tova” again soon enough – and many more times to come.
Thanks to DALLE-2 for the impressionistic portrayal of Petrov above.
I can't find your email. I would like a copy of the book
I agree , but you (sort of) warn about artificial intelligence and use Dali-2 for an illustration