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.