I haven't seen a convincing closure of the debate about whether Petrov was actually the only serious obstacle to WWIII.
In general, it's good to reward people from stopping a mistake even if they are not the last possible place for it to be caught. Defense in depth!
Yeltsin decided not to retaliate in 1995, during another false alarm. It is not clear Andropov would have acted the same way, given the very different levels of tension in 1995 and 1983.
But I would like to know whether he averted a 1% chance of disaster or a 50% chance or an 80% chance.
I mean would the leadership launch in response to being told that ONE missile had been fired? Were they complete retards?
It is Petrov Day again, partially thanks to Stanislaw Petrov.
http://lesswrong.com/lw/jq/926_is_petrov_day/