Apparently on the US side, the SAC commander would receive a phone call that a nuclear attack was under way, and he would be given 2-3 minutes to decide if the

Apparently on the US side, the SAC commander would receive a phone call that a nuclear attack was under way, and he would be given 2-3 minutes to decide if the warning was valid (all warnings turned out to be false in hindsight, obviously). I'm not sure I like that system a whole lot better. Edit: Also see Stanislav Petrov, who correctly identified an attack warning as false: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov