Stanislav Petrov, a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air Defense Forces, is credited with preventing nuclear war in 1983. After a false alarm detected five incoming nuclear missiles from the United States, Petrov disobeyed orders and chose not to retaliate. His decision was based on his intuition that the alert was a system malfunction, and he later stated that he "felt in his gut" that it was a mistake. Subsequent analysis confirmed Petrov's judgment, and his actions are widely recognized as having prevented a catastrophic nuclear conflict.
