Well, this is a tad creepifyin’:
Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday Machine
Yarynich is talking about Russia’s doomsday machine. That’s right, an actual doomsday device-a real, functioning version of the ultimate weapon, always presumed to exist only as a fantasy of apocalypse-obsessed science fiction writers and paranoid über-hawks. The thing that historian Lewis Mumford called “the central symbol of this scientifically organized nightmare of mass extermination.” Turns out Yarynich, a 30-year veteran of the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces and Soviet General Staff, helped build one.
The point of the system, he explains, was to guarantee an automatic Soviet response to an American nuclear strike. Even if the US crippled the USSR with a surprise attack, the Soviets could still hit back. It wouldn’t matter if the US blew up the Kremlin, took out the defense ministry, severed the communications network, and killed everyone with stars on their shoulders. Ground-based sensors would detect that a devastating blow had been struck and a counterattack would be launched.
The technical name was Perimeter, but some called it Mertvaya Ruka, or Dead Hand. It was built 25 years ago and remained a closely guarded secret. With the demise of the USSR, word of the system did leak out, but few people seemed to notice. In fact, though Yarynich and a former Minuteman launch officer named Bruce Blair have been writing about Perimeter since 1993 in numerous books and newspaper articles, its existence has not penetrated the public mind or the corridors of power. The Russians still won’t discuss it, and Americans at the highest levels-including former top officials at the State Department and White House-say they’ve never heard of it. When I recently told former CIA director James Woolsey that the USSR had built a doomsday device, his eyes grew cold. “I hope to God the Soviets were more sensible than that.” They weren’t.
It was a technically clever system that would launch retaliatory nuclear strikes in the event that nuclear detonations were detected in Soviet territory and communications with command and control were lost. But as a deterrent, it was useless, since the Soviets never told anyone they had it. And of course, it was an automated system, and sometimes such systems decide to, for example, fly Airbus jetliners into forests. So the future of life on Earth was put into the hands of a computer system built by Socialist slave laborers.
And here’s the good part: it’s still on.
Here are some fun sci-fi story ideas:
1) A comet or asteroid hits Russia, and as a result Dead Hand wipes out the rest of the planet.
2) Someone in the Russian military decides to go rogue, hijacks the Dead Hand system and convinces it to go off.
3) Some jackass teenage kid in the Pacific Northwest is hacking the web looking to download as-yet unreleased games, and comes across a Russian server hosting “Dead Hand: Global thermonuclear War” and decides to give it a try.
4) Skynet.
5) Some mid-80’s piece of electonic hardware decides to give out and explode, causing the system to go off.
6) The Iranians finally get nukes, and not only lob a nuke over the US, setting off an EMP that reduces the US to stone-age subsistence, they do the same to the Russians a few weeks later when the Russians try to become the big badass on the block now that the US is out of the picture. The EMP sets off Dead Hand. The last scene is the President of the US on his knees begging for his life saying something like “But I was the good guy! I was nice to them!” as his own Secret Service agents cap him… and then the Russian citybuster goes off in the yard outside.
7) The Chinese nuke the Russians, and as a result, the Russians nuke the US.
14 Responses to “The Soviet “Dead Hand:” Dr. Strangelove got it right”
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There’s some more on this in Stephen Zaloga’s book,
‘The Kremlin’s Nuclear Sword’, pp.197-8
8) The Iranians Nuke the Russians and as a result…
Emoticons Scott? Really? What’s the code for the smiley face with the bullet hole in the forehead? That was of course an 8 followed by a “)”
I think you need to read the article a bit more carefully:
“As Yarynich describes Perimeter with pride, I challenge him with the classic critique of such systems: What if they fail? What if something goes wrong? What if a computer virus, earthquake, reactor meltdown, and power outage conspire to convince the system that war has begun?
Yarynich sips his beer and dismisses my concerns. Even given an unthinkable series of accidents, he reminds me, there would still be at least one human hand to prevent Perimeter from ending the world. Prior to 1985, he says, the Soviets designed several automatic systems that could launch counterattacks without any human involvement whatsoever. But all these devices were rejected by the high command. Perimeter, he points out, was never a truly autonomous doomsday device. “If there are explosions and all communications are broken,” he says, “then the people in this facility can—I would like to underline can—launch.”
In the end, it is still a human that makes the decision to launch.
Not much different from the American Looking Glass or the British Letters of Last Resort. The Letters of Last Resort are my favourite. Handwritten letters sealed in a safe within a safe on board the Vanguard class SSBNs, only to be opened in the event of a first strike on the UK that basically wipes out the UK, along with the PM. If they are unable to establish contact with their chain of command, the letters are opened and the captain of the SSBN follows the orders that it contains. Might be anything from go to Australia, if it still exists, place yourself under US command, if it still exists, use your own judgement, or whatever the PM decided to write to them.
Do the Russians even still target their missiles at the USA and NATO? The Americans, British, and French don’t target their missiles at Russia anymore, so I doubt the Russians still have their missiles aimed at Cold War targets.
More likely the targets wouldn’t be programmed till the order to fire came, just like with American, British, and French missiles.
> Emoticons Scott? Really?
Meh. I don’t know how to turn the damned things off.
>In the end, it is still a human that makes the decision to launch.
“At that point, the ability to destroy the world would fall to whoever was on duty: maybe a high minister sent in during the crisis, maybe a 25-year-old junior officer fresh out of military academy. ”
And maybe a nutjob, or someone with an itchy trigger finger. It seems that the authority to initiate World War V would devolve to some random schmoe.
> Do the Russians even still target their missiles at the USA and NATO?
I remember a stink about this during the later Yeltsin years. American targets were at the time “defaulted” into Russian missiles.
the story make sence
back in september 1983 was the False “US First Strike” Alarm Incident
were the Commando officer consider not to respond on Waring
(Ironic as it was a Computer error)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov
the Big guys in Kremel were more shocked about that,
a Command Office makes own initiative in crisis, as about the computer problem.
not every Sovjet/Russia ICBM got nukes !
back in 1985 the Sovjet start a program to replace Nukes with weaponized anthrax !
they consider that cheaper in maintenance cost on the order of President Gorbachev !
source, the book Biohazard, by Ken Alibek (alias Kanatjan Alibekov )
finaly some words from Docktor Strangelove:
“simple to understand … credible and convincing, but has no deterrent value if kept secret.
why keeping it a sercet ?
why?
why?
why?
becaus the Soviet Premier Dmitri Kissoff “loves surprises.”
Well, Perimetr used an algorithm to decide if the attack was under way from the US (number and density of explosions on certain target areas, I think, you can’t fake it). Moreover, the 1983 incident didn’t involved Perimetr, but the satellite early warning system (US DSP). The officer on duty, who came from the algorithm department, saw the warnings, cross checked and decided that the thing wasn’t worthy to report up the command echelon. BTW, Perimetr put at serious risk any idea of controlled nuclear was (nuclear war fighting).
Is anyone really, REALLY depending on Russian computer technology? Really? They have to buy abacusi from China to run their space program!
“Is anyone really, REALLY depending on Russian computer technology? Really? They have to buy abacusi from China to run their space program!”
I can vouch for this. If you don’t believe us, ask yourself why Russia has never done an outer planets mission. Answer: their computers aren’t good enough to handle grav. assists.
“And maybe a nutjob, or someone with an itchy trigger finger. It seems that the authority to initiate World War V would devolve to some random schmoe.”
I’d be surprised if it just required one person to authorize a strike. I’m not aware of any nuclear country that allows one person to decide to launch a nuclear strike.
Even the United States requires two people to authorize a nuclear strike. It is a common misconception that the President can authorize a nuclear strike on their own.
“I can vouch for this. If you don’t believe us, ask yourself why Russia has never done an outer planets mission. Answer: their computers aren’t good enough to handle grav. assists.”
No, it’s just that the electronics were never reliable enough for such long missions.
First ask yourself how reliable this Yarinych is before even lending one shred of credibility to that story. He’s a single unconfirmable source. Traitors and defectors are never a good information source, remember the disinfo from Iraqi defectors on things like the Salman Pak training camp and Iraq’s nuclear program (they even went as far as to claim Iraq had actually detonated a weapon). Even Ken Alibek (alias Kanatjan Alibekov) is a dubious source of information. He’s a defector and a traitor to begin with, so you should take everything he says or said about him with a grain of salt.
Dr. Strangelove scene I like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5qqfsQGYus
Scott wrote:
Here are some fun sci-fi story ideas:
>1) A comet or asteroid hits Russia, and as a result
>Dead Hand wipes out the rest of the planet.
Been done:
http://books.google.com/books?id=9IV75hHDjlwC&dq=dead+hand&source=gbs_navlinks_s
“Dead Hand” by author Harold Coyle
>2) Someone in the Russian military decides to go
>rogue, hijacks the Dead Hand system and
>convinces it to go off.
That would probably be fairly ‘easy’ since all they would have to do is nuke Moscow and a few other Russian cities once Perimiter goes active during a crisis. (That’s part of the novel above by the way :o)
>3) Some jackass teenage kid in the Pacific
>Northwest is hacking the web looking to
>download as-yet unreleased games, and
>comes across a Russian server hosting
>“Dead Hand: Global thermonuclear War”
>and decides to give it a try.
I’d be highly surprised if the teenage Russian hackers weren’t the ones for this scenerio. We don’t produce as many good hackers as we used too.
Of course the problem with this scenerio is that Perimiter REQUIRES a human input for launch in addition to several specific inputs to special sensor systems. That would be quite hard to ‘hack’ by accident, even hard to hack on purpose. That’s what it’s supposed to be though.
>4) Skynet.
Colosuss had his Soviet counterpart so why not… Getting past the human points would require it to build terminators in Russia though…
>5) Some mid-80’s piece of electonic hardware
>decides to give out and explode, causing the
>system to go off.
Even the minimul description in the article makes this a very unlikely scenerio. The key here is to remember that it’s NOT all automatic and that humans have to input certain responses for the system to go live and ready to fire on it’s own.
>6) The Iranians finally get nukes, and not only
>lob a nuke over the US, setting off an EMP that
>reduces the US to stone-age subsistence, they
>do the same to the Russians a few weeks later
>when the Russians try to become the big badass
>on the block now that the US is out of the picture.
>The EMP sets off Dead Hand.
The system is hardened and built specifically to withstand a US first strike, even given the level of “high-tech” in Russia and the old Soviet Union I highly doubt the system would that vulnerable to EMP. Ours aren’t so it would be a “given” we could return the ‘favor’ to Iran at any time we choose. And I should mention WE wouldn’t have to resort to using nukes to EMP (and blast) Iran back to the stone age. We have enough conventional weapons and the ability to build high-power EMP bombs which Iran does not. Nor would they be able to ‘hide’ much infrastructure from such an attack as the conventional EMP bombs can generate actual current flow even in electronics that are shut off due to the proximity of their initial EMP pulse vs one from a nuclear high altitude burst generates.
Cell phones and IPod’s would be toast, but most land lines in the nation along with the internet would still be up since they too were designed to survive a nuclear first strike. Lastly, if IRAN had shot nuke(s) at the US enough to ruin us with EMP as suggested Russia would know WE weren’t a threat at the moment and would reprogram Perimiter to nuke IRAN if they did something that stupid.
>The last scene is the President of the US on
>his knees begging for his life saying something
>like “But I was the good guy! I was nice to
>them!” as his own Secret Service agents cap
>him… and then the Russian citybuster goes off
>in the yard outside.
Ok, you’re descending into pure personal fantasy wish fullfilment here Scott :o) The Secret Service would have gotten him and their other charges out of the target zones within hours of the strike if not before hand. They would NOT “cap” him since they are charge specifically with political protection and they take the job seriously. Very seriously.
>7) The Chinese nuke the Russians, and
>as a result, the Russians nuke the US.
Possible, but from the article and what I can find Perimiter seems to be a “revenge” weapon first and formost and would include a way of setting WHICH enemy to take revenge against. So if the Chinese fired on the Russians they would set it to fire back on the Chinese not the US.
(Considering that the majority of weapons no longer targeted at the US are specifically targeted at China and the Russians have let the Chinese KNOW this fact is telling in itself)
Lastly overall; Perimiter, despite the ‘tone’ and title of the article really is NOT a “Doomsday” system in any meaning of the word. It’s a “Revenge” system that could given the right inputs and human commands, automatically launch a counter strike against ANYONE who attacked Russia. Even if that attack has managed to take out the entire command and control structure both military and civilian.
But it doesn’t have a specially assigned set of missiles with “doomsday” warheads and it still takes a human (more than one given the way the military set ups work) to initate the system, and another to set it to automatic launch.
While it could have and would have been used had the US or someone else initiated a first strike on the Soviet Union from the description it would have ‘failed’ for the most part in revenging the expected US first strike had it actually been possible to deploy the Ballistic Missile Defense system envisioned by Reagan. Having only the ‘remnents’ of the Soviet Missile forces available after being attacked the number of missiles it would ‘lead’ in the revenge attack would be limited mostly to surviving mobile missile launchers most likely. (Of course that DOES help explain the expansion and development of new mobile missiles that the USSR initiated in the late ’80 and early 90s)
Now a rather scary scenerio would deal with some of the ‘rement’ Warsaw Pact nations that retain missiles even short range ones that still contain “Perimiter” hardware. A single “test” launch of a Perimiter “command” missile with the proper codes overflying someone with missiles that could be told to launch remotely even with just conventional warheads at the right time could cause all sorts of chaos.
And it wouldn’t even have to BE an actual system command missile!
If you know about the system and learn enough to tap into it or steal the proper codes simply flying around a Russian missile complex with a small RC plane, (or a “stealth” Cessna :o) during a high alert situation might allow someone to broadcast the command missile codes and succed in launching an attack against someone!
(OK I begin to understand why the Russians might still be a little paranoid about people confirming the system exists, let alone having focused efforts to gather information on the system)
It would of course be highly unlikely given the human ‘cut-outs’ in the system, and you couldn’t launch a LARGE strike without someone(s) on the inside, but even a few missiles or worse a single squadron would be within the realm of possibility….
Randy