Context: Vasiliy Arkhipov was a staff officer on a Russian submarine during the Cuban Missile Crisis. After several days of no communication from Moscow, the submarine’s three senior officers voted to launch a nuclear torpedo at American ships, assuming that war had already begun and Moscow had fallen. Vasiliy voted against it and since they could not form a unanimous vote the torpedo was not launched. It’s widely speculated that if the torpedo were to be launched, thermonuclear war was extremely likely to follow.