Perroots’ after-action report, written in 1989 upon his retirement from the Air Force, was later declassified by the State Department but is still considered Top Secret by the CIA. Much of the board’s study has since been declassified. “At least some Soviet forces,” the report added, “were preparing to preempt or counterattack” what they saw as an imminent first strike. In a 94-page report stamped Top Secret and six other still higher classification labels, its authors concluded: “There is little doubt in our minds that the Soviets were genuinely worried by Able Archer” and feared that NATO was about to launch an attack “under cover” of the exercise. However, six years later, the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board-a panel of experts with insiders’ experience and outsiders’ disinterest-disputed this judgment. The following May, in a Special National Intelligence Estimate on the subject, the CIA concluded “strongly” that-both in response to Able Archer and as a general proposition-“Soviet actions are not inspired by, and Soviet leaders do not perceive, a genuine danger of imminent conflict or confrontation with the United States.”

crews returned to their bases in response, the Soviets relaxed. In any case, Able Archer ended after its five-day run U.S. Top CIA officials were skeptical, dismissing the Soviets’ “war scare” as “propaganda” designed to inflame anti-American sentiments in Western Europe. and its Western allies would follow if a war against the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact escalated from a conventional battle to nuclear war. 7 throand was designed to test the procedures that the U.S. The earlier NATO game, the one that nearly set off a real war, was larger, more elaborate, and more provocative than usual. and Allied countries-B-52s, electronic-warfare and fighters for defense and offensive penetration.” NATO’s current exercises were planned and publicly announced well before the invasion of Ukraine, and are set in and around Belgium, far away from the Russian border, to avoid misunderstanding. Ivo Daalder, president of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, who was President Obama’s ambassador to NATO, describes them as “pretty full-blown” rehearsals, “involving nuclear-capable aircraft from the U.S.

Such exercises routinely take place around this time of year, and have for many decades. They are certainly aware that, nearly 40 years ago, another nuclear exercise, held against a backdrop of great tension, very nearly triggered World War III.

What defcon level are we at