Soviets Built a Doomsday Machine; It's Still Alive

An anonymous reader points out a story in Wired introducing us to the Doomsday Machine built by the Soviet Union in the 1980s — and that remains active to this day. It was called "Perimeter." The article explains why the device was built, and why the Soviets considered it to be something that kept the peace, even though they never told the US about it. "[Reagan's] strategy worked. Moscow soon believed the new US leadership really was ready to fight a nuclear war. But the Soviets also became convinced that the US was now willing to start a nuclear war. ... A few months later, Reagan... announced that the US was going to develop a shield of lasers and nuclear weapons in space to defend against Soviet warheads. ... To Moscow it was the Death Star — and it confirmed that the US was planning an attack. ... 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. The point, [an informant] says, was 'to cool down all these hotheads and extremists. No matter what was going to happen, there still would be revenge. Those who attack us will be punished.'"

Comments

Doomsday Machine

[sopssa]

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.

Nothing can go wrong!

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.

And nuclear weapons are sensible then?

Once initiated, the counterattack would be controlled by so-called command missiles. Hidden in hardened silos designed to withstand the massive blast and electromagnetic pulses of a nuclear explosion, these missiles would launch first and then radio down coded orders to whatever Soviet weapons had survived the first strike. At that point, the machines will have taken over the war.

So the whole "Doomsday Machine" thing was an automated system based on ground sensors to launch the missiles in case US attacks.

I still wonder were alive in this world after all the shit humans have pulled off... Wonder whats next.

Re:Doomsday Machine

[MBCook]

So the whole "Doomsday Machine" thing was an automated system based on ground sensors to launch the missiles in case US attacks.

On the first page it explains all the conditions that must be met for this thing to go off. They include:

1. Enabled by military
2. No contact from headquarters
3. Detected nuclear detonation
4. Button press by guy in bunker

It's not automated. All it does it make sure someone is always able to fire the nukes, no matter which parts of the country get bombed. If the US detonated some new bomb that removed all human life within Russian borders, down to 500 miles underground, this system wouldn't be able to launch because the guy with his finger on the button would have been vaporized.

Actually the idea in the article that it was to keep the USSR generals and stuff from doing stupid things like launching first attacks because it would make sure they could always strike back was quite interesting.

At this point, the thing that would worry me most is that it's sounds like it's targeted at the US. So if some group in Afghanistan decides to take revenge for their war 2-3 decades ago (or N.K. attacks to prove they're cool, or...), then if this system enables the button the terrified guy at the button can fire back in defense... which would promptly attack the US because in panic he didn't realize that was who this was designed to defend against.

The article says there is a checklist he is supposed to follow too, but that's not a big comfort.

Re:Doomsday Machine

[Registered Coward v2]

You're right, nuclear weapons have kept us from getting involved in another massive global shooting war. On the other hand, they've allowed us to settle into a basically constant series of low-level conflicts across the globe. So, instead of having one giant conflict that lasts for a few years, we have a never-ending series of small but locally devastating conflicts that go on forever. Nuclear weapons haven't curbed our innate desire to destroy ourselves, they've just made it more of a long-term commitment to do so.

It not so much nukes as the breakup of the old two superpower system. In that system, many states align with one or the other; for a variety of reasons. Since both states have a vested interets in not going to war you have relative peace and ofetn high tension, with minor conflicts acting as surrogates for big ones.

Contrast that to pre-WWI Europe, where numerous roughly equal powers decide to go to war beacuse they believe they can win and there is no larger power restraining them. Shifting allegiances, low tension bur\t it's a lot easier for things to get out of control.

Re:Doomsday Machine

[mrdoogee]

Reminded me of "Captive Honour" by Megadeth

And when you kill a man, you're a murderer
Kill many, you're a conqueror
Kill them all...
You're a god!

Re:Doomsday Machine

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

So, his argument that we're better off now is perfectly valid, although I'm sure the people living in the various conflict zones would disagree. Of course, figuring out how to live together without killing each other would be better still, but humans have been around for a long time and have yet to do that, so I guess we take what we can get.

Or if you believe in evolution, and that the human race is not above evolution, it is normal to have ethnic wars, fought to extermination. Okay the "it doesn't have to be a war" crowd is probably right, but whatever action evolution does involve does have to end with the other guy dead (meaning specific entire ethnic groups).

And if "the selfish meme" is correct, with memes evolving faster than genes (similar to viruses evolving many times faster than their host organisms) then most conflicts will be ideological from a certain point forward, and they will be fought to extermination.

It seems to me the expected result of both technological advance and pluralism should be increasing conflicts. As such, nuclear weapons have done a very, very good job. They have made everything except low-level terrorist activity impossible (low-level as compared to the holocaust, the soviet purges in eastern europe and asia, the muslim conquest of india, and other mass-killings in history. There is no shortage at all of mass-killing in history, in fact it's rather peculiar that they have all but disappeared since the end of the cold war, with relatively few, and geographically confined exceptions)

Of course, it's a very open question what will happen if nukes get into the hands of people who aren't so concerned with their own survival. And whatever you think about the actual motivations of the Iranian leadership, they at least claim they're not concerned at all about that, if they can push their ideology or exterminate Jews. Of course, I would agree with the assertion that that claim is very unlikely to be true. But there only has to be 1 lunatic.

I do find it difficult. Outlawing nuclear weapons, is essentially outlawing knowledge, even though other things are involved, such as uranium sources. And if any of the fusion experiments bears fruit, it is extremely likely that they can be weaponized, and the fuel for fusion bombs is trivially harvestable from sea water, outlawing fusion weapons would be a "thought crime" law. Also the potential is there for technology to evolve to the point that any physicist, or even anyone will be empowered to end the world.

Of course, terrorism is in essence the first waves of that phenomenon. Making large bombs is now well within the realm of possiblity for any jack, jane and muhammad with internet access. God forbid they discover that, for example, 2-stage napalm bombs are idiotically easy to make devices, and start using those instead of the usual large firecracker.

Re:Doomsday Machine

[RobertLTux]

"I wouldn't be surprised if conflicts running for thousands of years could be documented."

well the arab V jew thing definitely qualifies and the Catholic V Protestant thing in some areas might

pretty much any time where 2 tribes meet on a single chunk of land the conflict either ends with A or B being wiped out or A or B leaves to another chunkc of land

Re:Doomsday Machine

[tecnico.hitos]

"So we replaced a never-ending series of giant conflicts with a never-ending series of small but locally devastating conflicts."

I disagree. There would be exactly one giant conflict. There wouldn't be much of humanity left after that.

That would solve the superpopulation problem.

As long as some humans survive the nuclear winter, which is not that hard given the amount of humans in hard-to-reach places or with shelters available. Sadly, a great amount of knowledge could be lost in the process.

Actually I'm more concerned about other species that would be caught in the crossfire, since they don't have anything to do with our conflicts.

"Humanity invented the concept of morality just to put it aside."

Re:Doomsday Machine

[ucblockhead]

When sociologists have looked at hunter-gather societies, they found pretty much constant low-grade warfare, to the extent that the death rate due to these small scale raids was on the order of 10% of the male population over a man's lifetime. The implication of that is that a higher percentage of the population likely died due to warfare in 4000-3900 BC than in 1900-2000 AD.

In modern times, whole nations (like, say, Poland) were flattened over a five year period and then underwent 60 years of peace. In prehistoric times, there was likely very constant endemic warfare that over the long run killed a larger percent of the population.

(Not to mention that there were pre-twentieth century events like the 30 years war that killed a significant percentage of the population.)

The World Wars were horrible events, but realize that a billion people in the US and Europe have essentially seen no deaths due to warfare in their home territories. Then read the Old Testament, which describes a pretty constant litany of cities being sacked and large populations being put to the sword.

Re:Doomsday Machine

[B30-7A]

World War I was won by the chemists. World War II was won by the physicists. World War III will be won by the mathematicians. I heard this twenty years ago and didn't really understand how it could matter. Now think about how the internet and computer security have become the center piece of our society. I'm not too worried about some bunker of bombs that might be launched against us (well, I'm a little worried). I'm more worried about an army of hackers that can have access to our entire financial system, power system, transportation systems, and communication systems at will.

Re:Doomsday Machine

[gemada]

Congo.... 4 million dead...and not very long ago.

Re:Doomsday Machine

[jabithew]

Which grew out of the European Coal-and-Steel Community, the goal of which was to integrate the economies of Europe to such a degree that war was unthinkable.

In that respect, the European Union is an amazing success story. A war between Germany and France is now genuinely inconceivable. How would it happen? How could the German Chancellor declare war on France without being laughed out of the building?

Re:Doomsday Machine

[Anonymous Coward]

Common misconception about potential of global nuclear war. The amount of detonations in terms of number and strategic placement to wipe everyone out is very very much greater than the number that exists, also factor in strategic targeting which means huge areas would be unaffected, and the launch sites, military sites and political control centres would be targeted and destroyed as a priority. Once they started to disappear, there would be even less nukes flying, even less proper co-ordination and strategic targeting and eventually things would calm down, minus a shit load of people, and an even bigger shit load of military and politics. There'd be a very large number of survivors, and hey, overpopulation solved, and you got rid of a shit load of corrupt and greedy governments and regimes. My point is this retro view of "total global meltdown" is pure fantasy (please, no, don't point out about how terrible it would be for a global nuclear war, I kind of get that already, I'm just saying, it would be very very far from some kind of 99% destruction scenario, and yes, I include post war effects of fallout and radiation).

Re:Doomsday Machine

[Xest]

I don't think he suggested absolute casualty rates are lower, his point seemed to be that overall a larger proportion of the world is living in peace, which is true.

Absolute figures are always going to increase as population increases, but that doesn't mean proportionally more of the world is in conflict. In fact apart from a few small skirmishes in South America, and in Asia, as well as some large skirmishes in Africa and the Middle East the world is much more peaceful.

As a basic example, if 4 areas are getting bombed and there are 100 people in each area, then 50 years later there's 400 people in each area but only one area is getting bombed that's a hell of a proportional improvement- sure 400 are still in conflict, but 1200 are also now living in peace.

Population will always increase, and certain areas, such as those with low important natural resources such as water will always be points of conflict for as long as there is no solution to the resource shortage. That has no relevance to the fact that in many other areas where conflicts were occuring for other reasons, or where the resource shortage issue has been resolved there are no longer conflicts.

So your point is correct, but it's also irrelevant in the context of whether or not the world is more peaceful in general, else by that logic we'd say the world would be a better place if there were far less people in it, but not a single one of them was living in peace.

Re:Doomsday Machine

[Registered Coward v2]

Er what? Europe was split into two roughly equally powerful alliances before World War One. Hence the Blackadder quote

Blackadder: You see, Baldrick, in order to prevent a war in Europe, two super blocs developed: us, the French and the Russians on one side; and the Germans and Austro-Hungary on the other. The idea was to have two vast, opposing armies, each acting as the other's deterrent. That way, there could never be a war. Baldrick: Except, well, this is sort of a war, isn't it? Blackadder: That's right. There was one tiny flaw in the plan. George: Oh, what was that? Blackadder: It was bollocks.

Actually, that's my point. Pre-WW1 Europe was a complex set of interlocking, shifting and competing alliances that resulted in a devastating war. What was a relatively unimportant political assassination caused one country after another to declare war as a result of their alliances. There no super powers to keep their client states under control, rather a set of roughly equally powerful countries that were acting independently.

So, what was essentially a continuation of the family feuds in Europe erupted in war because there were no patriarchs that could say "Ya, Franky Joe, what happened to little Freddie sucked. But you better behave or I'll cut you out of the will. By the way, Nicky, Willy, Georgie and the rest of you - stay out of this or you're out of the will too."

Creepy thought...

[swanzilla]

Some anti-Yankees (North Korea) could detonate a warhead to set off Perimeter, and wipe us off the map. Maximum return on investment.

FTA

[wiredog]

Given the paranoia of the era, it is not unimaginable that a malfunctioning radar, a flock of geese that looked like an incoming warhead, or a misinterpreted American war exercise could have triggered a catastrophe. Indeed, all these events actually occurred at some point. If they had happened at the same time, Armageddon might have ensued.

I wonder if the Israelis and Iranians have contemplated this possible chain of events?

That makes at least two...

[It doesn't come easy]

I got news for you...while I will not go into any more detail than this, while I was in the Air Force I worked on a system for three years for the Strategic Air Command that would automatically launch all of our ICBMs if the chain of command was ever knocked out. As far as I know that system or its successor is still operational (I've been out of the military for 29 years). I am always amazed that the world has managed to avoid a nuclear war...

Re:That makes at least two...

[DerekLyons]

I got news for you...while I will not go into any more detail than this, while I was in the Air Force I worked on a system for three years for the Strategic Air Command that would automatically launch all of our ICBMs if the chain of command was ever knocked out.

Of course you won't go into details - because the system you described never existed. It sounds more like you're confused (very confused) about how ABNCP/TACAMO or the ERCS worked.
 
In fact, US policy was to keep man-in-the-loop to the lowest operational levels possible in order to prevent a 'Dead Hand' scenario. Strategic policy (implicit from the 60's and explicit from the 80's) was to prepare for nuclear war fighting, not 'wargasm'. Furthermore, it was US policy was to publicize such things - because (as TFA correctly points out) deterrence doesn't work if the other side doesn't know its supposed to be deterred.
 
 

I am always amazed that the world has managed to avoid a nuclear war.

Many people not familiar with either the psychology of deterrence or with how the systems worked are so amazed.

Re:A more likely possibility

[Tablizer]

It's hard to say what factors weigh in leaders' heads. We cannot rip out their neurons and study them in a lab[1], so we must use available clues to guess.

Reagan often gets credit for ending the Soviet Union, but the story may not be so simple. Some cite evidence that the Soviets simply wanted to "join" the western world and become more European. The Beatles and their sorts perhaps should be given as much credit as any politician.

Further, Reagan was gambling. His gamble appears to have paid off, but it may have also gone sour because one can never know for sure what another leader is thinking. Is it brilliant strategy, or shear luck?

We should thank our lucky stars (or the Anthropic Principle) that we are still here......so far. The Cold War played with fire many times.

By the way, howz the LHC coming along?

[1] Although there's a few I would have liked to try.

Corbomite

[Zorlon]

Everything that ever is or was, was on Star Trek

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Corbomite

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=413875

Re:And then USSR collapsed...

[Shakrai]

Why do we need a victory over Russia? They aren't even maintaining a replacement birth rate and have 1.4 billion hungry Chinese on their border. Why spend American blood and treasure when demographics will take care of the problem for us?

Re:Automated Response (From the USSR, not me)

[R2.0]

You've put your finger on a question that won't be answered until it's too late: has nuclear war been avoided because of the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction, or in spite of it?

Re:Flawed logic

[gnick]

Well put. The fact that the "small" regional conflicts are actually news-worthy is a huge step forward. They're tragic and we'd all like to see things progress to the point where they're non-existent, but they'd be totally under the radar if we were experiencing something on the scale of WWII (or gods help us WWIII).

Re:Credit where credit may be due

[orin]

Except that in the book Arsenals of Folly, Richard Rhodes falsifies this myth by showing that Soviet expenditure on arms peaked well before Reagan came to power and was in decline throughout the Reagan presidency. Reagan gets credit for bringing down a system during his presidency that had already failed and was in significant decline during his governership of California. The USA wouldn't have had to have spent a cent more on its military during the 80's and it still would have achieved the same result.

Re:Credit where credit may be due

[Anonymous Coward]

Hence Reagan's irresponsible spending and gloating lead to even more irresponsible spending and gloating in the USSR - which became their undoing.

Reagan might have been our undoing in the long run as well. We're still carrying trillions of debt + interest from the Reagan years when he tripled the national debt. Worse, however, is the fact that under Reagan, people seemed to accept idea that running a gov't with massive debt spending is a valid way to operate. The debt continued to massively grow under the first Bush and took a breather when Clinton was running the country by it's only gotten worse over the years with the second Bush nearly doubling it again.

The debt that we are adding under Obama seems staggering, especially when added to the debts already inherited -- I don't see how we can continue to spend so irresponsibly :-(

Re:scary shit

[david.given]

The thing that scares me the most from the Cold War is we were raised to fear the specter of a Soviet attack but our own leaders were every bit as batshit crazy as they were accusing the Soviets of.

I went to school in the 80s in St.Andrews in Scotland, which is about five miles from the Leuchars RAF base that hosted the North Sea interception squadron.

Knowing that any incoming Soviet warhead would be followed a few minutes later by an American one (you know, just to make sure the evil communists didn't capture the smoking remnants of the UK) really made for a stable childhood experience. We all pretty much shat ourselves every time they tested the sirens.

Re:And then USSR collapsed...

[shutdown -p now]

and when we win, I hope, we will not repeat the mistakes of the 1990ies...

The biggest mistake of 90s was to let free market extremists advise on the transition. It's that kind of approach that ruined Russian economy in early 90s, forever tarnishing the ideals of liberal democracy - that came alongside with the disastrous economic policies - in the minds of the people. It's truly surprising, how a benign word such as "democracy", which was very much favored and hope-inspiring in 1991 and 1993, became almost indecent by 1996, and downright insulting into 2000s (though the latter happened with some guidance from above).

Re:Didn't you RTFA?

[multisync]

That's one way of looking at it, another would be to say it was designed to guarantee revenge.

Well, yeah. With Reagan talking about building a spaced-based retaliation system that wouldn't stop a Soviet first strike, but would help reduce their ability to retaliate in a weakened state after a US first strike, assuring the more hawkish members of the Politburo that they would have their revenge no matter what may have been the difference that saved us all from destruction.

It's kind of shocking, really, that the Soviets apparently recognized the danger the extremists among them represented, and designed a system that would placate them. If they had announced it to the world, the US would have had the propaganda running overtime, spinning it as a provocation. As it was, it quietly did it's job and had no effect on the outcome of the Cold War.