Educational Wargaming: Historical/Case-Based Research Exercise Able Archer 83

ABLE ARCHER was an annual NATO exercise that had taken place for years. However, the exercise revolution conducted in November 1983 by the U.S. and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies received the most notoriety. It appeared so realistic that the Russians believed that a nuclear strike on its nation was a strong possibility. However, due to a combination of Operation RYaN, historical correlations, and other circumstances taking place before initiating this annual exercise and the culmination of the exercise itself. Many Scholars view the miscalculation and misinterpretation of the series of events as the closest the U.S. and the Soviet Union came to nuclear war since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. However, as a historical event, ABLE ARCHER 83 is still less researched and written about by scholars. Some declassified documents, many of them above Top Secret from both sides at the Cold War's height, were released under the Freedom of Information Act, such as memos and briefing papers. Much of the intelligence from the fall of 1983, both American and Soviet, remains classified.