On January 25, 1995, the world came within minutes of a nuclear war between the US and Russia which would have definitely led to the Third World War.
Norway and the United States had launched a research rocket (for charting the Arctic) from a Norwegian island. Following standard protocol, Norway had alerted Russia in advance about the firing, but the message never made its way to the right people. In the middle of the night, Russian radar detected what looked like a nuclear missile launched toward Moscow from a US submarine.
The military immediately called President Boris Yeltsin, awakening him with the news that the country appeared to be under attack. The President, for the first time ever, activated the infamous black suitcase that contains the codes for launching nuclear missiles. He had just a few minutes to decide whether to launch any or all of the country's 2,000 hair-trigger nukes at the US. Luckily for the entire world, while Yeltsin was conferring with his highest advisors, Russia's radar showed that the missile was headed out to sea. The red alert was cancelled. The Third World War was averted.
What makes this even more nerve-racking is that Russia's early-warning systems are in much worse shape now than they were in '95. The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers explains that while Russia needs 21 satellites to have a complete, fully-redundant network capable of accurately detecting missile launches, as of 1999 they have only three. The number of current Satellites is decreasing, mostly them being out of the functional date.
One more incident happened in 2006, although not this serious. North Korea's launch of ballistic missiles in July 2006 and the reaction of Russian generals - who appeared confused and uninformed about the details of their neighbor's exercise - raised serious concerns about Russia's current early warning system. According to the experts, at least four Russian satellites are needed to constantly watch North Korea.
Russia has none to carry out that task, nor does it have a geo-synchronous satellite that can monitor the Asia-Pacific region 24 hours a day. Fears are worsened! Only one Russian satellite is currently over the continental United States compared to 12 or 13 U.S. spy satellites, which are constantly monitoring Russia.
