A big decision

In 1983, Stanislav Petrov saved the world. However, in doing so, he also become one of the most
challenging case studies in the psychology of decision making.

During the cold war, Petrov served as a Lieutenant Colonel in a Soviet nuclear missile base. His main
responsibility was to report any data suggesting that America had launched a nuclear attack on the
Soviet Union, so that his superiors could retaliate with a nuclear attack of their own.
Then, in the early hours of a cold September morning, Petrov’s detection systems lit up, announcing
that they had detected a detected an American nuclear strike heading his way. Even worse, the
system gave each warning a certainty rating, and had awarded this particular warning the highest
possible certainty score.

Then, in the minutes that followed, it reported another, and another, until 5 missile warnings were
present on the display. Sirens began blaring all around Petrov and, understandably, his crew began
to panic, looking to him for direction. Would he use the information to call for a retaliatory strike
and potentially destroy a large part of the world? He had to make a decision and he chose… to do
nothing, except to call the local army headquarters and report a system malfunction.

Five minutes later, when the Soviet Union was not consumed in an atomic blast, Petrov was proven
right and, by preventing an unnecessary retaliation, had likely saved the word. The IT teams would
later confirm that the ‘missile’ signals had, in fact, been caused by the sun reflecting off of the clouds
in a certain way.

Curiously, despite the importance of his decision, Petrov couldn’t explain why he had made the
choice that he had. He later described it as basically a “50-50” chance, or a coin toss in his mind, with
no apparent reason for his suspicions.

Lehrer, J. (2009). The decisive moment: How the brain makes up its mind. Canongate Books.