Just Finished Reading: 1983 – The World at the Brink by Taylor Downing (FP: 2018) [344pp] 

1983 was another big year for me. After three attempts (yes, I know!) I finally managed to get my ass to (Lancaster) university which I started in October of that year. Unknown to me, and most of the rest of humanity, the world almost ended in nuclear fire just a month later – or so the author suggests in a very well-made argument. 

For anyone who lived through the 80’s one of the things they’ll remember if the turbulence and uncertainty around just about everything. It was not the most stable of times. With Reagan in America and Thatcher here the neo-cons were having a field day with the economy and (radical) change was most definitely in the air – except for Russia unless you were talking about the leadership. After Stalin’s death in 1953 Soviet premiers had been coming and going at alarming speed. The thing they had in common was age and their hardline agenda. When Leonid Brezhnev died (in office of course) in 1982 he was replaced by ex-KGB chief Yuri Andropov who died in 1984, to be replaced by Konstantin Chernenko who died the following year, to be replaced by Mikhail Gorbachev who presided over the end of the Soviet Union. Next exactly a stable period in global politics. 

The Soviets had over this time much bigger fish to fry. They were more than aware that a stagnating economy and massive defence spending could not long coexist. But at the same time Reagan was increasing US defence spending in eye-watering amounts. With the proposed deployment of Pershing II missiles in Europe as well as cruise missiles in the UK (I remember going on student demonstrations about them!) the Soviets were becoming terrified about a NATO first strike to decapitate their leadership before a proper response could be attempted. The only possible course of action once this became a reality was to fire first. As tensions rose on both sides – although FAR more on the Russian one – they intended to do just that. 

In deep ignorance of Soviet thinking at this time the Americans continued to ‘poke the bear’ in speeches and in regular violations of Soviet airspace which, as some of you will remember, resulted in the shooting down of Korean airline KAL 007 when it (for still mysterious reasons) entered restricted Soviet airspace on 1st September of that year. To add fuel to the fire, if such was needed, global tensions increased further with the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut on October 23rd. Premier Andropov with his KGB hat firmly in place was becoming daily more convinced that an attack was coming and all of the intelligence his agents throughout the west were feeding back seemed to confirm it. Then came the straw that almost broke the camel's back – a War Game. 

On 7th November Exercise Abel Archer 83 began. It was an exercise that NATO had run before and its primary function was to test systems and people in the event of a nuclear exchange. This year, 1983, a few new wrinkles had been added. Where possible actual world leaders were involved and code systems were changed at certain points in the exercise to simulate real conditions. The Soviets, already deeply paranoid at this point, half convinced themselves that the ‘exercise’ was simply a cover for an actual attack and took a range of precautions in response including having both fighters and nuclear armed bombers on runways ready to go and the dispersal of around 50% of its mobile nuclear missiles across the East. You can imagine what might have happened if something had gone wrong and someone, somewhere, in good faith pushed the button...  

I’d never heard of any of this before. I knew, as we all did living under the threat of instant annihilation, that the threat level fluctuated and them sometimes you could actually taste the tension in the air, but I never appreciated how close that near miss was in late 1983. It was, according to the author, closer than during the Cuban Missile Crisis partially because it was, effectively secret (or unappreciated) until much later. We dodged a bullet without even knowing. Well written and well-argued this might very well keep you up at night. It certainly enhanced my knowledge of that period of the Cold War and made me appreciate just how lucky I was FINISHING my degree with the world still intact. The only (slight) niggle I had was the authors moderately irritating habit of repeating himself a little too much for my liking. Apart from that this was a solid read and is, therefore, definitely recommended for all Cold War fans.