10 ms·

Dead Hand

73 points by starwind 5y ago

starwind 5y ago
I think they watched Doctor Strangelove and said "yeah, let's do that" Excerpt: It was meant to be a backup communication system, in case the key components of the "Kazbek" command system and the link to the Strategic Missile Forces are destroyed by a decapitation first strike. To ensure its functionality the system was designed as fully automatic, and with the ability to decide on the adequate retaliatory strike on its own with no (or minimal) human involvement in the event of an all-out attack. According to Vladimir Yarynich, a developer of the system, this system also served as a buffer against hasty decisions based on unverified information by the country's leadership. Upon receiving warnings about a nuclear attack, the leader could activate the system, and then wait for further developments, assured by the fact that even the destruction of all key personnel with the authority to command the response to the attack could still not prevent a retaliatory strike. Thus, use of the system would theoretically reduce the likeliness of a false-alarm-triggered retaliation.
- tines 5y ago
  > Thus, use of the system would theoretically reduce the likeliness of a false-alarm-triggered retaliation How does not preventing a retaliatory strike reduce the likeliness of a false-alarm-triggered retaliation? It seems like it increases it.
  - monocasa 5y ago
    Dead hand can be stopped by the normal command and control system. The idea is that by starting the timer in a way that guarantees the missiles launch if command and control is wiped out, that gives them another option than 'launch the missiles now because we won't get a second chance'.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    Because you KNOW that if it hits the fan, they'll launch, you aren't as tempted to early launch thinking that if it IS an attack and aimed at you, you won't be able to order the launch. That probably doesn't clear it up. Let's try again. 1. Nuke incoming, maybe. 2. If it is incoming, it will hit me, and I will be unable to order a retaliation. 3. Therefor, I should order it now to be safe. Instead you replace 3 with "I will arm the dead hand, and it WAS an actual strike, the dead hand will retaliate for me. If it was not, nothing will happen."
  - starwind 5y ago
    Assuming Perimeter worked as intended, it would finish the job automatically eliminating the fear that no one would be alive to fire a retaliatory strike. Moscow would not longer have to fire their nuclear weapons in a panic. During the Cold War, MAD implied you had to be suicidal to launch a nuclear strike against another nuclear-armed adversary—the adversary fires everything in retaliation and kills you. So the mission in a first-strike shifted to taking out the adversary's leadership preventing them from launching a retaliatory strike. This created a situation where the US and the Soviets were incentivized to fire at the slightest provocation: if Moscow thinks Washington launched a nuclear strike, Moscow better fire before American nukes come down. With the Dead Hand, Moscow could activate Perimeter which would listen for certain indications of nuclear strikes and if it was determined that a nuclear strike occurred, automatically launch Soviet nuclear weapons in retaliation.
    - tines 5y ago
      Ah, that makes sense. I feel like the way it was originally worded was a bit confusing.
      - starwind 5y ago
        the sentence from wikipedia definitely needs more context
    - mistrial9 5y ago
      try to change the Wikipedia page - go ahead, we are watching ! I mean, most everyone agrees it could be improved right? "wiki" - pedia?
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > Assuming Perimeter worked as intended, it would finish the job automatically eliminating the fear that no one would be alive to fire a retaliatory strike. Moscow would not longer have to fire their nuclear weapons in a panic. > ...This created a situation where the US and the Soviets were incentivized to fire at the slightest provocation: if Moscow thinks Washington launched a nuclear strike, Moscow better fire before American nukes come down. > With the Dead Hand, Moscow could activate Perimeter which would listen for certain indications of nuclear strikes and if it was determined that a nuclear strike occurred, automatically launch Soviet nuclear weapons in retaliation. If the Russians developed Perimeter to address these concerns, what did the US do? I'd assume it built more resilient command and control infrastructure with more delegation, because Russia seems less comfortable with decentralization than the US, but I don't really know.
- deleted 5y ago
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Steltek 5y ago
The "semi autonomous" in the title makes me think of FSD cars. It's amusing to think of the differences in caution for adopting new technology: "might cause a crash" versus "might end the world".
W-Stool 5y ago
More information can be found in the book "The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy" by David E. Hoffman. It really is a Dr. Strangelove inspired "Doomsday Device".
- jacquesm 5y ago
  The way I understand it it needs to be activated first, and that requires a human.
  - jpgvm 5y ago
    I also think there is a second human stage after the system has been activated. From my understanding after Dead Hand is armed with the access codes it goes into a monitoring state. Until all conditions are met nothing happens but upon losing its links to all nuclear commands -and- it detects that a nuclear strike has landed on Soviet soil only then does it provide nuclear arming codes to the staff of the Dead Hand control bunker. These poor souls then make the decision to end humanity or not by launching the control missiles which will activate all automated nuclear weapons, transmit authorizations to bombers and submarines etc - which too will have humans that need to make the call if they want to take part in the apocalypse. Though AFAICT Russia still has enough land based ICBMs to level every major city on earth and all of those are probably 100% automated so I don't think the poor airmen/seamen will have to worry too much about their conscience no matter which choice they make.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      There has been some speculation about how many of these will still work due to periodic remanufacturing requirements, that would be interesting to get some hard data on. Probably a very closely guarded state secret.
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > Though AFAICT Russia still has enough land based ICBMs to level every major city on earth... I learned the other day that there are two main strategies for targeting nuclear weapons, counter-force (nuking military targets) vs counter-value (nuking cities). The former requires a lot more warheads for an effective deterrent, and the large stockpile of nukes in the US and Russia implies that they're doing a lot of counter-force targeting (though I suppose that doesn't mean they won't also attack counter-value targets as well). IIRC, according to this an exclusive counter-force nuclear attack against Russia would use far more warheads, but kill less people than an exclusive counter-value attack (~10 million vs 50 million deaths). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2968/057004008 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2968/057004008
cf141q5325 5y ago
Friendly reminder that getting out of all those pesky nuclear arms control treaties meant a greatly reduced reaction time on both sides. And having 15 instead of 45 minutes to react to a detected launch makes errors naturally a lot more likely. Nuclear war doesnt need crazy people on both sides ready to ride the bomb to end human civilization. It only needs sufficiently brainwashed bureaucrats who are stuck in the process of an apparatus that believes they have their hands forced to retaliate. edit: And just in case somebody still has any delusions of efficiency left, most of those past cases of "almost ended the world" were down to one men who had the power and accompanying backbone to overrule and /or block a strike decision. With Vasily Arkhipov it was 2 to 1 for the "retaliatory" nuclear strike against depth charges aimed at getting them to surface.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > Friendly reminder that getting out of all those pesky nuclear arms control treaties meant a greatly reduced reaction time on both sides. And having 15 instead of 45 minutes to react to a detected launch makes errors naturally a lot more likely. Could you be more specific about the treaties? It kind of sounds like you're talking about the INF treaty given the comment about reaction time, but IIRC that treaty never covered submarine-launched missiles and a treaty isn't any good if it's not actually complied with (e.g. the Wikipedia page lists a decade of alleged violations prior to withdrawal, and furthermore the treaty didn't bind all relevant powers).
  - cf141q5325 5y ago
    In February Biden left the Russian Arms Control Talks in reaction to the Russian troop movements. They were discussing reinstating the INF. With intermediate range missiles like the SS20 and Pershing with especially short reaction cycles. Which we actually got rid of in the 80s. Could you be more specific with treaty violations? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate-Range_Nuclear_Forces_Treaty#Initial_skepticism_and_allegations_of_treaty_violations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate-Range_Nuclear_For... Has the tests for missiles with a disputed range On a side note, when searching for it google also told me that the last policy round apparently allowed the first strike use of nuclear weapons https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2022-04/news/biden-policy-allows-first-use-nuclear-weapons https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2022-04/news/biden-policy-al...
GartzenDeHaes 5y ago
Would the Reagan administration really allow a doomsday device gap? Think about it.
- alehlopeh 5y ago
  It’s funny how the presence of the last sentence changes the vibe of your comment from “well-intentioned question implicitly asking the reader to give it some thought” to “crazy talk coming from a conspiracy-theorist.”
- motoboi 5y ago
  America has one.
  - evo 5y ago
    Historically, I think the answer is even scarier: the Dead Hand system presupposes that a centralized power is necessary to start nuclear war, the American system has been to delegate that power to regional and even theater-level military commanders (particularly in the bomber days, when sending orders to the Pacific theater was never going to work in the necessary timescale). It makes sense from a game theory perspective--if the commander-in-chief was literally the only person with strategic command authority, an assassination could render the entire country vulnerable to an unopposed first strike. An airfield on the northern edge of Japan is close enough to Russian airspace that, at alert, the local airfield commander was going to have to make the call to sortie their bombers while the runways were still intact, and once deployed it wasn't unimaginable that a Dr. Strangelove-style scenario could go down. It's been a few years, but I think this was mostly detailed in The Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg.
- aerostable_slug 5y ago
  They didn't. Various mobile nuclear C3 assets were created and/or modernized, GWEN was started, etc. We didn't need the precise equivalent because we chose a different route: redundant mobile command assets and a great deal of effort into preserving the Presidency (the office, not the person) at least until the combatant commanders had launch authority delegated to them. FWIW, the US used to have launch code broadcast rockets. The early ones were housed in dedicated sounding rockets. Later, radio "warheads" were secretly dispersed among the Minuteman fields. We no longer use them because there are enough reliable nodes to get the word out even while under attack (e.g. Milstar). Fun fact: missile command centers fitted to support the command rockets had a voice console where a crew member would read the current go codes into a microphone to be recorded on the "warhead" just before launch. Try not to stutter!
megous 5y ago
Why counterattack, though? MAD is for deterence, so if one side attacks, MAD failed. Counterattack will likely not help anything other than further escalation and further losses on the counter-attacking side. It would be kinda irrational at that point.
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  Your understanding of MAD seems fundamentally flawed. MAD works precisely because of the existence of a credible counter-attack strategy, it doesn't matter whether that attack is before or after the missiles strike.
  - megous 5y ago
    Yes, I understand that correctly. You can have credible existance of counter attack ability for MAD, but it can still be irrational to counter-attack once one side drops a nuke.
    - motoboi 5y ago
      It’s not just capacity to counter-strike, but willingness to do so. This is a whole game theory thing that was developed in could war. To be willing to kill millions even if it was pointless is part of the game: the enemy must be completely and absolutely convinced that a counter strike will happen. This is the only way to deter. Absolute and complete certainty cannot be faked (given spies). It can only be provided if indeed the willingness to counter attack is real and enforced.
    - jpgvm 5y ago
      It's 1-part reinforcing MAD and 1-part guaranteed revenge. Simply by existing it rules out any kind of first strike at all. No matter which targets you hit (you can't destroy all the nukes, that is essentially impossible), even if Moscow is a glass crater and you successfully hit every nuclear command bunker this thing is still going to wipe you out. Yes, all this does is end humanity - but the threat needs to be there to avoid the first strike in the first place and the contract is if you hit us with a nuke you are going to burn with us.
Symmetry 5y ago
I think I'd rather have the Soviet system of having this system that you can turn on that fails deadly while also requiring multiple parties to agree to turn it on or launch than the US system where just one person has the authority to launch a nuclear attack all on their own.
- wollsmoth 5y ago
  I think this is more of a dead mans switch and not replacement for individual authority. I would not be surprised if something similar exists somewhere in the US defense system actually. I'm sure there were individuals in the Soviet Union who could fire a nuclear weapon.
  - Symmetry 5y ago
    It's not that it's a replacement for individual authority, it just removes the need for that individual authority. You can't rely on getting several people together to make the decision to launch a retaliatory attack in time, hence the need in the US system to invest that power in one person. Because retaliation is handled by the dead man switch you can require other uses of nuclear weapons to require consensus.
- deleted 5y ago
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daenz 5y ago
As someone who has worked with extremely intelligent and skilled system engineers, who have all checked each other's work, but still a critical infrastructure issue slips by, this scares the shit out of me. The hubris of thinking human beings can design a robust system that, if it fails, kills everyone alive in short order, is insane.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jpgvm 5y ago
  There are multiple humans in the loop. Only the most scary (and likely inaccurate) descriptions of the system make it seem fully automated. AFAICT there is still a bunch of folk buried deep in a bunker that still need to decide if the world should end.
monkeybutton 5y ago
Why a command rocket that is launched to broadcast orders instead of using satellites?
- evan_ 5y ago
  Easier to defend than a satellite maybe?
  - jpgvm 5y ago
    Correct. Also there is apparently multiple of them. Rocket silos are incredibly difficult to destroy, even with nukes.
- evo 5y ago
  The most consequential recipient of said orders is going to be a ballistic nuclear submarine deep underwater, and water is a terrific shield for the higher frequency radio bands a satellite will have access to. I'm guessing the command rocket will spool out an extremely long wire on its flight trajectory and give access to the VLF or ULF radio bands that can penetrate the ocean.
  - jpgvm 5y ago
    I think the command signal is merely picked up by existing repeaters that broadcast to the submarines. I actually think the most consequential recipients are actually the land based ICBMs as those are likely 100% automated installations. Even if the submarines are already at launch depth I would assume there would still be final humans in the loop in all nuclear bombers and subs, making them unreliable launchers. (who really wants to press the "end the world" button?)
    - evo 5y ago
      I actually wouldn't be surprised if it did have a direct VLF antenna system. If the Dead Hand had triggered, that suggests multiple Soviet C&C headquarters went offline due to a first strike, and at that point you can't really assume your repeaters or silos are still online. The submarine fleet's primary purpose is to be the surviving second strike capacity.
deleted 5y ago
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jakedata 5y ago
I have read a lot of chatter about the state of the Russian military being significantly degraded by material and financial diversions, skill shortages and even looting parts not only from spares but actual deployed equipment. Maintaining a nuclear arsenal and the infrastructure to deploy it is eye-wateringly expensive. I am sure many people are questioning the degree of threat posed by whatever remains of Soviet nuclear armaments. The primary fissile material remains a threat but what about the ability to deliver it and actually trigger the intended explosion once it arrives? I would prefer not to put it to the test, even if 20% still works we are screwed.
- SubiculumCode 5y ago
  Yeah. I bet there are all sorts of shortcuts there...being expensive, you'd think that we'd have intelligence on how much they maintained the systems.
  - jakedata 5y ago
    I don't. I expect "we" do - or at least we have a pretty good idea. If black-market tritium was worth enough to hungry people in Russia we could probably set back readiness even more.
- izend 5y ago
  Supposedly the nuclear weapons development and maintenance was well funded in Russia.
- nimbius 5y ago
  you seem to be conflating Russian military with Soviet military as if they enjoyed a significant divergence, but in reality one is just a progression of the other. the SU35 for example can still stalk down an SR71, just as its soviet SU25 could. Dead Hand is not a former soviet technology, it is actively maintained, staffed, and funded. as the CCCP invented the ICBM, i have full confidence in Russias ability to deliver it. Sarmat is the latest ICBM in development with planned service this year. much like their American counterparts (minuteman) missiles and technology are regularly advanced and upgraded. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-28_Sarmat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-28_Sarmat
ramesh31 5y ago
My pet theory on Putin's ability to maintain power and avoid a coup at this point is that he has spent the last 20 years rigging this system (or something similar) to a personal dead man switch, and is actively holding the entire country of Russia hostage. Everyone in his inner circle is made aware of it once they get close enough, and any leak about it ends with you falling from a window. He's just cynical enough that it goes from "comic-book farce" to "terrifying possible reality" the more you think about it.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  Kinda sorta. My understanding is that he maintains a situation where everyone in power is dirty and you must be demonstrably dirty to get close to the levers of power. That shared guilt helps keep the ruling clique together. Add to that the very real threat of assassination, and it seems pretty airtight. Your idea has the flaw that the leak would be damaging if done, and sometimes people are willing to take action at suicidal personal cost.
quarterdime 5y ago
From that wikipedia link: "Colonel General Varfolomey Korobushin, former Deputy Chief of Staff of Strategic Rocket Forces, in 1992 said that the Russians had a system, to be activated only during a crisis..." Activated only during a crisis? In late February Putin announced that "deterrence forces" were placed on high alert. Reporting on the topic was vague, with no answers about what this announcement meant. In a Reuters article after that announcement, an unnamed US official said this was "putting in play forces that, if there's a miscalculation, could make things much, much more dangerous" [0]. I wonder if Putin's announcement meant activating this dead hand system. Finally I suggest watching Dan Ellsberg's "Doomsday Machine" talk [1]. [0] https://www.reuters.com/world/russian-strategic-missile-forces-placed-high-alert-after-putin-order-ifax-cites-2022-02-28/ https://www.reuters.com/world/russian-strategic-missile-forc... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7cJG9j0NdY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7cJG9j0NdY

73 points by starwind 5y ago

I think they watched Doctor Strangelove and said "yeah, let's do that" Excerpt: It was meant to be a backup communication system, in case the key components of the "Kazbek" command system and the link to the Strategic Missile Forces are destroyed by a decapitation first strike. To ensure its functionality the system was designed as fully automatic, and with the ability to decide on the adequate retaliatory strike on its own with no (or minimal) human involvement in the event of an all-out attack. According to Vladimir Yarynich, a developer of the system, this system also served as a buffer against hasty decisions based on unverified information by the country's leadership. Upon receiving warnings about a nuclear attack, the leader could activate the system, and then wait for further developments, assured by the fact that even the destruction of all key personnel with the authority to command the response to the attack could still not prevent a retaliatory strike. Thus, use of the system would theoretically reduce the likeliness of a false-alarm-triggered retaliation.

tines 5y ago
> Thus, use of the system would theoretically reduce the likeliness of a false-alarm-triggered retaliation How does not preventing a retaliatory strike reduce the likeliness of a false-alarm-triggered retaliation? It seems like it increases it.
- monocasa 5y ago
  Dead hand can be stopped by the normal command and control system. The idea is that by starting the timer in a way that guarantees the missiles launch if command and control is wiped out, that gives them another option than 'launch the missiles now because we won't get a second chance'.
- bombcar 5y ago
  Because you KNOW that if it hits the fan, they'll launch, you aren't as tempted to early launch thinking that if it IS an attack and aimed at you, you won't be able to order the launch. That probably doesn't clear it up. Let's try again. 1. Nuke incoming, maybe. 2. If it is incoming, it will hit me, and I will be unable to order a retaliation. 3. Therefor, I should order it now to be safe. Instead you replace 3 with "I will arm the dead hand, and it WAS an actual strike, the dead hand will retaliate for me. If it was not, nothing will happen."
- starwind 5y ago
  Assuming Perimeter worked as intended, it would finish the job automatically eliminating the fear that no one would be alive to fire a retaliatory strike. Moscow would not longer have to fire their nuclear weapons in a panic. During the Cold War, MAD implied you had to be suicidal to launch a nuclear strike against another nuclear-armed adversary—the adversary fires everything in retaliation and kills you. So the mission in a first-strike shifted to taking out the adversary's leadership preventing them from launching a retaliatory strike. This created a situation where the US and the Soviets were incentivized to fire at the slightest provocation: if Moscow thinks Washington launched a nuclear strike, Moscow better fire before American nukes come down. With the Dead Hand, Moscow could activate Perimeter which would listen for certain indications of nuclear strikes and if it was determined that a nuclear strike occurred, automatically launch Soviet nuclear weapons in retaliation.
  - tines 5y ago
    Ah, that makes sense. I feel like the way it was originally worded was a bit confusing.
    - starwind 5y ago
      the sentence from wikipedia definitely needs more context
  - mistrial9 5y ago
    try to change the Wikipedia page - go ahead, we are watching ! I mean, most everyone agrees it could be improved right? "wiki" - pedia?
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > Assuming Perimeter worked as intended, it would finish the job automatically eliminating the fear that no one would be alive to fire a retaliatory strike. Moscow would not longer have to fire their nuclear weapons in a panic. > ...This created a situation where the US and the Soviets were incentivized to fire at the slightest provocation: if Moscow thinks Washington launched a nuclear strike, Moscow better fire before American nukes come down. > With the Dead Hand, Moscow could activate Perimeter which would listen for certain indications of nuclear strikes and if it was determined that a nuclear strike occurred, automatically launch Soviet nuclear weapons in retaliation. If the Russians developed Perimeter to address these concerns, what did the US do? I'd assume it built more resilient command and control infrastructure with more delegation, because Russia seems less comfortable with decentralization than the US, but I don't really know.
deleted 5y ago
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Steltek 5y ago

The "semi autonomous" in the title makes me think of FSD cars. It's amusing to think of the differences in caution for adopting new technology: "might cause a crash" versus "might end the world".

W-Stool 5y ago

More information can be found in the book "The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy" by David E. Hoffman. It really is a Dr. Strangelove inspired "Doomsday Device".

jacquesm 5y ago
The way I understand it it needs to be activated first, and that requires a human.
- jpgvm 5y ago
  I also think there is a second human stage after the system has been activated. From my understanding after Dead Hand is armed with the access codes it goes into a monitoring state. Until all conditions are met nothing happens but upon losing its links to all nuclear commands -and- it detects that a nuclear strike has landed on Soviet soil only then does it provide nuclear arming codes to the staff of the Dead Hand control bunker. These poor souls then make the decision to end humanity or not by launching the control missiles which will activate all automated nuclear weapons, transmit authorizations to bombers and submarines etc - which too will have humans that need to make the call if they want to take part in the apocalypse. Though AFAICT Russia still has enough land based ICBMs to level every major city on earth and all of those are probably 100% automated so I don't think the poor airmen/seamen will have to worry too much about their conscience no matter which choice they make.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    There has been some speculation about how many of these will still work due to periodic remanufacturing requirements, that would be interesting to get some hard data on. Probably a very closely guarded state secret.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > Though AFAICT Russia still has enough land based ICBMs to level every major city on earth... I learned the other day that there are two main strategies for targeting nuclear weapons, counter-force (nuking military targets) vs counter-value (nuking cities). The former requires a lot more warheads for an effective deterrent, and the large stockpile of nukes in the US and Russia implies that they're doing a lot of counter-force targeting (though I suppose that doesn't mean they won't also attack counter-value targets as well). IIRC, according to this an exclusive counter-force nuclear attack against Russia would use far more warheads, but kill less people than an exclusive counter-value attack (~10 million vs 50 million deaths). https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2968/057004008 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.2968/057004008

cf141q5325 5y ago

Friendly reminder that getting out of all those pesky nuclear arms control treaties meant a greatly reduced reaction time on both sides. And having 15 instead of 45 minutes to react to a detected launch makes errors naturally a lot more likely. Nuclear war doesnt need crazy people on both sides ready to ride the bomb to end human civilization. It only needs sufficiently brainwashed bureaucrats who are stuck in the process of an apparatus that believes they have their hands forced to retaliate. edit: And just in case somebody still has any delusions of efficiency left, most of those past cases of "almost ended the world" were down to one men who had the power and accompanying backbone to overrule and /or block a strike decision. With Vasily Arkhipov it was 2 to 1 for the "retaliatory" nuclear strike against depth charges aimed at getting them to surface.

tablespoon 5y ago
> Friendly reminder that getting out of all those pesky nuclear arms control treaties meant a greatly reduced reaction time on both sides. And having 15 instead of 45 minutes to react to a detected launch makes errors naturally a lot more likely. Could you be more specific about the treaties? It kind of sounds like you're talking about the INF treaty given the comment about reaction time, but IIRC that treaty never covered submarine-launched missiles and a treaty isn't any good if it's not actually complied with (e.g. the Wikipedia page lists a decade of alleged violations prior to withdrawal, and furthermore the treaty didn't bind all relevant powers).
- cf141q5325 5y ago
  In February Biden left the Russian Arms Control Talks in reaction to the Russian troop movements. They were discussing reinstating the INF. With intermediate range missiles like the SS20 and Pershing with especially short reaction cycles. Which we actually got rid of in the 80s. Could you be more specific with treaty violations? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate-Range_Nuclear_Forces_Treaty#Initial_skepticism_and_allegations_of_treaty_violations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate-Range_Nuclear_For... Has the tests for missiles with a disputed range On a side note, when searching for it google also told me that the last policy round apparently allowed the first strike use of nuclear weapons https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2022-04/news/biden-policy-allows-first-use-nuclear-weapons https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2022-04/news/biden-policy-al...

GartzenDeHaes 5y ago

Would the Reagan administration really allow a doomsday device gap? Think about it.

alehlopeh 5y ago
It’s funny how the presence of the last sentence changes the vibe of your comment from “well-intentioned question implicitly asking the reader to give it some thought” to “crazy talk coming from a conspiracy-theorist.”
motoboi 5y ago
America has one.
- evo 5y ago
  Historically, I think the answer is even scarier: the Dead Hand system presupposes that a centralized power is necessary to start nuclear war, the American system has been to delegate that power to regional and even theater-level military commanders (particularly in the bomber days, when sending orders to the Pacific theater was never going to work in the necessary timescale). It makes sense from a game theory perspective--if the commander-in-chief was literally the only person with strategic command authority, an assassination could render the entire country vulnerable to an unopposed first strike. An airfield on the northern edge of Japan is close enough to Russian airspace that, at alert, the local airfield commander was going to have to make the call to sortie their bombers while the runways were still intact, and once deployed it wasn't unimaginable that a Dr. Strangelove-style scenario could go down. It's been a few years, but I think this was mostly detailed in The Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg.
aerostable_slug 5y ago
They didn't. Various mobile nuclear C3 assets were created and/or modernized, GWEN was started, etc. We didn't need the precise equivalent because we chose a different route: redundant mobile command assets and a great deal of effort into preserving the Presidency (the office, not the person) at least until the combatant commanders had launch authority delegated to them. FWIW, the US used to have launch code broadcast rockets. The early ones were housed in dedicated sounding rockets. Later, radio "warheads" were secretly dispersed among the Minuteman fields. We no longer use them because there are enough reliable nodes to get the word out even while under attack (e.g. Milstar). Fun fact: missile command centers fitted to support the command rockets had a voice console where a crew member would read the current go codes into a microphone to be recorded on the "warhead" just before launch. Try not to stutter!

megous 5y ago

Why counterattack, though? MAD is for deterence, so if one side attacks, MAD failed. Counterattack will likely not help anything other than further escalation and further losses on the counter-attacking side. It would be kinda irrational at that point.

whimsicalism 5y ago
Your understanding of MAD seems fundamentally flawed. MAD works precisely because of the existence of a credible counter-attack strategy, it doesn't matter whether that attack is before or after the missiles strike.
- megous 5y ago
  Yes, I understand that correctly. You can have credible existance of counter attack ability for MAD, but it can still be irrational to counter-attack once one side drops a nuke.
  - motoboi 5y ago
    It’s not just capacity to counter-strike, but willingness to do so. This is a whole game theory thing that was developed in could war. To be willing to kill millions even if it was pointless is part of the game: the enemy must be completely and absolutely convinced that a counter strike will happen. This is the only way to deter. Absolute and complete certainty cannot be faked (given spies). It can only be provided if indeed the willingness to counter attack is real and enforced.
  - jpgvm 5y ago
    It's 1-part reinforcing MAD and 1-part guaranteed revenge. Simply by existing it rules out any kind of first strike at all. No matter which targets you hit (you can't destroy all the nukes, that is essentially impossible), even if Moscow is a glass crater and you successfully hit every nuclear command bunker this thing is still going to wipe you out. Yes, all this does is end humanity - but the threat needs to be there to avoid the first strike in the first place and the contract is if you hit us with a nuke you are going to burn with us.

Symmetry 5y ago

I think I'd rather have the Soviet system of having this system that you can turn on that fails deadly while also requiring multiple parties to agree to turn it on or launch than the US system where just one person has the authority to launch a nuclear attack all on their own.

wollsmoth 5y ago
I think this is more of a dead mans switch and not replacement for individual authority. I would not be surprised if something similar exists somewhere in the US defense system actually. I'm sure there were individuals in the Soviet Union who could fire a nuclear weapon.
- Symmetry 5y ago
  It's not that it's a replacement for individual authority, it just removes the need for that individual authority. You can't rely on getting several people together to make the decision to launch a retaliatory attack in time, hence the need in the US system to invest that power in one person. Because retaliation is handled by the dead man switch you can require other uses of nuclear weapons to require consensus.
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daenz 5y ago

As someone who has worked with extremely intelligent and skilled system engineers, who have all checked each other's work, but still a critical infrastructure issue slips by, this scares the shit out of me. The hubris of thinking human beings can design a robust system that, if it fails, kills everyone alive in short order, is insane.

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jpgvm 5y ago
There are multiple humans in the loop. Only the most scary (and likely inaccurate) descriptions of the system make it seem fully automated. AFAICT there is still a bunch of folk buried deep in a bunker that still need to decide if the world should end.

monkeybutton 5y ago

Why a command rocket that is launched to broadcast orders instead of using satellites?

evan_ 5y ago
Easier to defend than a satellite maybe?
- jpgvm 5y ago
  Correct. Also there is apparently multiple of them. Rocket silos are incredibly difficult to destroy, even with nukes.
evo 5y ago
The most consequential recipient of said orders is going to be a ballistic nuclear submarine deep underwater, and water is a terrific shield for the higher frequency radio bands a satellite will have access to. I'm guessing the command rocket will spool out an extremely long wire on its flight trajectory and give access to the VLF or ULF radio bands that can penetrate the ocean.
- jpgvm 5y ago
  I think the command signal is merely picked up by existing repeaters that broadcast to the submarines. I actually think the most consequential recipients are actually the land based ICBMs as those are likely 100% automated installations. Even if the submarines are already at launch depth I would assume there would still be final humans in the loop in all nuclear bombers and subs, making them unreliable launchers. (who really wants to press the "end the world" button?)
  - evo 5y ago
    I actually wouldn't be surprised if it did have a direct VLF antenna system. If the Dead Hand had triggered, that suggests multiple Soviet C&C headquarters went offline due to a first strike, and at that point you can't really assume your repeaters or silos are still online. The submarine fleet's primary purpose is to be the surviving second strike capacity.

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jakedata 5y ago

I have read a lot of chatter about the state of the Russian military being significantly degraded by material and financial diversions, skill shortages and even looting parts not only from spares but actual deployed equipment. Maintaining a nuclear arsenal and the infrastructure to deploy it is eye-wateringly expensive. I am sure many people are questioning the degree of threat posed by whatever remains of Soviet nuclear armaments. The primary fissile material remains a threat but what about the ability to deliver it and actually trigger the intended explosion once it arrives? I would prefer not to put it to the test, even if 20% still works we are screwed.

SubiculumCode 5y ago
Yeah. I bet there are all sorts of shortcuts there...being expensive, you'd think that we'd have intelligence on how much they maintained the systems.
- jakedata 5y ago
  I don't. I expect "we" do - or at least we have a pretty good idea. If black-market tritium was worth enough to hungry people in Russia we could probably set back readiness even more.
izend 5y ago
Supposedly the nuclear weapons development and maintenance was well funded in Russia.
nimbius 5y ago
you seem to be conflating Russian military with Soviet military as if they enjoyed a significant divergence, but in reality one is just a progression of the other. the SU35 for example can still stalk down an SR71, just as its soviet SU25 could. Dead Hand is not a former soviet technology, it is actively maintained, staffed, and funded. as the CCCP invented the ICBM, i have full confidence in Russias ability to deliver it. Sarmat is the latest ICBM in development with planned service this year. much like their American counterparts (minuteman) missiles and technology are regularly advanced and upgraded. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-28_Sarmat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-28_Sarmat

ramesh31 5y ago

My pet theory on Putin's ability to maintain power and avoid a coup at this point is that he has spent the last 20 years rigging this system (or something similar) to a personal dead man switch, and is actively holding the entire country of Russia hostage. Everyone in his inner circle is made aware of it once they get close enough, and any leak about it ends with you falling from a window. He's just cynical enough that it goes from "comic-book farce" to "terrifying possible reality" the more you think about it.

tablespoon 5y ago
Kinda sorta. My understanding is that he maintains a situation where everyone in power is dirty and you must be demonstrably dirty to get close to the levers of power. That shared guilt helps keep the ruling clique together. Add to that the very real threat of assassination, and it seems pretty airtight. Your idea has the flaw that the leak would be damaging if done, and sometimes people are willing to take action at suicidal personal cost.

quarterdime 5y ago

From that wikipedia link: "Colonel General Varfolomey Korobushin, former Deputy Chief of Staff of Strategic Rocket Forces, in 1992 said that the Russians had a system, to be activated only during a crisis..." Activated only during a crisis? In late February Putin announced that "deterrence forces" were placed on high alert. Reporting on the topic was vague, with no answers about what this announcement meant. In a Reuters article after that announcement, an unnamed US official said this was "putting in play forces that, if there's a miscalculation, could make things much, much more dangerous" [0]. I wonder if Putin's announcement meant activating this dead hand system. Finally I suggest watching Dan Ellsberg's "Doomsday Machine" talk [1]. [0] https://www.reuters.com/world/russian-strategic-missile-forces-placed-high-alert-after-putin-order-ifax-cites-2022-02-28/ https://www.reuters.com/world/russian-strategic-missile-forc... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7cJG9j0NdY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7cJG9j0NdY