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

Didn't they watch Dr. Strangelove?

[onionman]

What's the point of building a Doomsday machine if you don't tell everyone about it?

Re:Didn't they watch Dr. Strangelove?

[natehoy]

I think the design of the device fits in quite logically with human thinking, but so does Mutually Assured Destruction.

Remember (apologies for the history lesson), the deterrent factor that has probably prevented at least one, and possibly two or three additional World Wars by now was the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). "You don't dare fire missiles at me because you know I'll fire everything I've got at you, and the planet's pretty much done for." "Game over, man! Game over!" On the surface, it seems illogical, but it's actually EXTREMELY logical. MAD ties our survival inexorably with that of our enemies. A war, once started, is assured to be death for both sides with almost no exception. It sets the price barrier far beyond what any sane country would be willing to pay from the get-go. No one wants to start a war with that much of an assured outcome. "A strange game - the only way to win is not to play."

Traditional shooting wars, on the other hand, can start small and slowly grow, turning rapidly into self-justifications like "we can't pull out now or the hundreds of our people who have died so far will have died meaningless lives! Honor their sacrifice! Fight on!" That logic, which is very typical during a shooting war, leads to the loss of thousands, then the same argument allows escalation to the loss of tens of thousands, and so on until you are counting in the millions. Surrender becomes impossible except under the threat of an obviously overwhelming loss, and maybe not even then. Surrender or compromise is seen as invalidating the sacrifice of the people who died during the fighting. It's not right, but it's human.

MAD pretty much eliminates that. If any country has MAD capability, then we won't attack them. So the nuclear-holders of the world cannot attack each other directly, but of course they can involve other countries indirectly. The best MAD scenario would logically be for everyone to have MAD capability, but those that already have it would be deeply loath to let any of the countries they've been beating up on into the game. Anyway..

Back to "Perimeter":

Given the rules/logic behind MAD, the real risk is not that a decisionmaker would want to destroy the enemy at the cost of his own country - there are enough decisionmakers to pretty much (but not completely, of course) ensure that actual MAD would never be knowingly implemented. The real risk is that he might think the enemy has already committed to destroying him, and that he has nothing to lose and must implement his destructive capabilities before the enemy destroys his capability to retaliate.

The only thing worse than a false negative (you die but don't manage to kill your enemy) in MAD is a false positive (you end up attacking your enemy by mistake, and you both die). The possibility of false negatives is proportional to the chances of a false positive (the more you feel you need to act preemptively, the more likely it is that someone will). "Perimeter" reduced the possibility of a false negative by assuring generals that they could wait and make DAMNED SURE it was an attack before retaliating. Therefore, it significantly reduced the possibility of a false positive (preemptive strike when the side that launched first thought it was retaliating).

"Perimeter" is arguably one of the most logical things Mankind has ever built. It was a well-designed solution that significantly mitigated the problem.

Logic != Morality or Correctness.

Dr Strangelove?

[MozeeToby]

First, where's the Dr Strangelove tag?

Second, (as Dr Strangelove pointed out) a doomsday machine only makes sense as a deterent if both sides know about it. Why wasn't the machine made public earlier when the Soviets thought that the US was about to launch an attack?

Third, no worries. A small, controlled population with a ratio of 1 male to 10 females properly sheltered will be able to keep society going. Naturally, the females will need to be chosen for their attractiveness and the males for the knowledge and skills they know (I'm thinking lots of engineers will be needed so sign me up).

A more likely possibility

[elrous0]

Its construction might have had less to do with Reagan and more to do with the fact that a single moment of restraint two years earlier had stopped a nuclear war. This is exactly the sort of almost-disastrous incident that this system was designed to address.

Re:Doomsday Machine

[Shakrai]

And nuclear weapons are sensible then?

Say what you will about nuclear weapons but they are probably the only reason that humanity hasn't fought World War III yet.

Re:Doomsday Machine

[eln]

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.

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

[Chris Mattern]

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.

But we weren't having just *one* giant conflict that lasts a few years. We were having a *series* of them. So we replaced a never-ending series of giant conflicts with a never-ending series of small but locally devastating conflicts. It's not perfect, but it's progress.

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.

More interestingly...

[TheProphet92]

...is the fact that it was designed by the Russians to stop them from making a pre-emptive strike. With an automatic retaliation system in place, Russia gets its revenge whether or not there are any survivors. There was no reason to announce its existence when its purpose is not to prevent your enemy from attacking you, but instead to prevent you from attacking your enemy.

Re:Doomsday Machine

[eln]

I believe he's trying to say that our current system of having a basically never-ending series of localized conflicts is preferred over our old system of having a major earth-shattering conflict every 25 years or so. The point is a good one, I think, especially if you believe we likely would have gotten involved in WWIII sooner rather than later between the Soviets and Americans without the threat of mutually assured destruction. Given the hostilities between the two powers, it's at least a strong possibility that we would have.

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.

Re:Doomsday Machine

[hodet]

If the US detonated some new bomb that removed all human life within Russian borders, down to 500 miles underground,

...that would take out a good chunk of the planet and would be a doomsday machine in its own right.

Credit where credit may be due

[damn_registrars]

Indeed, Reagan's true achievement wasn't in intimidating the USSR militarily into despair. Rather, he managed to convince them that he thought Star Wars was a documentary. He then subsequently convinced them that we were building this fantastic laser-beam and ICBM-based international defense system that would annihilate them if they sneezed on us. Which cause the military hot-heads over there to spend far too much money on military defenses, while letting the rest of their empire rot.

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

Re:Doomsday Machine

[shutdown -p now]

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.

WW2 killed over 70 million people in 7 years, on all sides. I've yet to see any small-scale conflict with similar sustained casualty rates. There are occasional spikes, like Rwanda genocide, but those don't really fall into Cold War proxy wars.

Re:Doomsday Machine

[fatboy]

"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.

Re:Doomsday Machine

[kungfugleek]

The article says there is a checklist he is supposed to follow too

I'm a little too tired to do it today, but hopefully some other slashdotters will come up with some speculation as to what exactly was on that checklist. Oh I'll give it a shot...

• Try to contact headquarters again, just to be sure they're really, really blown up this time
• Double check that "nuclear detonation" detector to make sure it's not giving us false positives -- again
• Make sure it's pointed at the guys who really shot at us, which will *probably* be the US, but it never hurts to make sure
• Fill out forms BFG-1, 2, and 9000 in triplicate, sign, date, and tuck the forms in your boot
• Open the launch bay doors -- THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!!!
• Try to contact headquarters one last time. If anyone -- I mean freaking anyone answers, stop here.
• The control switch requires two simultaneous handprints that are 12 feet (I mean 4 meters, cuz we're commies) apart, so in the event you are the sole survivor, cut off one of your arms and tape it to either handprint sensor before proceeding.
• Lift the covering over the button that says "Doomsday Device: NEVER USE"
• Laugh maniacally like an evil genius -- hey, you'll only get to do this once, so might as well make the most of it.
• Push button.
• Hide.

Re:Doomsday Machine

[ZackSchil]

I like how the rest of Asia (40% of the world population), Mexico, and Central/South America (9%) constitute 10% in your worldview.

Kudos for throwing Africa in as 20%, even though it's closer to 14%. This may be the first time anyone has actually overestimated the influence of Africa.

Re:Doomsday Machine

[Martin Blank]

Presumably it would take more than one to trigger a counterstrike. It would probably require several, plus loss of connection to multiple communications facilities. The Soviets may have been paranoid, but they generally weren't stupid. A fault along those lines could trigger an initial strike, guaranteeing an American counterstrike.

Re:Doomsday Machine

[plague911]

Dont worry I honestly believe that the moment that we discover another intelligent species we will have instant world peace. On our world at least... We will simply have the first worlds war. But thankfully we will have generations of experience at war. We will teach them peace loving aliens a lesson or two about technology.

Re:Doomsday Machine

[Shakrai]

Or they'll be thousands of years ahead of us in technology and will only surrender on the brink of total victory in Earth orbit because of some crazy religious revelation....

Forgot history?

[xzvf]

Before nuclear weapons the world fought numerous low level conflicts between spurts of global war. Now prior to the 19th century global war was difficult because people didn't go long distances, so lets start with the Napoleonic Wars. After they concluded in 1815 we had a number of small conflicts. Indian Wars in the US, Zulu and Boer wars, US Civil War, Franco-Prussian war, Italian Revolution, numerous conflicts in India, Crimirian War, Boxer rebellion, Russo-Japanese war, Spanish American War, US vs Mexico (Poncho Villa ), etc.... Then the Great War (WWI), after that we stopped fighting to get ready for WWII, whoops, no we didn't. Spanish Revolution, Japanese in China, Japanese border issues with the Russians, US all over South and Central America, Italians in Ethiopia, Europeans in Russia (their were West European and US troops all over Russia in the early 20's, Russo-Finish war. Now between the Napoleonic Wars and WWI, peace was maintained by overwhelming British Sea Power which kept any of those conflicts from going global. Between WWI and WWII the political will wasn't there to fight for a generation. After WWII if major conflict was avoided by nuclear weapons, which is likely, then good, but don't think that fighting limited wars started in 1945.

Not A Doomsday Machine

[Geoffrey.landis]

It's a good article, but it's not a doomsday machine in the Kahn ("Dr. Strangelove") sense, a machine that destroys the world automatically in case of a nuclear attack. What it is is an system that allows retaliation after a nuclear first strike even if the high command is dead.

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

No.

If you actually read the article, it's a system that, in the event that it's turned on (and it's normally off) and senses a nuclear strike on Soviet territory, and the lines to Soviet command go dead, automatically gives launch authority of the Russian retaliation force to the humans that are lower down on the chain of command.

It's not "Wargames." It still requires humans to command a nuclear attack.

Re:Doomsday Machine

[Ash Vince]

Both Iran and Syria want nukes because we in the west turned a blind eye to Israel developing them.