Leadership uncertainty magnified crisis risk during the 1983 nuclear standoff

Evidence

Should they? No NATO missiles had yet been fired; what if it wasn’t an actual attack? To make matters worse, the Soviets were at that moment facing a dangerous leadership vacuum—General Secretary Yuri Andropov was on his deathbed, and for the past two months he had not attended Politburo meetings. Now, in this stunning moment of crisis, political rivalries and leadership uncertainty added to the chaos. The fate of the world hung in the balance as the Soviet command debated whether to push the button. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 584

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Proliferating nuclear weapons increase the risk of accidental world-ending war — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 610; Evenly matched rival states with WMDs pose civilization-scale escalation risk — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 608; A sense of safety in wartime is fragile and self-consciously temporary — Julien Gracq, Balcony in the Forest, 50 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Evenly matched rival states with WMDs pose civilization-scale escalation risk #expands (0.60) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 608
• Proliferating nuclear weapons increase the risk of accidental world-ending war #expands (0.55) — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 610
• Exhaustive bureaucratic planning can create false psychological closure about danger #complicates (0.40) — Julien Gracq, Balcony in the Forest, 49
• A sense of safety in wartime is fragile and self-consciously temporary #exemplifies (0.35) — Julien Gracq, Balcony in the Forest, 50