The mythos of Able Archer

[Southernap]

The Mythical War Scare of 1983 by Simon Miles

This article presents a new review of recently declassified and compiled data from the Department of State that says the modern mythos and pop history about Able Archer 1983 is wrong. That we all were within minutes of dying in nuclear fire. The reality it appears based on this article and review of the released documents says, that the Soviets (even at the height of their paranoid delusions with the RYaN spy program and the massive churn of leadership from Brezhnev to Gorby) knew it was a game and they had nothing to fear from the NATO playing games.

Oh and the claims that RYaN was this super cool program that had an awesome read on the US/NATO nuclear policy. Not so much.

Barely a month before Able Archer, Kryuchkov summed up the state of Project RYaN for his East German Stasi colleagues: “this work is being done at the Institute for Research on Operational Problems” — in other words, the KGB’s research and development wing, not one of the operational directorates — and “the central and fundamental decisions have yet to be taken.” Even in 1986, Warsaw Pact intelligence officials concluded that the technology at the core of RYaN still needed significant improvement for it to be a solid basis for any decision.

So this might be some interesting reading as good background for folks. Also, might be interesting to salt away for the next time a debate happens at the coffee house or beer garden with how close we came to nuclear war and Reagan's aggressive policies to the Soviets in his first term.

[Legbreaker]

It never sat well with me the idea that the Soviets were so stupid as to fall for an exercise being preparations for war. That's small picture thinking.
The bigger picture, as mentioned in the article, etc, showed very little indication there was any more likelihood of hostilities than at any other time. A few people might have thought something was up, but only those with a limited understanding of the overall situation.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

A very interesting read and it further reinforces the advice of don't put all your trust in just one source of information
It strikes me that if the Soviets were noted as fitting electronic pods to a very small number of aircraft, perhaps they were doing so to collect Elint from NATO rather than fitting the aircraft for war.

[Silent Hunter UK]

A lot of Soviet documents remain classified, don't they?

[Raellus]

Southernap, would you mind if I merged this thread with another dedicated to AA '83?

https://forum.juhlin.com/showthread....ghlight=Archer

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[Southernap]

Originally Posted by Raellus

Southernap, would you mind if I merged this thread with another dedicated to AA '83?

https://forum.juhlin.com/showthread....ghlight=Archer

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Yes I do mind. Leave it here but you can provide a link to to this post in the original Able Archer if you want, but don't merge it.

[Matt Wiser]

Originally Posted by Silent Hunter UK

A lot of Soviet documents remain classified, don't they?

That's right, and as long as the current occupant of the Kremlin is still ruling Russia, they will likely remain that way.

[Raellus]

Ok, Southernap, that's why I asked.

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