How Probability Saved the World!

When the Soviets wanted to assess what chance they had of winning a surprise preemptive nuclear war against the West (before, of course, the West launched one)? What fraction of nukes should be used? What fraction should be reserved for re-retaliation against the inevitable retaliation? What fraction of bombs on either side would misfire or be inaccurate? What were the odds of taking out the Western communication systems in a first strike? How many Western submarines might be close to the Soviet coast to launch their missiles? How much damage might the bombs do?

When there are a huge number of variables, and the odds of each of those variables can be different every hour, statisticians do multiple runs with different numbers probabilities in each run. This is called by a racy name, Monte Carlo runs.

And Monte Carlo runs is exactly what Colonel Valery E. Yarynich did to evaluate the USSR’s chances. And with so many variables with unpredictable probabilities in the equation, Yarynich came to the conclusion that Ron Rosenbaum describes in his book, “How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III”:
“The same weapons might succeed decisively on Monday in a surprise attack or might fail decisively on Tuesday.”
The Soviets realized this was like going to the casinos: you might win, but the odds were pretty slim. I am guessing the Americans came to the same conclusion. That is why neither side ever launched their nukes during the Cold War.

And that is how probability saved the world!

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