There were occasions where a "hunch" was all that stopped a nuclear war - most available data and communication pointed towards a nuclear war starting according

There were occasions where a "hunch" was all that stopped a nuclear war - most available data and communication pointed towards a nuclear war starting according to their instructions, but someone disagreed and overrode. See Vasily Arkhipov during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Stanislav Petrov in 1983.