page_title: World War III
section_title: Cuban Missile Crisis: 15–28 October 1962
hierarchical_section_title: World War III / Historical close calls / Cuban Missile Crisis: 15–28 October 1962
caption_attribution_description: English: Soviet submarine B-59, forced to the surface by U.S. Naval forces in the Caribbean near Cuba. U.S. National Archives, Still Pictures Branch, Record Group 428, Item 428-N-711200. Polski: Radziecki okręt podwodny B-59, zmuszony do wynurzenia się przez Marynarkę Wojenną USA na Morzu Karaibskim w rejonie Kuby. U.S. National Archives, Still Pictures Branch, Record Group 428, Item 428-N-711200.
context_page_description: World War III and the Third World War are names given to a hypothetical third worldwide large-scale military conflict subsequent to World War I and II. The term has been in use since at least as early as 1941. Some have applied it loosely to refer to limited or smaller conflicts such as the Cold War or the War on Terror, while others assumed that such a conflict would surpass prior world wars both in its scope and in its destructive impact.
  Due to the development and use of nuclear weapons near the end of World War II and their subsequent acquisition and deployment by many countries, the potential risk of a nuclear devastation of Earth's civilization and life is a common theme in speculations about a Third World War. Another major concern is that biological warfare could cause a very large number of casualties, either intentionally or inadvertently by an accidental release of a biological agent, the unexpected mutation of an agent, or its adaptation to other species after use. High-scale apocalyptic events like these, caused by advanced technology used for destruction, could potentially make the Earth's surface uninhabitable.
context_section_description: The Cuban Missile Crisis: a confrontation on the stationing of Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba, in response to the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion, is considered as having been the closest to a nuclear exchange, which could have precipitated a Third World War. The crisis peaked on 27 October, with three separate major incidents occurring on the same day, all of these incidents having been initiated by the US military.
  The "Arkhipov save" incident occurred when a Soviet submarine nearly launched a nuclear-tipped torpedo in response to having been targeted by American naval depth charges in international waters, with the Soviet nuclear launch response only having being prevented by Soviet Navy executive officer Vasily Arkhipov.
  The shooting down of a Lockheed U-2 spy plane piloted by Rudolf Anderson while violating Cuban airspace.
  The near interception of another U-2 that had somehow managed to stray into Soviet airspace over Siberia, which airspace violation nearly caused the Soviets to believe that this might be the vanguard of a US aerial bombardment.
  Despite what many believe to be the closest the world has come to a nuclear conflict, throughout the entire standoff, the Doomsday Clock, which is run by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to estimate how close the end of the world, or doomsday, is, with midnight being the apocalypse, stayed at a relatively stable seven minutes to midnight. This has been explained as being due to the brevity of the crisis, since the clock monitored more long term factors such as leadership of countries, conflicts, wars, and political upheavals, as well as societies reactions to said factors.
  The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists now credits the political developments resulting from the Cuban Missile Crisis with having actually enhanced global stability. The Bulletin posits that future crises and occasions that might otherwise escalate, were rendered as more stable due to two major factors: 
  A Washington to Moscow direct telephone line, resulted from the communication trouble between the White House and the Kremlin during the crisis, giving the leaders of the two largest nuclear powers the ability to contact each other in real time, rather than sending written messages that needed to be translated and wired, which had dragged out conversations in which seconds could have potentially prevented a nuclear exchange.
  The second factor was caused in part due to the worldwide reaction to how close the US and USSR had come to the brink of World War III during the standoff. As the public began to more closely monitor topics involving nuclear weapons, and therefore to rally support for the cause of non-proliferation, the 1963 test ban treaty was signed. To date this treaty has been signed by 126 total nations, with the most notable exceptions being France and China. Both of these countries were still in the relative beginning stages of their nuclear programs at the time of the original treaty signing, and both sought nuclear capabilities independent of their allies.
  This Test Ban Treaty prevented the testing of nuclear ordnance that detonated in the atmosphere, limiting testing to below ground and under water, decreasing fallout and effects on the environment, and subsequently caused the Doomsday Clock to decrease by five minutes, to arrive at a total of twelve minutes to midnight. Up until this point, over 1000 nuclear bombs had been detonated, and concerns over both long and short term affects to the planet became increasingly more worrisome to scientists.
caption: A US Navy HSS-1 Seabat helicopter hovers over Soviet submarine B-59, forced to the surface by US Naval forces in the Caribbean near Cuba. B-59 had a nuclear torpedo on board, and three officer keys were required to use it. Only one dissent prevented the submarine from attacking the US fleet nearby, a spark that could have led to a Third World War (28–29 October 1962).
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "100", "Image YResolution": "100", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "GIMP 2.6.11", "Image DateTime": "2012:02:04 16:40:07", "Image ExifOffset": "146", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "282", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5410", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "948", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "734"}