This paranoid:
NATO war games in 1983 inadvertently put the world on the brink of nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union, and US officials underestimated the seriousness of the situation, according to a newly declassified document.
The incident came during a period historians now refer to as the "war scare" at the height of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union was concerned about a sudden and decisive nuclear attack from the United States and its NATO allies.
During this time, in November 1983, NATO conducted a 10-day training exercise called Able Archer that involved NATO forces across Western Europe.
I don't mean to be picky, but the actual NATO exercises were perfectly normal. They did not raise the risk of a nuclear war.
No, the Soviet paranoid reaction to the perfectly normal exercise put us on the brink of nuclear confrontation. That's different. Subtle, I know. But different.
And the Russians today are just as paranoid as their Soviet ancestors. Sleep well.
