Why the most important event in history is something you’ve never heard before.

A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.

Vasily Arkhipov - should be a household name. He isn’t.

He should go down in history as the man who saved the world. But not for something he did. For something, he didn’t do. 

October 27th, 1962, a date few know off hand. A date not etched into our minds. The Cuban missile crisis. The height of the cold war. 

A Russian submarine, B-59 off the coast of Cuba, is discovered by a convoy of American ships. Despite being in international waters, the US navy begins dropping depth charges (small bombs). 

Here is where the trouble starts.  

Depth charges can vary from warnings that don’t do real damage or sink a submarine. The US Navy tried to communicate with Russia HQ and the submarine they were using signaling (i.e. small) depth charges to have the submarine surface for identification. 

The message never got through.

The problem is that B-59 lost communication. They lost contact with Russia and couldn’t pick up US broadcasts because they were hiding from the American ships. They couldn’t tell the size of the depth charges.

Imagine you are the commanding officer of B-59. You’ve lost communication with Moscow. You’re in international waters, and US ships are attacking you. It’s the tensest moment in the last 20 years of the cold war.   

What do you do? But wait! 

It gets more interesting.

America didn’t know, but submarine B-59 had a nuclear torpedo. 

The Captain of B-59 assumed the worst. He was convinced an all-out nuclear war had started between the US and Russia. He wanted to arm and fire the nuclear missile. The chain of command required the 3 most senior officers on board to agree unanimously.   

Two of the three agreed to attack. One did not. 

Vasily Arkhipov was the one.

I’ve talked about the Golden Rule before. While well-intentioned, the Silver Rule provides a better framework. Unfortunately, most people tend to skip this step. 

A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it. 

The Silver Rule argues systems, processes, and actions are improved by subtraction, not addition. Nassim Taleb put it best.  

We live in a society that promotes taking action. There’s a problem … fix it. The process isn’t running well. Find a way to make it run smoother. Someone has an issue. Tell them how to fix it. 

We work so hard to improve a process we never stop and ask a fundamental question. The question that we should ask first every time.

Why do we need that process in the first place? 

Putting effort into making something better that needs to happen is helpful. Putting effort into making something better that shouldn’t exist is useless.  

When a friend has a problem, how often do we jump in and recommend a fix? How often is that fix an addition instead of a subtraction?

When your boss tells you to fix a problem. Figure out what we need to implement (another word for add) is usually the directive. 

So you add steps and are proud of yourself for a job well done. Sometimes that is the right choice. Unfortunately, most of the time, it’s wrong. 

In the tech world, there is a saying that growth creates complexity, and complexity is the killer of growth. 

We learn at a young age to fix problems by addition. School systems push us to add. Removing the problem is too easy, even if it is the correct path. They would rather force you to come up with a creative solution. 

What can we add to fix a problem? We never think of what we can remove. 

In society, we praise the person who took action. Little thought is given to the person who prevented the action altogether. 

To prevent a fight, instead of performing well in one. 

To prevent an argument, instead of winning an argument. 

To prevent an incident, instead of being able to resolve one. 

It’s not a surprise as a society, we praise the person who makes the shot, gives the speech, takes the leap and starts a business, or does a charitable act. The person who makes a big bet and goes all in.  

The results are tangible. Easy to measure. We see how much work they put in and the risk they are taking. It’s easy to see. Something happened. Something maybe even changed. 

Conversely, it’s hard to see the results of a non-action. How do we measure the impact of something not happening? How do we even know? 

It’s easy to see the impact a surgeon has who repairs a torn ligament. But what about the trainer who could have prevented the injury in the first place? The problem is, how do you prove the impact the trainer had?

If you chose, you’d never tear the ligament. Via negativity is more powerful but harder to see. So we don’t recognize it or reward it in the same way. 

But that doesn’t mean it is any less important. It is more important than ever. 

So what happened with B-59? 

An argument broke out with the captain trying to force Arkhipov to give his consent. Eventually, Arkhipov persuaded the captain to the surface and awaited instructions from Moscow. 

They were not under attack, and no war had started. Nobody outside of the crew of B-59 knew how close we were to WWIII until years later. 

Arkhipov was never recognized or rewarded. He doesn’t have a speech, a company, a fortune, or a movement that echoes through time. But he prevented an action that would have changed everything. 

Instead of adding to an already tense situation, he subtracted. He was fixing the issue, preventing it from ever becoming one. 

An advisor to JFK and a historian said, “This was not only the most dangerous moment of the Cold War. It was the most dangerous moment in human history.”

So next time when you’re faced with a problem, ask yourself:

What is the problem? Why does it matter? Does this need to be a problem? Why do we need to solve it? Can we remove it altogether?

You could save yourself a lot of time. You might not get the recognition you deserve. But you’ll have done the right thing. That is what matters most. 

And the next time you think of an unsung hero, maybe you’ll tell the story of Vasily Arkhipov. The man who saved the world not by addition but by subtraction.