Cold War Scenario: False Alarm or Real Danger?

[Purgatio]

Which isn't information Soviet High Command won't have, when you make your report you can tell them how many missiles the warning system is reading and they'll take into account this factor regardless.

So there's nothing wrong with me attaching a note to the report that it is in my opinion that the readings are wrong, is there?

No, but its also useless. You're telling your superiors information they have anyway and wasting their time. Maybe there's nothing wrong with it but I also don't see the point or purpose of it.

[The New California Republic]

So there's nothing wrong with me attaching a note to the report that it is in my opinion that the readings are wrong, is there?

No, but its also useless. You're telling your superiors information they have anyway and wasting their time. Maybe there's nothing wrong with it but I also don't see the point or purpose of it.

You clearly don't know how much info gets lost up the chain of command. Attaching a note to frame a report can and does make a difference in terms of how something is interpreted.

[Isdrona]

So there's nothing wrong with me attaching a note to the report that it is in my opinion that the readings are wrong, is there?

No, but its also useless. You're telling your superiors information they have anyway and wasting their time. Maybe there's nothing wrong with it but I also don't see the point or purpose of it.

But as the person in charge of the early warning system, its literally your job to be knowledgeable about the early warning system. I'd imagine it would be an even bigger waste of your superior's time to not give them all relevant information the moment you contact them, especially considering this is the Soviet Union and the guy you're contacting about a potential nuclear strike is probably a member of the party politburo rather than a general.

For my answer to the hypothetical, I'd say I have to know more about my superior before making a decision, but failing that I'd go with option 2.

[Novus America]

As a military office you job is also to think. There is a reason they assigned an officer to the post.
I seriously doubt the orders say “never offer any input as to the validity of the system’s readouts”.
After all if that was the objective why have an officer with a college education, or anyone there at all? Why not just have the machine send and automated alert to the command then?

You are not allowed to unilaterally go against your orders (in most cases), but you can and should go above and beyond just the bare minimum.
Unless the orders say you cannot offer any analysis (which would make no sense) you can and should do so.

I agree, and if there is any evidence or facts which suggest the reading is wrong or inaccurate, you ought to attach that to your report, but so far the only arguments made so far (e.g. that the system is new, that there are other means of verifying the accuracy of the reading like the Duga OTH radar system) is information that Soviet High Command has anyway, there's no value in telling them to do these things or giving them information they already have. The only additional information is you have a 'feeling' that the system could be wrong....but that's all it is. A feeling. How much weight can you really give to that? Nothing. Going beyond the bare minimum is reporting facts that indicate the positive reading is wrong, not mere feelings or speculations.

Reporting that only 5 missiles were reported, when an actual attack would actually consist of far more, and thus a malfunction or false reading is the most likely explanation is a valid analysis, and I would say doing your job. In fact you absolutely should report that.

Thinking requires thinking beyond the what the machine told you. Or you are no better than the machine, and have no purpose at all.

[Novus America]

No, but its also useless. You're telling your superiors information they have anyway and wasting their time. Maybe there's nothing wrong with it but I also don't see the point or purpose of it.

You clearly don't know how much info gets lost up the chain of command. Attaching a note to frame a report can and does make a difference in terms of how something is interpreted.

Also most major military decisions are based on comparing information from multiple sources.
A single point of failure is a bad idea in such cases.

And reports without explanation or context can be misleading.

[Thermodolia]

There’s no harm in having the missiles confirmed. Because even if they are real there’s no stopping them. It would take way less than 8 minutes to confirm it.

Confirmed? Confirmed through what, the point of the warning system is to detect and indicate whether or not missiles are headed straight for Soviet territory, from the US, and your one job is to observe the warning system and inform Soviet High Command if the reading is positive. So just do it. The decision whether or not to retaliate is Soviet High Command's, as a military officer you don't have the right to unilaterally countermand your superior's orders or just decide not to do your job and your duty because you 'feel' like the system 'might', 'possibly' be wrong

No my job is to report if Missiles are incoming. If I feel that the system has a glitch I am liable to report that. Humans man these things for a reason.

Also you can confirm it with Over The Horizon Radar

[The New California Republic]

No, but its also useless. You're telling your superiors information they have anyway and wasting their time. Maybe there's nothing wrong with it but I also don't see the point or purpose of it.

But as the person in charge of the early warning system, its literally your job to be knowledgeable about the early warning system. I'd imagine it would be an even bigger waste of your superior's time to not give them all relevant information the moment you contact them, especially considering this is the Soviet Union and the guy you're contacting about a potential nuclear strike is probably a member of the party politburo rather than a general.

For my answer to the hypothetical, I'd say I have to know more about my superior before making a decision, but failing that I'd go with option 2.

Absolutely. The higher ups rarely (if ever) know how the equipment that the grunts use actually works; and if I said that what I was seeing was abnormal in terms of what I would expect to see, and the cause may be an as yet undiagnosed equipment fault, then the higher ups will listen, and be a bit more cautious in terms of taking the detection as gospel. They tend to default to the opinion of the engineers, as the engineers work with the equipment every day, while the higher ups do not.

[Infected Mushroom]

Just tell them objectively what's happening on the radar. "The radar is showing that we are getting nuked by X in this specific way. The system could be malfunctioning but this is what it's showing (we are being nuked). I have no factual basis to conclude that is malfunctioning right now."

That's all your job entails.

I don't see the problem.

This is basically what Option 1 is.

[Thermodolia]

So there's nothing wrong with me attaching a note to the report that it is in my opinion that the readings are wrong, is there?

No, but its also useless. You're telling your superiors information they have anyway and wasting their time. Maybe there's nothing wrong with it but I also don't see the point or purpose of it.

If they already have all the information then why am I even at this post?

[Thermodolia]

Just tell them objectively what's happening on the radar. "The radar is showing that we are getting nuked by X in this specific way. The system could be malfunctioning but this is what it's showing (we are being nuked). I have no factual basis to conclude that is malfunctioning right now."

That's all your job entails.

I don't see the problem.

This is basically what Option 1 is.

It’s not a radar, it’s an EW satellite that has picked up 5 missile launches

[Purgatio]

No, but its also useless. You're telling your superiors information they have anyway and wasting their time. Maybe there's nothing wrong with it but I also don't see the point or purpose of it.

You clearly don't know how much info gets lost up the chain of command. Attaching a note to frame a report can and does make a difference in terms of how something is interpreted.

If there were numerous intermediaries between you and Soviet High Command, I'd agree, but there are none. All you have to do is tell Soviet High Command that the early warning system has recorded X number of missiles fired from the US, headed for Soviet territory. My point is you don't have to add "the number of missiles seems strangely lower than what we'd expect from an actual first strike" since your report records X number of missiles and Soviet High Command will decide what to do from there, how much weight to give to the reading in light of other checks.

[Purgatio]

No, but its also useless. You're telling your superiors information they have anyway and wasting their time. Maybe there's nothing wrong with it but I also don't see the point or purpose of it.

But as the person in charge of the early warning system, its literally your job to be knowledgeable about the early warning system. I'd imagine it would be an even bigger waste of your superior's time to not give them all relevant information the moment you contact them, especially considering this is the Soviet Union and the guy you're contacting about a potential nuclear strike is probably a member of the party politburo rather than a general.

For my answer to the hypothetical, I'd say I have to know more about my superior before making a decision, but failing that I'd go with option 2.

Except the context of the conversation (if you read a few posts before) has nothing to do with knowledge about the early warning system. The argument from New California Republic is that the report should actively advise against taking the system's positive reading seriously because it is only recording a small number of missiles, far fewer than what you'd normally expect in a first strike. That doesn't require knowledge about the early warning system (which does fall within the officer's specialist knowledge required in his post) but rather knowledge about big picture military strategy and how first strikes and retaliatory strikes tend to manifest in practice. It also requires knowledge of foreign policy and the state of US-Soviet relations and the mentality of the Reagan administration and what his advisers might recommend him to do with the US nuclear arsenal. These are matters falling within the specialist of Soviet High Command entrusted with the decision of whether to make a retaliatory strike or not.

[Novus America]

You clearly don't know how much info gets lost up the chain of command. Attaching a note to frame a report can and does make a difference in terms of how something is interpreted.

If there were numerous intermediaries between you and Soviet High Command, I'd agree, but there are none. All you have to do is tell Soviet High Command that the early warning system has recorded X number of missiles fired from the US, headed for Soviet territory. My point is you don't have to add "the number of missiles seems strangely lower than what we'd expect from an actual first strike" since your report records X number of missiles and Soviet High Command will decide what to do from there, how much weight to give to the reading in light of other checks.

You do not necessarily HAVE to add that the number of missiles is too low to be logical (unless your orders specifically tell you to give recommendations in your report), but what you HAVE to do, and what you SHOULD do, are not necessarily the same thing.

Again if you just blindly accept what the machine says, why are you there in the first place?
Why not just have the machine make automatic reports?

Reports generally include recommendations. Have you ever been a military officer?

Presumably they put a college educated officer in that position with the assumption the officer would exercise good judgment and think when making the reports, and include that in the reports.

[Novus America]

But as the person in charge of the early warning system, its literally your job to be knowledgeable about the early warning system. I'd imagine it would be an even bigger waste of your superior's time to not give them all relevant information the moment you contact them, especially considering this is the Soviet Union and the guy you're contacting about a potential nuclear strike is probably a member of the party politburo rather than a general.

For my answer to the hypothetical, I'd say I have to know more about my superior before making a decision, but failing that I'd go with option 2.

Except the context of the conversation (if you read a few posts before) has nothing to do with knowledge about the early warning system. The argument from New California Republic is that the report should actively advise against taking the system's positive reading seriously because it is only recording a small number of missiles, far fewer than what you'd normally expect in a first strike. That doesn't require knowledge about the early warning system (which does fall within the officer's specialist knowledge required in his post) but rather knowledge about big picture military strategy and how first strikes and retaliatory strikes tend to manifest in practice. It also requires knowledge of foreign policy and the state of US-Soviet relations and the mentality of the Reagan administration and what his advisers might recommend him to do with the US nuclear arsenal. These are matters falling within the specialist of Soviet High Command entrusted with the decision of whether to make a retaliatory strike or not.

An officer in charge of such a system should also be aware of and trained to understand such matters, otherwise they have no way of assessing the validity of the machines readouts.

Yes the job of the night command is to make the decision of whether or not to strike.
Based on the advice and information given to them.

You job is to help give them the best information and advice you can.

So they can make the best decision.

[Infected Mushroom]

Just tell them objectively what's happening on the radar. "The radar is showing that we are getting nuked by X in this specific way. The system could be malfunctioning but this is what it's showing (we are being nuked). I have no factual basis to conclude that is malfunctioning right now."

That's all your job entails.

I don't see the problem.

This is basically what Option 1 is.

It’s not a radar, it’s an EW satellite that has picked up 5 missile launches

ok then that's what I'm reporting

where's the controversy?

should I withhold information from high command? why would I?

[Hammer Britannia]

I'd pick option two. If I am right, then I didn't start WW3. I am wrong, well I just destroyed the Soviet Union (Moscow would probably be the epicentre of the blasts, likely destroying any central command) and can live happy knowing I destroyed it.

[Infected Mushroom]

I'd pick option two. If I am right, then I didn't start WW3. I am wrong, well I just destroyed the Soviet Union (Moscow would probably be the epicentre of the blasts, likely destroying any central command) and can live happy knowing I destroyed it.

I see...

If I was born in the Soviet Union, then no doubt I would be a very loyal Soviet

[Hammer Britannia]

I'd pick option two. If I am right, then I didn't start WW3. I am wrong, well I just destroyed the Soviet Union (Moscow would probably be the epicentre of the blasts, likely destroying any central command) and can live happy knowing I destroyed it.

I see...

If I was born in the Soviet Union, then no doubt I would be a very loyal Soviet

If I was born in the Soviet Union, I would want to die and take all of those fuckers in the Gov with me.

You see IM, there are three types of people in this world. There is you, then there is me.

Then there are people who aren't insane and don't want to serve a country but don't want to see it burn in nuclear fire at the same time.

[Purgatio]

If there were numerous intermediaries between you and Soviet High Command, I'd agree, but there are none. All you have to do is tell Soviet High Command that the early warning system has recorded X number of missiles fired from the US, headed for Soviet territory. My point is you don't have to add "the number of missiles seems strangely lower than what we'd expect from an actual first strike" since your report records X number of missiles and Soviet High Command will decide what to do from there, how much weight to give to the reading in light of other checks.

You do not necessarily HAVE to add that the number of missiles is too low to be logical (unless your orders specifically tell you to give recommendations in your report), but what you HAVE to do, and what you SHOULD do, are not necessarily the same thing.

Again if you just blindly accept what the machine says, why are you there in the first place?
Why not just have the machine make automatic reports?

Reports generally include recommendations. Have you ever been a military officer?

Presumably they put a college educated officer in that position with the assumption the officer would exercise good judgment and think when making the reports, and include that in the reports.

When I was in the Singapore military (its compulsory for all males) I wasn't an officer but I worked directly under an officer (it was part of some PSC leadership programme, pretty standard faire) and got quite a close look at his daily routine and responsibilities. There were tasks entrusted to him that required a lot of discretion and decision-making, where it was inherent in the task that he had a lot of leeway to decide certain matters - for example, the new Guards formation recruits are coming on X date, they need to be trained by Y date, these are the things they need to learn in the interim, but structure and order it as you please. However, there were also tasks entrusted to him by his superiors that required extremely-little discretion, limited to a supervisory role. For example, when conducting exercise A, follow safety routine B, step-by-step, without deviation. Even as a high-ranking military officer you do get entrusted with these types of duties by higher-ups, oftentimes its part and parcel of a wider package of duties and responsibilities given to you.

As far as I'm concerned, Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov's responsibility, to manage and supervise the new early warning system, is one of these types of duties. His job was to report whatever the early warning system recorded, whatever data or readings it was picking up, pure and simple. Soviet High Command will have the foreign policy and strategic expertise to make a holistic assessment of whether a retaliatory strike would be in the best interests of Soviet national security. Why did they put a college-educated officer in that position? Because the military gives college-educated officers a bundle of differing duties and responsibilities, some of which involve wide value judgments and extremely-wide leeway and discretion, but others of which require you to follow strictly a step-by-step process already devised in advance (if this step-by-step process is sufficiently complicated or involves memorising a lot of complex procedures, the military often entrusts such responsibilities to higher-ranking individuals who can be expected to fuck up less, basically).

[Novus America]

It’s not a radar, it’s an EW satellite that has picked up 5 missile launches

ok then that's what I'm reporting

where's the controversy?

should I withhold information from high command? why would I?

Withhold relevant, valid information? No.
Thus you should not withhold that you think it is an error.

[Novus America]

You do not necessarily HAVE to add that the number of missiles is too low to be logical (unless your orders specifically tell you to give recommendations in your report), but what you HAVE to do, and what you SHOULD do, are not necessarily the same thing.

Again if you just blindly accept what the machine says, why are you there in the first place?
Why not just have the machine make automatic reports?

Reports generally include recommendations. Have you ever been a military officer?

Presumably they put a college educated officer in that position with the assumption the officer would exercise good judgment and think when making the reports, and include that in the reports.

When I was in the Singapore military (its compulsory for all males) I wasn't an officer but I worked directly under an officer (it was part of some PSC leadership programme, pretty standard faire) and got quite a close look at his daily routine and responsibilities. There were tasks entrusted to him that required a lot of discretion and decision-making, where it was inherent in the task that he had a lot of leeway to decide certain matters - for example, the new Guards formation recruits are coming on X date, they need to be trained by Y date, these are the things they need to learn in the interim, but structure and order it as you please. However, there were also tasks entrusted to him by his superiors that required extremely-little discretion, limited to a supervisory role. For example, when conducting exercise A, follow safety routine B, step-by-step, without deviation. Even as a high-ranking military officer you do get entrusted with these types of duties by higher-ups, oftentimes its part and parcel of a wider package of duties and responsibilities given to you.

As far as I'm concerned, Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov's responsibility, to manage and supervise the new early warning system, is one of these types of duties. His job was to report whatever the early warning system recorded, whatever data or readings it was picking up, pure and simple. Soviet High Command will have the foreign policy and strategic expertise to make a holistic assessment of whether a retaliatory strike would be in the best interests of Soviet national security. Why did they put a college-educated officer in that position? Because the military gives college-educated officers a bundle of differing duties and responsibilities, some of which involve wide value judgments and extremely-wide leeway and discretion, but others of which require you to follow strictly a step-by-step process already devised in advance (if this step-by-step process is sufficiently complicated or involves memorising a lot of complex procedures, the military often entrusts such responsibilities to higher-ranking individuals who can be expected to fuck up less, basically).

No where does anything say he could not or should not give recommendations in his reports.
Again if he job was to ONLY report the readings, his job was pointless!

A machine could do that.

Part of operating any sort of sensor is using judgement.
Do you have any evidence that his orders said “report X and never offer any recommendations whatsoever”.

See even when following a step by step safety procedure, you still might make additional recommendations the procedure did not cover.

Example. Procedure says “wear unvented googles when using this”.
Even if the procedure does not say “wearing other clothing” you do not just wear only the googles. You of course wear the googles, but you also wear other clothing.

Even step by step procedures require some judgement.
They cannot cover literally everything.

If the procedure says “first push button a, then button b to test machine” but there blue smoke coming out of the machine, you do not run the normal check, you stop the check to address the fire. Even if the procedure does not mention to check for a fire at every step.

Or if there is a an unexpected hole in the floor in front on the control panel, you would recommend the check not be conducted rather than unquestioningly stepping into the hole, just because the procedure did not mention to check for holes in the floor.

No procedure covers every possibility. There is still judgement involved.

[The New California Republic]

You clearly don't know how much info gets lost up the chain of command. Attaching a note to frame a report can and does make a difference in terms of how something is interpreted.

If there were numerous intermediaries between you and Soviet High Command, I'd agree, but there are none. All you have to do is tell Soviet High Command that the early warning system has recorded X number of missiles fired from the US, headed for Soviet territory. My point is you don't have to add "the number of missiles seems strangely lower than what we'd expect from an actual first strike" since your report records X number of missiles and Soviet High Command will decide what to do from there, how much weight to give to the reading in light of other checks.

But the crucial qualifying point here is that the equipment is brand new and likely to be buggy as hell. The higher ups may not know that, and hence why all relevant info needs to be included in the report. It takes a matter of a few seconds to type that into the system.

[New Udonia]

Don't know if anyone mentioned this, however this happened in reality. We have Stanislav Petrov, a Soviet, to thank for our lives.

https://time.com/4947879/stanislav-petrov-russia-nuclear-war-obituary/

[Imbalistan]

Option 2: I dont want to be known in history as the man who caused the end of modern civilization.

[Aclion]

No, but its also useless. You're telling your superiors information they have anyway and wasting their time. Maybe there's nothing wrong with it but I also don't see the point or purpose of it.

If they already have all the information then why am I even at this post?

To achieve full employment comrade.