In the past 100 years, there have been several incidents where humans have averted war by refusing to follow orders. There have been far fewer incidents of humans causing nuclear war by either following or disobeying orders
> There have been far fewer incidents of humans causing nuclear war by either following or disobeying orders
True - but if you add the words "nearly" and "allegedly", then it's not such a rosy picture.
The book "Red Star Rogue" proposes the idea that the Soviet submarine K-129 was commandeered and attempted to launch a first strike on the United States in 1968. She was very far off her expected course when sunk, and allegedly there was a fail-safe system that scuttled the boat when an unauthorized attempt was made to launch her missiles.[1]
The US's nuclear weapons were capable of being used by a single individual for quite some time, until the 1960s. Even with the advent of the Permissive Action Link, until 1977 the 8-digit arming code was - seriously - "00000000". They were worried they wouldn't have the code available if the weapons were needed.[2]
There are numerous "close calls" that occurred, but those two came to mind right away in the context of human beings causing or having nearly caused a nuclear attack by disobeying orders in particular.
