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Able Archer 83

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Military History and War

   Able Archer 83 was a ten-day NATO exercise starting on November 2, 1983
   that spanned the continent of Europe and simulated a coordinated
   nuclear release. It incorporated a new, unique format of coded
   communication, radio silences, participation by heads of state, and a
   simulated DEFCON 1 nuclear alert. The realistic nature of the exercise,
   coupled with deteriorating relations between the United States and the
   Soviet Union and the anticipated arrival of "super-stealth" Pershing II
   nuclear missiles in Europe, led some in the USSR to believe that Able
   Archer 83 was a genuine nuclear strike. In response, the Soviets
   readied their nuclear forces and placed air units in East Germany and
   Poland on alert. This relatively obscure incident is considered by many
   historians to be the closest the world has come to nuclear war since
   the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The immediate threat of nuclear war
   abruptly ended with the conclusion of the Able Archer 83 exercise on
   November 11.

Prelude

Operation RYAN

   The event that served as the single greatest catalyst to the Able
   Archer war scare occurred more than two years earlier, during a May
   1981 closed-session meeting of KGB officers. At this meeting, General
   Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and KGB chairman Yuri Andropov bluntly
   announced that the United States was preparing a secret nuclear attack
   on the USSR. To combat this threat, Andropov announced, the KGB and GRU
   would begin Operation RYAN. RYAN (РЯН) was a Russian acronym for
   "Nuclear Missile Attack" (Ракетное Ядерное Нападение). Operation RYAN
   was the largest, most comprehensive peacetime intelligence gathering
   operation in Soviet history. Agents abroad were charged with monitoring
   the figures who would decide to launch a nuclear attack, the service
   and technical personnel who would implement the attack, and the
   facilities from which the attack would originate. In all probability,
   the unlikely goal of Operation RYAN was to discover the first intent of
   a nuclear attack and prevent it.
   One of five underground bunkers built for the East German Foreign
   Intelligence Service in 1983
   Enlarge
   One of five underground bunkers built for the East German Foreign
   Intelligence Service in 1983

   The impetus for the implementation of Operation RYAN is still largely
   unknown. Oleg Gordievsky, the highest-ranking KGB official ever to
   defect, suspected that it was born of the increased "Soviet Paranoia"
   coupled with "Reaganite Rhetoric". Gordievsky conjectured that Brezhnev
   and Andropov, who "were very, very old-fashioned and easily influenced
   ... by Communist dogmas," truly believed that an antagonistic Reagan
   would push the nuclear button and relegate the Soviet Union to the
   "ash-heap of history". CIA historian Benjamin B. Fischer lists several
   concrete occurrences that likely led to the birth of RYAN. The first of
   these was the use of psychological operations or PSYOP that began soon
   after President Ronald Reagan took office.

PSYOP

   The GIUK Gap
   Enlarge
   The GIUK Gap

   Psychological operations began mid-February 1981 and continued
   intermittently through 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 the extreme proximity NATO ships
   could attain to critical Soviet military bases. American bombers also
   flew directly towards Soviet airspace, peeling off at the last moment,
   occasionally several times per week. These penetrations were designed
   to test Soviet radar vulnerability as well as demonstrate US
   capabilities in a nuclear war.


   Able Archer 83

       It really got to them," recalls Dr. William Schneider, [former]
   undersecretary of state for military assistance and technology, who saw
   classified "after-action reports" that indicated U.S. flight activity.
    "They didn't know what it all meant. A squadron would fly straight at
   Soviet airspace, and other radars would light up and units would go on
    alert. Then at the last minute the squadron would peel off and return
                                    home.


   Able Archer 83

KAL 007

   In contrast to the extremely secretive PSYOPs against the Soviet Union,
   the Soviet Union's attack on the Korean civilian airliner KAL 007, on
   September 1, 1983, brought relations between the two superpowers to a
   very public new low. In addition to illustrating the historically
   antagonistic relations between the USA and USSR in the early 1980s, the
   Soviet attack on KAL 007 lends several insights into Able Archer 83.
   First, the Soviet Union (perhaps due to PSYOP penetrations) guarded its
   territorial airspace strongly. Second, Soviet satellite systems were
   ineffective; they could not differentiate between a civilian and
   military aircraft, nor detect and prevent an American nuclear strike.
   Finally, the disaster demonstrated the hair-trigger mindset held by
   many in the Soviet Union. Reagan assessed in his memoirs, "If, as some
   people speculated, the Soviet pilots simply mistook the airliner for a
   military plane, what kind of imagination did it take to think of a
   Soviet military man with his finger close to a nuclear push button
   making an even more tragic mistake?"

Weapons buildup

   On March 23, 1983, Reagan proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative,
   labeled by the media and critics as "Star Wars". While Reagan viewed
   the initiative as a safety net against nuclear war, leaders in the
   Soviet Union viewed it as a definitive departure from the relative
   weapons parity of Detente and an escalation of the arms race into
   space. General Secretary Andropov lambasted Reagan for "inventing new
   plans on how to unleash a nuclear war in the best way, with the hope of
   winning it."
   The US Pershing II Missile
   Enlarge
   The US Pershing II Missile

   Despite the enormous Soviet outcry over the "Star Wars" program, the
   weapons plan that generated the most danger during Able Archer 83 was
   the 1979 NATO approval and subsequent deployment of intermediate-range
   Pershing II missiles in Western Europe. These missiles, deployed to
   counter Soviet SS-20 intermediate-range missiles on its own western
   border, represented a major threat to the Soviets. The Pershing II was
   capable of destroying Soviet "hard targets" such as underground missile
   silos and command and control bunkers. The missiles also possessed
   "super sudden first strike capability"; it was estimated that the
   missiles (deployed in West Germany) could reach targets in the Soviet
   Union within four to six minutes of their launch. These capabilities
   led Soviet leaders to believe that the only way to survive a Pershing
   II strike was to preempt it. This fear of an undetected Pershing II
   attack, according to CIA historian Benjamin B. Fischer, was explicitly
   linked to the mandate of Operation RYAN: to detect a decision by the
   United States to launch a nuclear attack and (it must be believed) to
   preempt it.

Exercise Able Archer 83

   Thus, on 2 November 1983, as Soviet intelligence services were
   attempting to detect the signs of a nuclear strike, NATO began to
   simulate one. The exercise, codenamed Able Archer, spanned Europe and
   simulated European command and communications procedures during a
   nuclear war. It probably emulated the Pentagon’s Single Integrated
   Operational Plan (SIOP), which, at the time, named 25,000 military
   targets, 15,000 industrial targets, and 500 targets associated with
   Soviet leadership. Some Soviet leadership, because of the preceding
   world events and the exercise’s particularly realistic nature, believed
   — in accordance with Soviet military doctrine — that the exercise may
   have been a cover for an actual attack. Indeed, a KGB telegram of 17
   February described one likely scenario as such:


   Able Archer 83

      In view of the fact that the measures involved in State Orange [a
   nuclear attack within 36 hours] have to be carried out with the utmost
    secrecy (under the guise of maneuvers, training etc) in the shortest
   possible time, without disclosing the content of operational plans, it
   is highly probable that the battle alarm system may be used to prepare
               a surprise RYAN [nuclear attack] in peacetime.


   Able Archer 83

   The 17 February 1983 KGB Permanent Operational Assignment assigned its
   agents to monitor several possible indicators of a nuclear attack.
   These included actions by "A cadre of people associated with preparing
   and implementing decision about RYAN, and also a group of people,
   including service and technical personnel ... those working in the
   operating services of installations connected with processing and
   implementing the decision about RYAN, and communication staff involved
   in the operation and interaction of these installations."

   Because Able Archer 83 simulated an actual release, it is likely that
   the service and technical personnel mentioned in the memo were active
   in the exercise. More conspicuously, British Prime Minister Margaret
   Thatcher and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl participated (though not
   concurrently) in the nuclear drill. President Reagan, Vice President
   George H.W. Bush, and Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger were also
   intended to participate. Fortunately, Robert McFarlane, who had assumed
   the position of National Security Advisor just two weeks earlier,
   realized the implications of such participation early in the exercise’s
   planning and rejected it.

   Another illusory indicator likely noticed by Soviet analysts was an
   influx of ciphered communications between Great Britain and the United
   States. Soviet intelligence was informed that "so-called nuclear
   consultations in NATO are probably one of the stages of immediate
   preparation by the adversary for RYAN." To the Soviet analysts, this
   burst of secret communications between the United States and Great
   Britain one month before the beginning of Able Archer may have appeared
   to be this "consultation". In reality, the burst of communication
   regarded the US invasion of Grenada, which caused a great deal of
   diplomatic traffic as the nominal sovereign of the island was Queen
   Elizabeth II.

   A further startling aspect reported by KGB agents regarded the NATO
   communications used during the exercise. According to the Moscow
   Centre's 17 February 1983 memo,


   Able Archer 83

    It [was] of the highest importance to keep a watch on the functioning
    of communications networks and systems since through them information
   is passed about the adversary’s intentions and, above all, about his
   plans to use nuclear weapons and practical implementation of these. In
   addition, changes in the method of operating communications systems and
        the level of manning may in themselves indicate the state of
                            preparation for RYAN.


   Able Archer 83

   Soviet Intelligence appeared to substantiate these suspicions by
   reporting that NATO was, indeed, using unique, never-before-seen
   procedures as well as message formats more sophisticated than previous
   exercises that possibly indicated the proximity of nuclear attack.

   Finally, during Able Archer 83 NATO forces simulated a move through all
   alert phases, from DEFCON 5 to DEFCON 1. While these phases were
   simulated, alarmist KGB agents mistakenly reported them as actual.
   According to Soviet intelligence, NATO doctrine stated, "Operational
   readiness No 1 is declared when there are obvious indications of
   preparation to begin military operations. It is considered that war is
   inevitable and may start at any moment."
   Soviet SS-20 Missile
   Enlarge
   Soviet SS-20 Missile

   Upon learning that US nuclear activity mirrored its hypothesized first
   strike activity, the Moscow Centre sent its residencies a flash
   telegram on November 8 or 9 (Oleg Gordievsky cannot recall which),
   incorrectly reporting an alert on American bases and frantically asking
   for further information regarding an American first strike. The alert
   precisely coincided with the seven- to ten-day period estimated between
   NATO’s preliminary decision and an actual strike. This was the peak of
   the War Scare.

   The Soviet Union, believing its only chance of surviving a NATO strike
   was to preempt it, readied its nuclear arsenal. The CIA reported
   activity in the Baltic Military District in Czechoslovakia, and it
   determined that nuclear capable aircraft in Poland and Germany were
   placed "on high alert status with readying of nuclear strike forces".
   Former CIA analyst Peter Vincent Pry went further, saying he suspects
   that the aircraft were merely the tip of the iceberg. He hypothesizes
   that — in accordance with Soviet military procedure and history — ICBM
   silos, easily readied and difficult for the United States to detect,
   were also prepared for a launch.

   Soviet fears of the attack ended as the Able Archer exercise finished
   on 11 November. Upon learning of the Soviet reaction to Able Archer 83
   by way of the double agent Oleg Gordievsky, a British MI6 asset,
   President Reagan commented, "I don’t see how they could believe that —
   but it’s something to think about."

Soviet reaction

   President Ronald Reagan and Soviet double agent Oleg Gordievsky
   Enlarge
   President Ronald Reagan and Soviet double agent Oleg Gordievsky

   The double agent Oleg Gordievsky, whose highest rank was KGB resident
   in London, is the only Soviet source ever to have published an account
   of Able Archer 83. Oleg Kalugin and Yuri Shvets, who were KGB agents in
   1983, have published accounts that acknowledge Operation RYAN, but they
   do not mention Able Archer 83. It is important to note that Gordievsky
   and other Warsaw Pact intelligence agents were extremely skeptical of a
   NATO first strike, perhaps because of their proximity and understanding
   of the West. Still, agents reported what they were ordered to observe,
   not their estimations of what their observations meant. This critical
   flaw in the Soviet intelligence system — coined by Gordievsky as the
   "intelligence cycle" — fed the fear of US nuclear aggression.

   No Soviet political figure has publicly acknowledged Able Archer 83.
   Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, who at the time was Chief of the main
   operations directorate of the Soviet General Staff, told Cold War
   historian Don Orbendorfer that he had never heard of Able Archer. The
   lack of public Soviet response over Able Archer 83 has led some
   historians, including Fritz W. Ermarth in his piece, "Observations on
   the 'War Scare' of 1983 From an Intelligence Perch", to conclude that
   Able Archer 83 posed no immediate threat to the United States.

American reaction

   In May 1984, CIA Russian specialist Fritz W. Ermarth drafted
   "Implications of Recent Soviet Military-Political Activities", which
   concluded: "we believe strongly that Soviet actions are not inspired
   by, and Soviet leaders do not perceive, a genuine danger of imminent
   conflict with the United States." Robert M. Gates, Deputy Director for
   Intelligence during Able Archer 83, has published thoughts on the
   exercise that refute this conclusion:


   Able Archer 83

    Information about the peculiar and remarkably skewed frame of mind of
      the Soviet leaders during those times that has emerged since the
   collapse of the Soviet Union makes me think there is a good chance —
    with all of the other events in 1983 — that they really felt a NATO
   attack was at least possible and that they took a number of measures to
     enhance their military readiness short of mobilization. After going
    through the experience at the time, then through the postmortems, and
   now through the documents, I don’t think the Soviets were crying wolf.
   They may not have believed a NATO attack was imminent in November 1983,
   but they did seem to believe that the situation was very dangerous. And
    US intelligence [SNIE 11-9-84 and SNIE 11-10-84] had failed to grasp
                      the true extent of their anxiety.


   Able Archer 83

   A still-classified report written by Nina Steward for the President’s
   Foreign Advisory Board concurs with Gates and refutes the previous CIA
   reports, concluding that further analysis shows that the Soviets were,
   in fact, genuinely fearful of US aggression.

   Some historians, including Beth B. Fischer in her book The Reagan
   Reversal, pin Able Archer 83 as profoundly affecting President Reagan
   and his turn from a policy of Confrontation towards the Soviet Union to
   a policy of Rapprochement. While somewhat cryptic, the thoughts of
   Reagan and those around him provide important insight upon the nuclear
   scare and its subsequent ripples. On 10 October 1983, just over a month
   before Able Archer 83, President Reagan screened a film about Lawrence,
   Kansas being destroyed by a nuclear attack entitled The Day After. In
   his diary, the president wrote that the film "left me greatly
   depressed."

   Later in October, Reagan attended a Pentagon briefing on nuclear war.
   During his first two years in office, he had refused to take part in
   such briefings, feeling it irreverent to rehearse a nuclear apocalypse;
   finally, he consented to the Pentagon official’s requests. According to
   officials present, the briefing "chastened" Reagan. Weinberg said,
   "[Reagan] had a very deep revulsion to the whole idea of nuclear
   weapons ... These war games brought home to anybody the fantastically
   horrible events that would surround such a scenario." Reagan described
   the briefing in his own words: "A most sobering experience with Cap W
   and Gen. Vessey in the Situation room, a briefing on our complete plan
   in the event of a nuclear attack."

   These two glimpses of nuclear war primed Reagan for Able Archer 83,
   giving him a very specific picture of what would occur had the
   situation further developed. After receiving intelligence reports from
   sources including Gordievsky, it was clear that the Soviets were
   unnerved. While officials were concerned with the Soviet panic, they
   were hesitant about believing the proximity of a Soviet attack.
   Secretary of State George P. Shultz thought it "incredible, at least to
   us" that the Soviets would believe the US would launch a genuine
   attack. In general, Reagan did not share the secretary's belief that
   cooler heads would prevail, writing:


   Able Archer 83

    We had many contingency plans for responding to a nuclear attack. But
    everything would happen so fast that I wondered how much planning or
    reason could be applied in such a crisis... Six minutes to decide how
     to respond to a blip on a radar scope and decide whether to unleash
       Armageddon! How could anyone apply reason at a time like that?


   Able Archer 83

   According to McFarlane, the president responded with "genuine anxiety",
   in disbelief that his leadership could have led to an armed attack. A
   still-classified 1990 retroactive analysis shows the President’s more
   alarmed reaction to be more correct than the more relaxed view of some
   of his staff. To the ailing Politburo — led from the deathbed of the
   terminally ill Andropov, a man with no firsthand knowledge of the
   United States, and the creator of Operation RYAN — it seemed "that the
   United States was preparing to launch... a sudden nuclear attack on the
   Soviet Union." In his memoirs, Reagan, without specifically mentioning
   Able Archer 83 — he states earlier that he cannot mention classified
   information — wrote of a 1983 realization:


   Able Archer 83

     Three years had taught me something surprising about the Russians:

   Many people at the top of the Soviet hierarchy were genuinely afraid of
   America and Americans. Perhaps this shouldn't have surprised me, but it
                                   did...
       During my first years in Washington, I think many of us in the
    administration took it for granted that the Russians, like ourselves,
    considered it unthinkable that the United States would launch a first
   strike against them. But the more experience I had with Soviet leaders
     and other heads of state who knew them, the more I began to realize
     that many Soviet officials feared us not only as adversaries but as
   potential aggressors who might hurl nuclear weapons at them in a first
                                  strike...
   Well, if that was the case, I was even more anxious to get a top Soviet
   leader in a room alone and try to convince him we had no designs on the
           Soviet Union and Russians had nothing to fear from us.


   Able Archer 83

Aftermath

   Able Archer 83 was the last nuclear scare of the cold war. By 1983 the
   United States, under the leadership of President Ronald Reagan, was in
   the middle of a massive arms build up, one which would last throughout
   the mid and later half of the 1980s. United States policies of the
   1980s, such as the 600-ship Navy, drove home the US desire to continue
   opposition to the Soviet Union by any means necessary. In the Soviet
   Union the declining health of then General Secretary Konstantin
   Chernenko led to the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985. Gorbachev’s
   policies and programs within the Soviet Union — notably Glasnost and
   Perestroika — set into motion the events that ultimately led to its
   dissolution in 1991.
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