https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1983_Soviet_nuclear_false_alar...
Or the War Games movie and the Norad training mistake that inspired it.
The English translation "99 Red Balloons" is considerably different as far as the details go.
99LB (the German version) has the baloons getting released and the generals deciding to treat it as an opportunity for a show of force blowing them up intentionally.
99RB, on the other hand, has the EWS confusing them with a threat causing the system itself being the source of the attack.
The message between songs is different, the German version is a warning about the wrong people being in charge of the doomsday machine whereas the English version is a condemnation of the doomsday machine itself.
Interestingly the band was not satisfied with the English version, mainly because they wanted to be a pop band and not a protest band and they thought the English version was too "on the nose" in its condemnation of MAD.
Personally I grew up hearing 99LB on the radio but thinking about the lyrics of 99RB since I don't speak German. 99LB was more popular even in the english speaking world because it's better performed but we all saw it as an anti-MAD protest song which 99RB definitely is, but 99LB is not quite.
99RB has some really great lines missing from 99LB:
The war machine springs to life
Opens up one eager eye
Call the troops out in a hurry
This is what we've waited for
This is it boys, this is warOnly kinda!
„Hielt man fuer UFOs aus dem All / darum schickte ein General / eine Fliegerstaffel hinterher“ They believed that the balloons were unidentified flying objects from outer space. The general panicked and sent a squadron to investigate.
„Dabei waren dort am Horizont nur 99 Luftballons“ However, what they found were only 99 balloons.
Still, there was a problem: „99 Duesenflieger / jeder war ein grosser Krieger / hielten sich fuer Captain Kirk“ The pilots of those jet fighters thought of themselves as warriors on par with Captain Kirk (which is funny; Starfleet is primarily a scientific organization that only incidentally wields weapons).
The neighboring countries concurred: „Die Nachbarn haben nichts gerafft / und fuelten sich gleich angemacht“ They weren't able to suss out anything about these activities and felt provoked by them.
Here's where the war ministers make a show of force though: „99 Kriegsminister / Streichholz und Benzinkanister / hielten sich fuer schlaue Leute / witterten schon fette Beute / riefen Krieg und wollten Macht“ The war ministers brought a proverbial match and gas can to the whole affair. They thought themselves shrewd and crafty and could smell the scent of prey, so they called for war.
„Mann, wer haette das gedacht / dass es einmal soweit kommt / wegen 99 Luftballons“ Man, who could've thought that it came this far because of 99 balloons?
> 99LB was more popular even in the english speaking world
This song predates me by just a handful of years, so I never caught it during its radio heyday, but I can't verify this assertion from personal experience. Perhaps this is a UK-centric view? I'm unsure that much of this kind of cultural exchange made it to the US.
This case, its bullshit machine bullshitting randomly in between specs of stolen wisdom. Nobody asked for that, nobody is in control. We all humans lose in all cases. Quite different scenarios if you asked me.
It's fine not to share the same sense of humor, but if you truly lack an understanding of what someone else would find to laugh at that's an easy thing to learn to broaden your understanding of the world.
Proximate versus ultimate causes. If a war started because America boarded a Chinese vessel, it also-obviously–wouldn't solely be because of that.
After the Franco Prussian war people realized that the next war would involve massive armies full of mobilized (conscripted) men and the country that could mobilize first would win. Countries spend decades planning for this by manufacturing enormous stockpiles of uniforms, giving their entire male population military training, etc.
But the mobilization schedule for even the fastest country was still measured in weeks, but this was a process where days count. Basically once the decision was made to mobilize millions of people across an entire modern society would leap into action transforming itself into a marshal society. Millions of people getting called up, trains full of equipment going everywhere.
Turning off a mobilization that was in progress was fairly difficult to conceive of, so once the decision was made the flywheel would take over, but decision to mobilize had to be made in a pressure cooker environment where hours mattered.
The death of the duke wasn't the "cause" of WWI it was the starting gun for a race where the horses were all waiting impatiently at the starting line.
~"you can't say they slept walked into WW1 when they gave thousands of commands to move horses and men"
Also, in France Caillaux, one of the most powerful pacifist in the government (he had the economy and was _good_ at it, which is rare enough to be noted), who was anti-war, had to be let go because his wife killed a journalist (not really a journalist, but adjascent enough so that the difference don't matter) around the same time, leaving Jaurès alone to push Viviani to let it go. Plus Viviani was with the Tsar in Russia when the ultimatum was given, which surely did not help _at all_. Especially since Rasputin was out of the capital at the time. Truly an unfortunate timing here.
Plus the death of multiple diplomats involved in the prevention of WW1 at least once in 1911, who all decided to die around the same time (the last two in 1914, Pressensé and obviously Hartwig, whose death was truly, truly unfortunate).
And here i'm only aware of French people who would have prevented the war (beside Hartwig and Rasputin, but everybody know about them), but i'm pretty sure even more people in Germany and in Austria could have done the same.
If the top diplomats had managed to avert the Serbia crisis then the war would have been delayed until the next crisis.
The fundamental problem is Europe had built itself a civilization-strattling war machine with no "abort" button and put the start button on a hair trigger (the interlocking treaty system).
Which probably wouldn't have worked, but maybe it could have been a much, much smaller conflict.
WW1 happened due to the crazy web of treaties between nations. It's not unlike nuclear holocaust and MAD doctrine. There could have been other triggers for WW1, but that's not really a guarantee.
That is to say, definitely possible and maybe even likely but not inevitable.
They gave commands to prepare for war and just needed the excuse to say go. I think the not-war outcome was very unlikely.
It's not that they needed an excuse to say no, it's that they each thought backing down would be worse. And tbh I don't think any the current leaders are better. Nicholas II "I will not become responsible for a monstrous slaughter" vs Putin's war of choice.
He asked for his country to go to war more than two dozen times leading up to the outbreak. Ferdinand was the main opposition to his desires
The first episodes to the YT channel go into many of the details. I really like that group, they make week-by-week war documentaries with many mini-series on special topics. Top notch content and production quality.