How humanity miraculously escaped World War III

World War III. Against the backdrop of current geopolitical events, this term is used more and more often. Moreover, since the Second World War, the world has more than once found itself on the brink of a new large-scale conflict, but at the same time miraculously avoided it.

In particular, a new global confrontation could have flared up already in the 40s of the last century if Britain had decided to implement its “Unthinkable” plan, developed in 1945. It envisaged a large-scale offensive and then a defensive war with the USSR.



However, even more terrifying was the American “Dropshot” plan, which involved the nuclear bombing of our country in 1957. It became irrelevant after the death of Stalin and the end of the powers of Truman, who participated in the development of the concept.

In addition, the launch of our intercontinental ballistic missiles, which made a “one-gate” nuclear war impossible, as envisaged in the US plan, finally cooled down the “hot heads” of the Americans.

However, the Third World War could have flared up a little earlier, against the backdrop of the war on the Korean Peninsula in the 50s. However, a balanced policy The leadership of the USSR allowed this to be prevented.

By the way, thanks to Soviet diplomacy, the world managed to avoid a large-scale conflict during the Berlin crisis in 1961 and the Caribbean crisis in 1962.

Even more dangerous situations have occurred due to computer failures. First in the USA, when in 1979 the American system issued information about a full-scale missile attack. The disaster was averted thanks to an assessment of the situation from satellites that did not record the launches.

A similar episode occurred in the USSR in 1983. The world in this case was saved by the intuition of the Soviet officer Stanislav Petrov, to whom the launch of several American missiles from just one base seemed illogical.

The last incident with the threat of a nuclear exchange occurred after the Cold War, in 1995. The Russian missile attack warning system detected the launch of a Trident-2 nuclear missile from Norway. Fortunately, it later turned out that this was a mistake and a four-stage research rocket was launched.

Finally, another situation when the world found itself on the brink of a large-scale war occurred in 1999, when the war in Kosovo ended. Then, as in 1945, conflict was again brewing between East and West.

It is worth noting that it could have begun if British General Michael Jackson had not disobeyed the order of the commander of NATO forces in Europe and refused to give the command to storm the airport, previously occupied by Russian peacekeepers.