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> Dr. Strangelove: Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world, eh? > Ambassador de Sadesk

> Dr. Strangelove: Of course, the whole point of a Doomsday Machine is lost, if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell the world, eh? > Ambassador de Sadesky: It was to be announced at the Party Congress on Monday. As you know, the Premier loves surprises. --------------------------- An adversary can only be deterred by what they know. Publicizing stockpiled healthcare supplies informs adversaries that a chemical or biological attack would be less successful, reducing such an attack's likelihood.

blotter_paper 7y ago
> In real life, however, many Mondays and many party congresses passed after Perimeter was created. So why didn't the Soviets tell the world, or at least the White House, about it? No evidence exists that top Reagan administration officials knew anything about a Soviet doomsday plan. George Shultz, secretary of state for most of Reagan's presidency, told me that he had never heard of it. [...] The silence can be attributed partly to fears that the US would figure out how to disable the system. But the principal reason is more complicated and surprising. According to both Yarynich and Zheleznyakov, Perimeter was never meant as a traditional doomsday machine. The Soviets had taken game theory one step further than Kubrick, Szilard, and everyone else: They built a system to deter themselves. [...] By guaranteeing that Moscow could hit back, Perimeter was actually designed to keep an overeager Soviet military or civilian leader from launching prematurely during a crisis. https://www.wired.com/2009/09/mf-deadhand/amp https://www.wired.com/2009/09/mf-deadhand/amp