Joshua's Deke

"General, you are listening to a machine. Do the world a favor and don't act like one."
--Stephen Falken (WarGames)

In the 80s classic film WarGames, a high school student David Lightman unwittingly hacks into NORAD's supercomputer and engages it in a friendly game of Global Thermonuclear War. The computer program that Lightman interacts with, named Joshua after the programmer's deceased son, thinks the game is for real and proceeds to present faulty information to decision-makers in the NORAD bunker to fool them into launching a nuclear attack on the USSR. 

Joshua's 'deke' strategy is in the process of working because:

a) Joshua controls all information that appears on the network computer screens at NORAD.

b) All of the NORAD people are connected to the same network.

Fortunately, just before a massive nuclear strike is ordered in response to a fictitious Russian attack, Joshua's 'father' Stephen Falken shows up. He challenges the ranking head of NORAD General Beringer to think about what he's doing. "Does it make sense" Falken asks, that the Russians would launch a massive attack knowing full well that the US would do the same in response?

Beringer reasons it thru and then, in a phone consult w the president, keeps his finger off the trigger. 

But then he goes further. He gets on the horn with people at US air bases on the frontier of the attack and asks them to report what happens. At t-minus zero they unanimously reveal that they're still there. No missiles.

So, here are the questions:

1) What had to be in place for Joshua to deke people into believing the illusion?

2) What transpired that allowed people to finally free themselves from the fantasy?

3) How do these lessons apply to what's going on currently?