War game that almost sparked Armageddon: Deep in a Nato bunker, Western forces rehearsed their nuclear response to a Soviet invasion. But the panicking Russians thought it was the real thing

The Salisbury chemical attack and the Syrian air strikes have left East-West relations in the worst state for several decades. In a riveting new book, historian TAYLOR DOWNING recounts earlier moments when the world skidded towards disaster. Today — in the final part of his series — he shows how, in 1983, the Soviets became convinced that a routine Nato exercise was an imminent attack.

索尔兹伯里的化学攻击和叙利亚的空袭已经使东西方关系跌至几十年来的冰点。在一本引人入胜的新书中，历史学家泰勒·唐宁讲述了世界滑向灾难的早期历史时刻。今天—在该系列的最后一部分—他展示了1983年苏联人如何确信北约的例行演习实际就是一场迫在眉睫的进攻。

At the peak of the heightened tension between the Soviet Union and the West, in November 1983 Nato — the West’s military alliance — began an elaborate war game it codenamed Able Archer. It was an annual communications exercise to practise command-and-control procedures that would be used in the event of war with the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact nations.

1983年11月，在苏联与西方之间紧张关系达到顶峰的时候，北约—西方的军事同盟—开始了一场代号为“优秀射手”的精心策划的战争游戏。这是一年一度的演习，磨炼指挥控制流程，以便将来用于与苏联主导的华沙条约国家的战争。

It did not require simulated fighting or even the deployment of tanks or armoured vehicles to their battle stations. It was a rehearsal of how decisions would be made and commands issued in the event of a fast-moving war.

演习不需要模拟战斗，甚至不需要将坦克或装甲车部署到战斗岗位。这是一场如何在局势迅速发展的战争中作决定、发指令的演练。

Able Archer was played out deep inside a bunker known as the ‘nuclear vault’ near the Belgian city of Mons, south-west of Brussels. There, war gamers invented a lively but credible scenario in which the Soviets invade Finland and Norway, and pour tanks into West Germany which rapidly overpower Nato forces.

“优秀射手”在比利时布鲁塞尔西南部小城蒙斯附近一个名为“核库”的地堡深处结束了。在那里，战争游戏玩家们虚构了生动而可信的场景，苏联入侵芬兰和挪威，坦克涌入西德，迅速地控制了北约部队。

As usual with such exercises, all this was routinely monitored by eavesdrop Soviet intelligence. Except that this time, what they heard and how they interpreted it sparked such alarm in Moscow that they nearly engulfed the world in a nuclear Armageddon.

像以往的演习一样，他们通过监听苏联的情报来监控。但这一次情况有所不同，他们听到的内容以及他们的解读使他们对莫斯科恐慌起来，他们差点把世界卷入了一场核战的世界末日。

The Soviet commanders knew they had their own contingency plans to attack the West under the cover of a similar military exercise. They now suspected the West was doing the same.

苏联指挥官很清楚，他们已制定了应急计划，在军事演习的掩护下袭击西方国家。他们现在怀疑西方也在做同样的事情。

The Nato players running the war game decided they were losing the conventional war and must escalate the conflict. They went to the extreme military alert status known as DefCon1 — the use of nuclear weapons.

北约成员国认为，他们在常规战争中正走向失败，必须使冲突升级。他们进入了被称为核战危机1的极端军事戒备状态——使用核武器。

Initially, just a few tactical nuclear missiles were ‘fired’ at Soviet tank regiments. But when this failed to stop the ‘onslaught’ and the Warsaw Pact responded by wi out Nato command bases, the war gamers requested from their political masters authorisation for a massive nuclear strike against the Soviet Union.

最初，他们只向苏联坦克兵团“发射”了几枚战术核导弹。但是，当他们发现这未能阻止“猛攻”，而华沙公约组织摧毁了北约的指挥基地作为回应，政治大师授权战争玩家对苏联进行大规模的核武打击。

In America, President Ronald Reagan denounced the Soviet Union as ‘the evil empire’, while on Russian TV the U.S. was portrayed as a warmonger bent on world domination and Reagan was regularly described as a ‘reckless criminal’ and even compared to Hitler.

美国的罗纳德·里根总统谴责苏联是“邪恶帝国”，而在俄罗斯电视将美国描绘成企图统治世界的好战分子，将里根形容为“鲁莽的罪犯”，甚至将他与希特勒相提并论。

A leading Politburo member told his fellow countrymen: ‘Comrades, the international situation is white hot.’ Air raid drills were held in factories. Thousands of Soviet missile sites were routinely on alert, ready to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike against Washington DC and other major U.S. cities at any sign that the West was about to make a pre-emptive first strike.

一位政治局常委告诉他的同胞：“同志们，国际形势已经白热化了。”工厂举行空袭演习。成千上万的苏联导弹基地处于戒备状态，准备对华盛顿和美国其他主要城市发动报复性的核打击，因为种种迹象表明，西方随时将先发制人。

Fearing that if they waited any longer it would be too late to respond, they put the entire Soviet nuclear arsenal with its 11,000 warheads — each of which had the destructive capacity of roughly 40 Hiroshima bombs — onto the maxmum state of combat alert.

他们担心，如果他们再等下去将来不及做反应，他们把整个苏联核武库的11000枚核弹头(每枚都有大约40颗广岛原子弹的破坏力)都升至最高战斗警报状态。

In the U.S., only the President can authorise the use of nuclear weapons. A top military aide who has gone through the most rigorous security vetting is never more than a few steps from the President, carrying the ‘nuclear football’, a briefcase hand-cuffed to his arm that contains the codes for launching nuclear weapons.

在美国，只有总统才能授权使用核武器。一名高级军事助理通过了最严苛的安全审查，从总统手里接过“核足球”，一个铐在他手上的公文包，里面放着核武器的发射代码。

The situation — perhaps even the Cold War as a whole — had reached its most dangerous point. If the Soviets, straining at the leash that November day in 1983, had launched their nuclear weapons, Armageddon would have followed.

这种情况——甚至可能是整个冷战——已经达到了最危险的地步。如果苏联人在1983年11月的那一天拉紧绳索，发射了他们的核武器，世界末日就会接踵而至。