What I find most interesting about this event is that there is really no consensus on what would have happened had he believed the alert to be genuine. When he received an award at the UN in 2006, Russia felt the need to declare that they would not have launched a counterattack without confirmation from other sources. I think it's a good example of how history is far more subjective that we like to think.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
History and journalism. The story, from a journalist's perspective, becomes too complex if a more complete analysis was included. To write, for example, that the Soviets had a detailed system of approvals which were designed to act as redundancies in the event of errors in launch detection technology or decision-making would muddy the very clear, familiar (and frightening) story that a single man saved us from disaster.
There's also an element of western propaganda and bias here too of course. It was in the interests of western nations at the time to paint a picture of an incompetent and reckless Soviet government and to showcase stories of western-style individual heroics.
All this said, if Petrov genuinely saved the day, it is absolutely worth celebrating. But we will never know for sure if he did.
It depends on if there were other sources they could rely on in time? Any idea what the travel time of these nukes would have been if they were real? Presumably in the event of a real attack they would want there missiles in the air before they probably got hit as some of the first targets.
Hate to be a nitpick, but doing nothing is slightly different than not doing something (a specific thing). That aside, it's a great testament to why authority should be questioned and decisions should always be filtered through the mind.
During the mission his strong character famously resulted in a clash with his American commander General Wesley Clark.
When ordered to intercept Russian forces which entered Kosovo without the alliance's agreement he refused. "I'm not going to start the Third World War for you," he is reported to have told General Clark
This, slightly exaggerated as it may be, poignantly raises the Fermi paradox proposition that most advanced civilizations end up destroying themselves and how narrow the "right" path sometimes is.
Late '83 was not a good time - as well as this incident there was also "Able Archer 83", which had the Soviets very scared that the west was going to carry out a first strike:
His reasoning is described perfectly well - first strike is not done by sending five missiles - it's done by at least half of the active arsenal (which is counted by both sides really well).
