> Later that day, the Nato commanders left their building and went home, congratulating themselves on another successful – albeit sobering – exercise. What West

> Later that day, the Nato commanders left their building and went home, congratulating themselves on another successful – albeit sobering – exercise. What Western governments only discovered later is that Able Archer 83 came perilously close to instigating a real nuclear war. You'd think that NATO was just having their quiet simulation and those silly Soviets misinterpreted, right? What the article fails to acknowledge is the deliberate provocations targeting USSR at the same time as the military exercise - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83#Psychological_operations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83#Psychological_o... : "Psychological operations (PSYOP) by the United States began in mid-February 1981 and continued intermittently until 1983. These included a series of clandestine naval operations that stealthily accessed waters near the Greenland–Iceland–United Kingdom (GIUK) gap, and the Barents, Norwegian, Black, and Baltic seas, demonstrating how close NATO ships could get to critical Soviet military bases. American bombers also flew directly towards Soviet airspace, peeling off at the last moment, sometimes several times per week. These near-penetrations were designed to test Soviet radar vulnerability as well as demonstrate US capabilities in a nuclear war"