“The US intelligence had failed to grasp the true extent of their anxiety.”

Robert Gates
CIA Deputy Director
for Intelligence
during Able Archer 83

November 7 2025 — Able Archer 83 is the codename for a command post exercise carried out in November 1983 by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Coordinated from the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) in Casteau, Belgium, it involved NATO forces throughout Western Europe. This exercise began on November 7, 1983 and ended on November 11, 1983. Today, many historians believe that the world almost came to a nuclear war on that week. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

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“Expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the post cold-war era. Such a decision may be expected . . . to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.”

A Fateful Error
George F. Kennan
(Feb. 5, 1997)

UPDATE (November 7, 2025) — At the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2020, Trump told Ursula von der Leyen that US troops will never come to help Europe.

Then he quietly added:

“By the way, Nato is dead, and we will leave, we will quit Nato.”

European leaders were baffled! But why?

NATO was never created to be a permanent organization. In February 1951, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower warned:

“If in 10 years, all American troops stationed in Europe for national defense purposes have not been returned to the United States, then this whole project [NATO] will have failed.”

Silverview, by John Le Carré (2021), appeared nine months after Le Carré’s death at the age of 89.

Near the end of the beautiful novel, Le Carré gives his own conclusion:

“NATO is a leftover Cold War relic doing more harm than good.”

Pope Francis had come to that conclusion long ago:

“NATO barking at Russia’s door led to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.” 

And you should know that an institution does not survive two millennia without a good intelligence agency…

On February 5 1997, the legendary American diplomat George F. Kennan had already predicted that:

“expanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the post cold-war era.”

Those who believe NATO exists primarily for the security of Europe are deeply mistaken.

Its true raison d’être is far darker. NATO stands as one of the most corrupted institutions in modern history.

END of UPDATE

“This war may perhaps not occur through evil intent, but could happen through miscalculation.”

Soviet leader Yuri Andropov
(June 1983)

As with Able Archer exercises from previous years, the purpose of the exercise was to simulate a period of conflict escalation, culminating in the US military attaining simulated DEFCON 1 coordinated nuclear attack.

The 1983 exercise introduced several new elements not seen in previous years, including a new, unique format of coded communication, radio silences, and the participation of heads of government.

This increase in realism, combined with deteriorating relations between the United States and the Soviet Union and the anticipated arrival of Pershing II nuclear missiles in Europe, led some members of the Soviet Politburo and military to believe that Able Archer 83 was a ruse of war, obscuring preparations for a genuine nuclear first strike.

In response, the Soviets readied their nuclear forces and placed air units in East Germany and Poland on alert. The apparent threat of nuclear war ended with the conclusion of the exercise on November 11.

Historians such as Thomas Blanton, Director of the National Security Archive, and Tom Nichols, a professor at the Naval War College, have since argued that Able Archer 83 was one of the times when the world has come closest to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

Other incidents that also brought the world close to such a war include the Soviet nuclear false alarm incident that occurred a month earlier. [Wikipedia]

Robert Gates was the CIA Deputy Director for Intelligence during Able Archer 83. Here is what he later concluded about this event:

“Information about the peculiar and remarkably skewed frame of mind of the Soviet leaders during those times that has emerged since the collapse of the Soviet Union makes me think there is a good chance—with all of the other events in 1983—that they really felt a NATO attack was at least possible and that they took a number of measures to enhance their military readiness short of mobilization.

After going through the experience at the time, then through the post-mortems, and now through the documents, I don’t think the Soviets were crying wolf. They may not have believed a NATO attack was imminent in November 1983, but they did seem to believe that the situation was very dangerous. And US intelligence had failed to grasp the true extent of their anxiety.”

Able Archer 83: The Secret History of the NATO Exercise That Almost Triggered Nuclear War

In his book based on newly declassified documents, Nate Jones tells the chilling story about how, in November 1983, a Soviet misinterpretation of NATO war games almost led to nuclear war.

REFERENCES

Able Archer 83 — Wikipedia

The 1983 Military Drill That Nearly Sparked Nuclear War With the Soviets –Smithsonian Magazine

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40 Years Ago — Able Archer 1983 : The Brink of Apocalypse (November 7-11, 1983)

“In response to this exercise, the Soviets readied their forces, including their nuclear forces, in a way that scared NATO decision makers eventually all the way up to President Ronald Reagan.”

Nate Jones

Able Archer 83:
The Secret History of the NATO Exercise That Almost Triggered Nuclear War