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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.'"
Some anti-Yankees (North Korea) could detonate a warhead to set off Perimeter, and wipe us off the map. Maximum return on investment.
0 = 1 + e^(Alt something)
On the first page it explains all the conditions that must be met for this thing to go off. They include:
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.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I wonder if the Israelis and Iranians have contemplated this possible chain of events?
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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...
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
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.
Table-ized A.I.
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.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
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?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
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).
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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?
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
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.