As tensions between North Korean and the US heighten fears of a nuclear war, here are the times the world has come perilously close to annihilation only to be saved by smart diplomacy, incompetence or good luck.
The Cuban Missile Crisis
This is the closest the world has come to a nuclear war.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a frightening confrontation in October 1962 between the US and the USSR at the height of the Cold War.
In response to the US’s failed CIA-led 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and American ballistic missiles in Turkey and Italy, the Soviet Union, led by Nikita Khrushchev, agreed to a request from Cuba’s Fidel Castro in July 1962 to place nuclear weapons on the island which sits 90 miles off the coast of Florida.
On October 15, the US discovered what the Soviets were doing and President John F. Kennedy and his military leaders decided on a naval quarantine of Cuba.
After a highly fraught two week period in and around the waters of Cuba, negotiations between Kennedy and Khrushchev found a resolution to the crisis, with the Soviets agreeing to dismantle and remove their weapons from Cuba and the Americans saying they would not invade Cuba.
Kennedy secretly agreed to take down US missile sites in Turkey as well.
In November, Kennedy ended the blockade and by the end of the year, all Soviet missiles were gone from Cuba.
Robert Litwak of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars has warned in the New York Times that the current conflict between the US and North Korea is “the Cuban missile crisis in slow motion.”
The Yom Kippur War
In October 1973, Egyptian and Syrian forces launched an attack against Israel on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar aiming to win back territory lost during the third Arab-Israeli war in 1967.
Israel and its Prime Minister Golda Meir were caught off guard and fought back by authorizing the activation and distribution of nuclear warheads to the air force.
As a result of the crisis the US moved to a DEFCON-3 alert and B-52 nuclear bombers were prepared.
The US was concerned that if Israel used nukes against Syria or Egypt the Soviets would hit back against the Jewish state.
The US would then likely commit a retaliatory strike.
The UN was able to secure a cease-fire between Egypt and Israel but not before significant casualties for Israel and a heavy military defeat for Syria as Israel gained more territory in the Golan Heights.
Korean Airlines Flight 007
The September 1, 1983, shooting down of a passenger jet by Soviet fighter jets, in which 269 people died, was one of the great misunderstandings of the Cold War.
The tragic incident also highlighted the disturbingly error-prone nature of Early Warming Systems.
Amid intense paranoia in the Soviet region about US spy planes, the USSR was put on high alert when the Korea Air Lines Boeing 747 veered off course from New York to Seoul via Anchorage, Alaska when its autopilot failed.
As the plane — which was similar in appearance to US surveillance aircraft such as the Boeing RC-135 — approached Soviet airspace it was being closely monitored.
Soviet military aircraft fired warning shots and signaled the Korean plane in international code.
But when there was no response Soviet pilot Gennadi Osipovitch was given instructions to fire upon the plane by his command.
“My orders were to destroy the intruder,” Osipovitch told CNN years later.
“I fulfilled my mission.”
The USSR denied knowledge of the incident before claiming the plane was on a spy mission.
President Ronald Reagan said the attack was “a crime against humanity” with “absolutely no justification, legal or moral.”
The incident only served to heighten fears of a Cold War confrontation.
Three weeks after the incident a USSR early warning station commanded by Stanislav Petrov erroneously detected several inbound US intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Petrov saw the situation as a false alarm and did not report the incident to higher up in the chain.
It was a move that many said could have prevented World War III.
Able Archer 83
In November 1983, a NATO war game, named Able Archer 83, almost led to a nuclear holocaust.
The Soviets were convinced that the large-scale military exercise being conducted in Eastern Europe was a ruse for a real invasion and a US nuclear first strike.
The exercise simulated a coordinated nuclear war and heads of government were involved.
In response, the USSR armed their intercontinental nuclear missiles and put them on the front line, cutting down their standard process times from hours to just 20 minutes.
What saved the world from possible catastrophe was incompetence — the fact that the US didn’t notice what the USSR had done.
The West did not raise its “real” alert status in response to Russia’s heightened state of readiness — because it didn’t notice.
Doing so would have acted as confirmation for the Soviet’s paranoia — and possibly tipped Moscow over the edge.
But the US never changed its DEFCON status. So Russia continued to hesitate.
Pakistan vs. India
Pakistan readied its nuclear arsenal for a possible attack against neighbor India in the Kargil war of 1999, in the disputed territory of Kashmir.
As Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif sought American help to prevent an escalation of the war, he admitted to president Bill Clinton that his country was ready to use their nuclear arsenal against their bitter rivals.
Sharif indicated he believed India was ready to do the same.
“You’ve put me in the middle today, set the US up to fail and I won’t let it happen,” Clinton is reported to have told Sharif.
“Pakistan is messing with nuclear war.”
Clinton convinced Sharif not to use his nukes and to pull his forces out of India-administered Kashmir before he was able to get India to agree to a cease-fire.
Tension again flared between the countries in 2001 and 2002 after a terrorist attack on the Indian parliament that was blamed on Pakistani terrorists.
Both sides began massing troops on their borders and along the “Line Of Control” in Kashmir.
There were again fears of nuclear war between the foes in a post-9/11 world.
In October 2002 international diplomatic efforts led to the withdrawal of India and Pakistani troops from their borders.
North Korea threatens the US
On March 7, 2013, North Korea threatened the US with a preemptive nuclear strike after the UN approved new sanctions against the reclusive regime.
In response, the White House said it was “fully capable” of defending against any North Korean missile attack.
A month later the North told foreigners to leave South Korea, claiming the two countries were on the brink of nuclear war.
“The situation on the Korean Peninsula is inching close to a thermonuclear war due to the evermore undisguised hostile actions of the United States and the South Korean puppet warmongers and their moves for a war,” North Korea said in a statement.
Even US Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned of “an uncontrollable” situation.
But many military analysts saw an attack at the time as unlikely.