Imagine several bunkers deep underground. Every day at a strictly defined hour in these bunkers, an alarm is triggered, and the computer system begins a countdown of the planet's self-destruction.
"Our strategic nuclear forces (SNF) are configured in such a way as to threaten Russian nuclear and economic facilities. Even as we negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin, we keep his Kremlin office at gunpoint. This is the truth of life."
Joseph Cirincione, Director of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. December 2001.
The Doomsday Machine, the Apocalypse Machine, the Doomsday Machine - these concepts include some hypothetical devices capable of destroying not only the Man himself, but in general all life on Earth. Or even the Earth itself. In other words, the apotheosis of the doctrine of mutual assured destruction, the idea of which was first formulated by the American economist and one of the outstanding futurologists of the last third of the twentieth century, Herman Kahn.
The most fantastic option is the so-called "Dead Man's Button". Imagine a few bunkers deep underground, the location of which is known to a very limited circle of people. Every day, at a strictly defined hour, an alarm goes off in these bunkers, and the computer system begins a countdown of the planet's self-destruction. The operator on duty must turn off the system within a few minutes by pressing the end call button. If this is not done, all nuclear, chemical and bacteriological weapons accumulated on Earth will be simultaneously detonated. Where this will lead, everyone can imagine for himself.
The uncontrolled development of nanotechnology may become a potential possibility of one of the variants of the Doomsday Machine. (See Doomsday Machines. Gray goo).
Less fantastic options include a thermonuclear (or atomic) "dirty" bomb, consisting of a container with a radioactive isotope (isotopes) and an explosive charge. When the charge is detonated, the container with isotopes is destroyed, and the radioactive substance is sprayed over a sufficiently large area by the shock wave. One of the options for such a "dirty bomb" could be the deliberate detonation of a civilian facility that uses radioactive materials, such as a nuclear power plant. But this is, so to speak, the Doomsday Machine of local action. But in order for it to become the Doomsday Machine for all mankind, it will be necessary to detonate several dozen atomic bombs in various places on the planet, which will lead to a nuclear winter and complete sterilization of the Earth.
Sometimes the Yom Kippur Machine is also called a supposedly hypothetical system, which, in the event of the death of the country's political and military leadership as a result of an unexpected nuclear attack, should automatically retaliate with a nuclear strike.
But is it really that hypothetical, this system?
It is reliably known that the Soviet Union possessed it, and now Russia possesses it. And it is called simply banal - the Perimeter system. But the Americans dubbed it "The Dead Hand".
So what is it?
In August 1974, a secret decree of the USSR government was issued, in which Soviet scientists and designers were tasked with creating a system that would guarantee a retaliatory nuclear strike against the enemy even in the event of the destruction of all command centers and all communication lines.
The main reason for the appearance of this document was the development of missile technology. At the turn of the 60-70s of the last century, the accuracy of hitting strategic targets of a potential enemy with warheads of ballistic missiles increased significantly. In addition, new delivery vehicles have appeared - sea- and air-launched cruise missiles. All this led to the emergence in the United States of the doctrine of "Limited nuclear war", which provided for strikes against the most important targets - launchers, airfields, large transport hubs and industrial enterprises. In accordance with this doctrine, the flywheel of a nuclear conflict was supposed to unwind gradually, moving from the use of tactical nuclear weapons to strategic ones. Ultimately, it was assumed that the damage suffered would force the enemy to agree to peace negotiations in order to avoid complete destruction.
But soon the Western strategists did not find this enough either. US Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger is the author of the new "Decapitation Strike" doctrine, designed to ensure victory in a nuclear war. It was based on the use of high-precision ammunition - short and medium-range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles with individual computers and laser guidance systems. The result was to destroy the command centers and political leadership of the enemy before he could make a decision to strike.
One of the indirect reasons was the construction by the United States of the space shuttle, the Space Shuttle, capable of carrying nuclear weapons. (According to the calculations of Soviet scientists from the Institute of Applied Mechanics, the Shuttle, having made a lateral maneuver in the atmosphere, could theoretically deliver the first nuclear strike and disable the combat control system of the strategic missile forces of the USSR).
All this prompted the leadership of the USSR to seek a symmetrical answer. This response was the creation and deployment of the Perimeter system, which ensured the automatic launch of intercontinental ballistic missiles from the Strategic Missile Forces bases and naval submarines in the event of the destruction of command posts. There is not so much reliable information about her. Which is quite understandable. But what is known is enough to rid the West of illusions about the possibility of delivering an unpunished strike against Russia. And it is good that the West knows about the existence of this system, which has no analogues in the world. Because one of the functions of this Doomsday Machine is a containment function.
The Perimeter system, with its main component, the Dead Hand, entered service in 1983. The first information about it became known in the West only in the early 1990s, when some of the developers of this system moved there.
On October 8, 1993, the newspaper "The New York Times" published an article by its columnist Bruce Blair "The Russian Doomsday Machine", in which information about the control system of the Russian missile forces appeared for the first time in the open press. At the same time, its top-secret name - "Perimeter" was first announced, and a new concept entered the English language - "dead hand".
Some in the West called the Perimeter system immoral, but at the same time, even its most fierce critics were forced to admit that it is, in fact, the only deterrent that gives real guarantees that a potential adversary will refuse to launch a preemptive nuclear strike. ... It is not for nothing that it is said that fear rules the world.
As for immorality, then ... what is the "immorality" of retaliation?
The Perimeter system is a duplicate command system for all branches of the armed forces armed with nuclear warheads. It is designed to be especially resistant to all the damaging factors of nuclear weapons, and it is almost impossible to disable it. Its task is to make a decision on a retaliatory strike on its own, without the participation (or with minimal participation) of a person. Only if the key nodes of the command system "Kazbek" ("nuclear briefcase") and the communication lines of the Strategic Missile Forces (Strategic Missile Forces) are destroyed by the first strike in accordance with the "highly moral" concepts of "Limited Nuclear War" and "Decapitating Strike "Developed in the USA.
In peacetime, the main components of the Perimeter system are in standby mode. They assess the situation by processing data from measuring posts. In the event of a threat of a large-scale attack with the use of nuclear weapons, confirmed by data from early warning systems of a missile attack, the entire complex is automatically put on alert and begins to monitor the operational situation.
The expert system, which receives information from a variety of sensors, analyzes the intensity of negotiations on military frequencies, telemetry from the posts of the Strategic Missile Forces. But in addition to all this, "Perimeter" has another unique ability - the system is able to analyze changes in the military and political situation in the world, evaluate the commands received over a certain period of time, and in the event of force majeure, draw a conclusion about what is happening in the world something is wrong. If the sensors of the "Perimeter" register the characteristic signals of a massive nuclear strike, and the system itself for a certain time (say, for one hour) loses contact with the command units of the Strategic Missile Forces, then its main component - the "Dead Hand" - through underground low-frequency antennas gives the order to launch command missiles.
Flying over the territory of Russia, these missiles broadcast through the powerful radio transmitters installed on board a control signal and launch codes for all components of the nuclear triad - silo and mobile launch complexes, nuclear submarine missile cruisers and strategic aviation. Having received this signal, the receiving equipment of the command posts of the Strategic Missile Forces and individual launchers begins the process of immediately launching ballistic missiles in a fully automatic mode, thereby providing a guaranteed retaliatory strike against the enemy even in the event of the death of all personnel.
But the most important thing is, again, to the question of morality - the Perimeter system and its main component, the Dead Hand, cannot start active operations in peacetime. Even if there is no communication, and the entire combat crew left the starting position, there are still many other control parameters that block active actions. But in the event of a sudden and unprovoked attack, the retaliatory strike will be crushing.
What can it be? Let's try to imagine it and even write a script for a fantastic, hopefully, disaster movie ...
"Dead Hand or Machine of the Apocalypse"
... Tension in relations between the leading world powers is growing every day. Any, the most insignificant local conflict, even between small states, can lead to nuclear confrontation, because the great are always behind the small ones. And somewhere in Africa, Asia, Latin America or even in Europe, such a conflict took place. It was followed by mutual accusations, which further inflamed the situation. The strategic nuclear forces of the great powers - the so-called nuclear triad - were ordered to be ready to strike, guaranteeing the destruction of the enemy or causing him unacceptable damage. The world found itself on the brink of a new world war.
The Americans were the first to fail. At an emergency meeting of the National Security Council, in an atmosphere of extreme nervousness, the encryption of the NATO Supreme Commander in Europe was discussed. In it, he reported that in the next few hours Russia could launch a nuclear strike against the United States (the same information was contained in the analytical note of the CIA director). After listening to the views of the military, the US President signed a directive to implement the Freedom plan. This meant a massive nuclear strike against Russia ...
It was unexpected and devastating. Thousands of deadly suns burned the sky. Fire tornadoes swept away everything in their path, turning Russian cities into ruins and lifting tens of thousands of tons of dust and ash into the sky. As a result of the attack, strategic aviation airfields, command posts and ground launchers of intercontinental ballistic missiles were destroyed. All communication lines are out of order. Tens of millions of people died, the rest were demoralized and could not offer any resistance. There was no one to give the order to retaliate. And those who survived in this Apocalypse were to die in the coming days.
Victory!!! Complete and final !!! The Russians have nothing to fight with, and, most importantly, there is nobody.
But the generals rejoiced early and clinked glasses of champagne (whiskey). The Perimeter system quickly dispelled their illusions about the possibility of a nuclear strike on Russia with impunity. After receiving confirmation of early warning systems for a large-scale attack with the use of nuclear weapons, it automatically began to monitor the operational situation. And when the sensor components of the system confirmed the fact of a massive nuclear strike and the loss of communication with the main command nodes of the Strategic Missile Forces, the Dead Hand initiated the launch of command missiles, which transmitted a control signal and launch codes for all components of the nuclear triad through powerful radio transmitters installed on board.
Several minutes passed, and in the deep Siberian taiga, in the swamps of central Russia, on submarine cruisers with dead crews, the hatches of silo launchers opened simultaneously, and dozens of intercontinental ballistic missiles rushed into the sky. Thirty minutes later, the fate of the Russian cities was divided by the enemy's cities. There were no winners. Having started unexpectedly, the nuclear war just as unexpectedly ended, destroying almost all of humanity. Only here and there in the endless expanses of the tundra, but on the distant tropical islands, local aborigines turned the knobs of radio receivers, not understanding why they were silent, and looked anxiously at the stars that were extinguished in the creeping black smoke ...
The end of the film.
Do you think this scenario is fantastic? Not at all. On January 22, 2008, a group of retired senior officers of NATO countries sent a report to the leadership of the Alliance, in which they proposed to launch preventive nuclear strikes on the territory of a number of countries in order to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction by NATO opponents. What can follow this? See our script. Perimeter is always in standby mode.
- molten
Valery Yarynich looks nervously over his shoulder. Dressed in a brown leather jacket, a 72-year-old retired Soviet colonel hides in a dark corner of the Iron Gate restaurant in Washington. It's March 2009 - the Berlin Wall fell two decades ago, but Yarynich is still nervous as an informant escaped from the KGB. He begins to speak in a whisper, but firmly.
“The Perimeter system is very, very good,” he says. "We have relieved the politicians and the military from responsibility." He looks around again.
Yarynich talks about the Doomsday Machine of Russia. That's right, the most real doomsday device is a real and working version of the ultimate weapon, which, as always was believed, exists only in the fantasies of paranoid-obsessed hawks from politics. As it turned out, Yarynich, a veteran of the Soviet Strategic Missile Forces and an employee of the Soviet General Staff with 30 years of experience, participated in its creation.
The essence of such a system, he explains, is to ensure an automatic Soviet response to a US nuclear strike. Even if the US surprise attack catches the USSR by surprise, the Soviets will still be able to respond. It doesn't matter if the US blows up the Kremlin, the Department of Defense, damages the communications system, and kills everyone with stars on their epaulets. Ground sensors will determine that there has been a nuclear strike and will launch a retaliatory strike.
The technical name of the system was "Perimeter", but some called it "Mertvaya Ruka". It was built 25 years ago and remains a closely guarded secret. With the collapse of the USSR, information about the system leaked out, but few people seem to have noticed. In fact, it turned out that although Yarynich and former US Strategic Forces officer Bruce Blair have been writing about the Perimeter since 1993, in various books and news articles, the existence of the system has not made its way into the public brain or the corridors of power. The Russians still do not want to discuss it, and Americans at the highest level, including former senior officials in the State Department and the White House, say they have never heard of her. When I recently told former FBI director James Woolsey about the Soviet Union building the Doomsday Machine, he said, "I was hoping the Russians would be more sensible for this." But they weren't.
The system is still so shrouded in secrecy that Yarynich worries that his openness may cost him dearly. Perhaps he has a reason for this: one Soviet official who spoke with the Americans about this system died under mysterious circumstances, falling down a ladder. But Yarynich understands the risk. He believes that the world should know about it. After all, the system continues to exist.
The system that Yarynich helped create came into service in 1985 after some of the most dangerous years of the Cold War. Throughout the 70s, the USSR steadily approached the leadership of the United States in their nuclear power. At the same time, America, which had survived the Vietnam War and was in recession, appeared weak and vulnerable. Then Reagan appeared and said the days of retreat were over. As he said, it is morning in America, while in the Soviet Union it is twilight.
Part of the president's new harsh approach was to convince the Russians that the US is not afraid of nuclear war. Many of his advisors have long championed the simulation and active planning of a nuclear battle. These were the followers of Hermann Kahn, author of "Thermonuclear War and Reflections on the Unthinkable." They believed that having a superior arsenal and being willing to use it would be a lever of pressure in negotiations during crises.
Image caption: You either attack first, or convince the enemy that you can respond even if you die.
The new administration began expanding the US nuclear arsenal and preparing bunkers. And she supported open bragging. In 1981, during a Senate hearing, arms control and disarmament chief Eugene Rostow made it clear that the US was insane enough to use nuclear weapons, stating that after using nuclear weapons against Japan, “it not only survived, but flourished. ". Referring to a possible US-Soviet nuclear exchange, he said, "Some estimates indicate that one side will have about 10 million casualties, while the other will have over 100 million."
Meanwhile, the behavior of the United States in large and small in relation to the USSR has become more harsh. Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin lost his reserved parking space in the State Department. US forces attacked tiny Grenada to defeat communism in Operation Immediate Rage. American military exercises were conducted closer and closer to Soviet waters.
The strategy worked. Moscow soon believed that the new American leadership was ready to fight a nuclear war. The Soviets also made sure that the US was ready to start a nuclear war. "The policy of the Reagan administration should be viewed as an adventure that served the goals of world domination," Soviet Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov said at a September 1982 meeting of the chiefs of staff of the Warsaw Pact countries. “In 1941, there were also many among us who warned against war, as well as those who did not believe that it was approaching,” he said, referring to the German invasion of the USSR. "So the situation is not just very serious - it poses a great danger."
A few months later, Reagan embarked on one of the most provocative moves of the Cold War. He announced that the US intends to develop a laser space shield against nuclear weapons to defend against Soviet warheads. He called the initiative missile defense; critics ridiculed it, calling it "Star Wars".
For Moscow, this was confirmation that the US was planning an attack. The system would not be able to stop thousands of simultaneously flying warheads, so missile defense made sense only when protecting after an initial nuclear strike from the United States. They will first launch thousands of their missiles at Soviet cities and underground mines. Some Soviet missiles will survive that hit for a retaliatory launch, but the Reagan shield will be able to stop most of them. Thus, "Star Wars" will nullify the long-standing doctrine of mutual nuclear destruction - the principle that neither side will start a war, since it is guaranteed to be destroyed by a retaliatory strike.
As we now know, Reagan did not plan the attack. According to the entries in his personal diary, he sincerely believed that his actions would lead to lasting peace. The system, he insisted, was purely defensive. But according to the logic of the Cold War, if you think that the opposing side is ready to attack, then you must do two things: either get ahead and attack earlier, or convince the enemy that he will be destroyed even after your death.
"Perimeter" provided the possibility of a retaliatory strike, but it was not a "cocked pistol". The system was designed to be in hibernation until a senior officer brought it up during a crisis. Then she begins to monitor a network of seismic and radiation sensors, or air pressure sensors for signs of a nuclear explosion. Before launching a retaliatory strike, the system must check 4 positions: if it is on, it will try to determine whether there was a nuclear explosion on Soviet soil. If it looks like it was, then she will check to see if any communication with the General Staff remains operational. If they stayed, and for some time, probably from 15 minutes to 1 hour, no other signs of a nuclear attack were received, the machine will conclude that the command capable of giving the order to retaliate is still alive and will shut down. But if there is no connection with the General Staff, then the machine concludes that the apocalypse has come. She immediately transfers the power of retaliation to whoever is at this moment deep inside the protected bunker, bypassing the usual procedures of hierarchical command. At this moment, the responsibility to destroy the world rests with the one who is on duty at that moment: perhaps it will be some high-ranking minister who will be appointed to this position during the crisis, or a 25-year-old junior officer who has just graduated from the military academy ...
Once initiated, the counterattack will be controlled by the so-called. command missiles. Hidden in sheltered bunkers designed to survive the explosion and EM pulse of a nuclear strike, these missiles will be launched first, transmitting coded radio signals to all Soviet nuclear weapons that survive the first strike. At this point, the machine will begin to wage war. Flying over the radioactive and scorched earth of the fatherland with everywhere destroyed communications, these command missiles will destroy the United States.
The United States has also developed its own versions of such technologies, deploying command missiles within the so-called. Emergency missile communication system. They also developed seismic and radiation sensors for monitoring nuclear tests or nuclear explosions around the world. But they never combined these technologies into a zombie retaliation system. They feared that one mistake that crept in could end the whole world.
Instead, during the Cold War, American crews were constantly in the air with the capacity and authority to launch retaliatory strikes. This system was similar to the "Perimeter", but relied more on people and less on cars.
And in accordance with the principles of Cold War game theory, the United States told the Soviets about it.
The first mention of the Doomsday Machine, according to the author of "Apocalypse Man" P Dee Smith, was on an NBC radio broadcast in January 1950, when nuclear scientist Leo Gilard described a hypothetical hydrogen bomb system that could cover the entire planet with radioactive dust and kill all life ... “Who wants to kill all life on the planet?” He asked rhetorically. Someone who wants to deter an enemy who is about to attack. If, for example, Moscow is on the brink of military defeat, it can stop the invasion, saying: "We will detonate our hydrogen bombs."
A decade and a half later, Kubrick's satirical masterpiece "Doctor Strangelove" brought this idea into the minds of society. In the film, an insane American general sends his bombers for a preemptive strike against the USSR. Then the Soviet ambassador announces that his country has just adopted a system of automatic response to a nuclear attack.
"The whole idea of the Doomsday Machine is lost if you keep it a secret," shouted Dr. Strangelove. "Why not tell the world about her?" After all, such a device only works if the enemy is aware of its existence.
So why don't the Soviets tell the world about him, or at least the White House? There is no evidence that the Reagan administration knew about the Soviet doomsday plans. Reagan Secretary of State George Schultz told me that he had never heard of such a system.
In fact, the Soviet military did not even inform their civilian diplomats-negotiators about it. “I was never told about Perimeter,” says Yuliy Kvitsinsky, a leading Soviet negotiator at the time the system was created. And the generals do not want to talk about it even today. In addition to Yarynich, several other people confirmed to me the existence of such a system - a former official of the space department Alexander Zheleznyakov and defense adviser Vitaly Tsygichko, but they simply frowned on most of the questions, or cut them off, saying nyet. In an interview in Moscow this February with another former Strategic Missile Forces spokesman, Vladimir Dvorkin, I was kicked out of my office as soon as I brought up the topic.
So why weren't the Americans told about the Perimeter system? Kremlinologists have long noted the extreme penchant of the Soviet military for secrecy, but this can hardly fully explain a strategic error of this magnitude.
Part of the silence can be attributed to fears that after learning about the US system, they might find a way to make it inoperable. But the main reason is more complex and unexpected. According to both Yarynich and Zheleznyakov, Perimeter was never conceived as a traditional Doomsday Machine. In fact, the Soviets built a system to keep themselves together.
By providing assurances that Moscow would be able to respond, the system was actually designed to deter military or civilian leaders from the first strike during a crisis. The goal, according to Zheleznyakov, was “to cool some too hot heads. Whatever happens, the answer will be. The enemy will be punished. "
Also "Perimeter" gave the Soviets time. After installing the deadly Pershing II at bases in Germany in December 1983, Soviet military planners concluded that they would have 10-15 minutes from the moment the radars detected the launch. Given the paranoia prevailing at that time, it would not be an exaggeration to suggest that a faulty radar, a flock of geese, or misunderstood American teachings could have led to disaster. Indeed, such incidents happened from time to time.
Perimeter solved this problem. If the Soviet radar transmitted an alarming but ambiguous signal, the leaders could turn on the Perimeter and wait. If there were any geese, they could relax and shut down the system. Confirmation of a nuclear explosion on Soviet soil was much easier to obtain than confirmation of a remote launch. “That's why we need this system,” says Yarynich. "To avoid a tragic mistake."
The mistake that Yarynich and his US counterpart Bruce Blair would like to avoid now is silence. The system may no longer be the centerpiece of the missile defense, but it is still active.
While Yarynich proudly talks about the system, I ask the questions traditional for such systems: what if a failure occurs? If something goes wrong? What if a computer virus, an earthquake, the destruction of a nuclear reactor, or a power outage lined up to convince the system that a war had started?
Sipping his beer, Yarynich dismisses my concerns. Even taking into account the incredible lining up of all accidents in one chain, there will be at least one human hand that will keep the system from destroying the world. Prior to 1985, the Soviets developed several automatic systems that could launch a counterattack without human intervention at all. But they were all rejected by the high command. The Perimeter, he says, has never been a truly autonomous Doomsday Machine. "If there is an explosion and all communications are damaged, then people can, I emphasize, can organize a retaliatory strike."
Yes, I agree, in the end a person may decide not to press the coveted button. But this man is a soldier isolated in an underground bunker, surrounded by evidence that the enemy has just destroyed his homeland and everyone he knows. There are instructions and they are trained to follow them.
Will the officer not respond with a nuclear strike? I asked Yarynich what he would do if he was alone in the bunker. He shook his head. "I can't tell if I would have pressed the button."
It doesn't have to be a button, he goes on to explain. Now it can be something like a key or some other secure form of launch. He's not sure what it is now. After all, he says, Dead Hand continues to modernize.
On August 21, 1957, the Soviet R-7 rocket covered 5,600 kilometers and carried the warhead to the Kura test site. The USSR officially announced the presence of an intercontinental ballistic missile(ICBM) - one year earlier than the United States. The missiles flew farther and farther and carried more and more nuclear warheads. Today the most powerful ICBM R-36M2 "Voyevoda" capable of carrying 10 warheads with a capacity of 170 kilotons for a distance of 15 thousand kilometers.
Wikipedia.org
Today the so-called. The Russian nuclear deterrent forces are submarines with nuclear weapons on board and are carriers of nuclear warheads.
Traditionally, the command to deliver a retaliatory nuclear strike in the event of external aggression is given by the country's top military-political leadership. And what to do if this manual is destroyed or the communication channels are damaged and there is no way to confirm the launch command ... then the Perimeter system or the “dead hand”, as it was aptly dubbed in the West, comes into operation. Moreover, NATO considers the high stability of Russia's nuclear shield to be defiantly immoral.
The American doctrine of "decapitation strike" implies the simultaneous destruction of the enemy's leadership by delivering a preemptive nuclear strike on a command post, no matter where it is and no matter how deeply it is buried. Soviet scientists made calculations of their American colleagues at times, and therefore, in opposition to the militant doctrines, our designers opposed a system of guaranteed retaliatory strike, independent of external factors. Created during the Cold War, Perimeter (index of the Strategic Missile Forces of the Strategic Missile Forces - 15E601) took up combat duty in January 1985. This huge and complex combat organism, dispersed throughout the country, constantly monitors the situation and thousands of nuclear warheads, and to destroy a country like the United States, two hundred modern nuclear warheads are enough.
Command missile of the "Perimeter" system, index 15A11“Perimeter” is a parallel and alternative command system of the Strategic Nuclear Forces of Russia, secretive, well-protected and reliable.
Stationary and mobile control centers on the vast territory of our country are on alert around the clock, seven days a week and in any weather. They constantly assess seismic activity, radiation levels, air pressure and temperature, monitor military frequencies, record the intensity of negotiations, and monitor the data of the missile attack warning system. Point sources of powerful electromagnetic and ionizing radiation are monitored, coinciding with seismic disturbances (evidence of nuclear strikes). These and many other data are constantly being analyzed, on the basis of which the system can autonomously decide on a nuclear retaliation strike. In the event of an immediate threat of the use of nuclear weapons, the first persons of the state can also activate the combat mode.
Station SPRN "Voronezh-DM" RIA Novosti / Igor Zarembo So, the "Perimeter" system detects signs of a nuclear strike, an "electronic" request is automatically sent to the General Staff. Upon receipt of a specific response, it returns to the state of analysis of the situation. In the event of a negative development of events, when communication with the General Staff is not established, while a technical failure is completely ruled out, "Perimeter" immediately turns to the Kazbek strategic nuclear forces control system ("nuclear briefcase"). But without receiving an answer here, the autonomous control and command system (a software package based on artificial intelligence) independently makes a decision on a retaliatory nuclear strike.
Subscriber complex "Cheget" of the automated control system of nuclear forces of the Russian Federation "Kazbek" / fishki.net There is simply no way to neutralize, disable or destroy the Perimeter system. However, the enemy can damage communication lines (or block them with the help of electronic countermeasures systems) ... in response to this, our system launches 15P011 command ballistic missiles with a special 15B99 warhead, which will transmit the starting impulse directly to the Strategic Missile Forces mines that survived the enemy strike, underwater boats and other complexes for a nuclear response without the participation of the high military command.
ICBM UR-100 in the mine "Perimeter" has been repeatedly tested during command and staff exercises and modernized. Today it remains one of the main deterrents of the third world war.
There is also evidence that earlier the Perimeter system, along with 15A11 missiles, included command missiles based on the Pioneer MRBM. Such a mobile complex bore the name "Horn". Complex index - 15P656, missiles - 15Zh56. It is known about at least one division of the Strategic Missile Forces, which was armed with the "Horn" complex - the 249th missile regiment, stationed in the city of Polotsk, Vitebsk region of the 32nd missile division (Postavy), from March-April 1986 to 1988 was on alert with a mobile complex of command missiles.
Mobile combat railway missile system (BZHRK) with intercontinental combat missiles RT-23 UTTH The Americans also tried to do something similar.
24 hours a day, continuously for 30 years (from 1961 to June 24, 1990), air command posts of the US Strategic Air Command based on eleven Boeing EC-135C aircraft (later - on sixteen E-6B "Mercury"). Each crew of 15 military personnel monitored the situation and duplicated the US Strategic Forces (ICBM) command and control system in the event of the destruction of ground centers.
Boeing E-6 Mercury (Doomsday aircraft)After the Cold War, the US abandoned this practice, dubbed Operation Looking Glass, because it proved too costly and vulnerable.
Only on October 8, 1993, the New York Times published an article entitled “The Russian Doomsday Machine”, which revealed some details about the control system of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces (one of the developers of the system moved to the United States). It was the day America learned of the fail-safe global strike system. Soon, under pressure from START-1, "Perimeter" was removed from combat duty (in the summer of 1995).
Relations between our countries deteriorated every year, NATO grew to the East, missile defense systems were deployed along the borders of Russia, the rhetoric became less and less peaceful. "Perimeter" was activated again - in December 2011, the commander of the Strategic Missile Forces, General Sergei Karakaev, announced that the system was on alert.
The American magazine Wired recently wrote in dismay: "Russia possesses the only weapon in the world that guarantees a retaliatory nuclear strike against the enemy, even in the terrible event that we already have no one to decide on this strike."
| For your information!
In this article, we describe the Doomsday machine itself, and we do not make lists of everything read, played and reviewed with the mention of the subject... This is here, so all edits with an attempt to play necrophilia will be rolled out, and their authors will be shot on the spot from a rocket launcher, for great justice! |
In fact
Doomsday device is a high-tech product designed to bring the message of "Apocalypse Now" to life. Must be developed by someone from interested parties in the deep laboratories of densely populated planets. The aim is to cut out the population of the latter to adequate values.
Most often, the Doomsday device is presented in the form of a wunderwafe (for example, the Death Star or the Doomsday Machine) or some kind of software and hardware complex that has gone out of human control (for example, Skynet from the Terminator films that destroyed Superman's homeland Brainiac or, in fact, The Doomsday Device from the same "Dr. Strangelove"). At the same time, it has several mandatory features:
- cuts out the vast majority of participants in the process, or better the entire planet or the entire star system
- does not distinguish between friends and foes
- allows you to avoid a long-term survival stage (for example, by merry and cheerful transformation of the target audience into shit separate atoms).
Views
Despite the fact that the fantasy of the DDD fathers is almost limitless, there are several general directions on the issue of global cutting out of the population:
- Nuclear DDDs (tests were successful), thermonuclear ones (aka hydrogen ones) and the ZOG dream realized by IRL - neutron DDDs, as well as bombs made of antimatter (fortunately, have not yet been implemented in metal) became the development.
- Psychotronic and metaphysical DDD (all kinds of psi-attitudes, zombies, religious and other insanities, subconscious heroism, suicidism, coding, etc.).
- Bacteriological DDD, infecting the entire population with deadly viruses that kill with the ends or not quite in a few hours.
- Unstudied physical structures (collider).
- Anomaly generators (unwinding of the Earth's rotation, changing the Earth's gravitational field, distorting the bubbling of bubbles in beer, etc.).
- DDD of alien origin (evil green men conceived to anally punish humanity and launched their alien wunderwolf, sterilizing the population of this planet).
- Geophysical DDD: earthquakes, floods, volcanoes, asteroids from space ... well, you get it.
- The product of nanotechnology is self-copying nanorobots, which eventually zohavat all the biomass of the Earth ("Gray slime", as well as a more promising technology).
- Beam DDD: a cute sun that scorches entire cities with a directional beam of light.
- OBCHR! Thousands of them! ...
- Indirect action (basically - all kinds of temporary paradoxes, but there are also exotic freaks: in the form of a purposeful awakening of all kinds of Cthulkh or a central idealist who dreams of this universe; especially the epic is included in the epigraph).
- Secret developments of Russian and bourgeois scientists, about which no one will ever know ...
- Chuck Norris: NO_COMMENTS.
IRL
In real life, as our governments, striving for peaceful coexistence, assure us, a working prototype of a doomsday device has not yet been noticed. But all this, of course, lies and bullshit. A completely non-illusory operating machine of the Doomsday was created in the USSR, in America it also exists, so that playful hands would not decide to use the SUDDENLY formed advantage of a guaranteed retaliatory strike, for example, but the science of game theory is engaged in such reflections, which smoothly brings us to the philanthropy of its founder - Hungarian ERJ Johnny von Neumann, with another, the same, CHSH, Hungarian ERJ Edjard Teller, who offered G. Truman to fuck around the USSR with nuclear bombs while it was possible in the period 1945-1949. So these scientists are just eye and eye.
System "Perimeter"
Well, these Internet networks of yours, they were also originally intended to convey "We are dying, but we are not giving up" where necessary, yes. In fact, this was a network of bunkers, and in the bunkers - computers, with protruding sensors and various communication systems. In the event of a nuclear strike on the Center from the side of the enemy, the epic wunderwaughlin could automatically decide on a global exterminatus. The glorious robots themselves, without the participation of the leytekhi-two-gadyushnik, monitored various parameters around them, such as the intensity of negotiations on military frequencies, the radiation background around the bunkers, signs of a shock wave, or the fact that the transmission of information from headquarters was interrupted. At the same time, exterminatus was guaranteed even when all communications and headquarters were destroyed: special command missiles, converted from ballistic ones, flying over the vast expanses of Soviet land, sent a signal to all other missiles to launch - receiving automatic systems were installed in mobile launchers and even on submarines, however Whether these crap could have launched gifts to the enemy with a killed crew, no one knows. This chthonic prodigy is called the Perimeter System, but the Yankees quite aptly christened it “The Dead Hand”.
The Perimeter system is a duplicate system for communicating orders and transmitting launch codes to military units (in particular, to the Strategic Missile Forces and submarines). The main part is the so-called. a command rocket, which, when flown over, broadcasts these orders to the entire territory. The missile was tested in the Seven Hour Nuclear War. By itself, this system does not explode anything. They make spare parts for this product, by the way, in St. Petersburg, and in rather large quantities. And the product itself began to be stamped somewhere in the eighties. And you can relax, it's worth it and buzzes in the bunkers like cute. Moreover, it is clear that we have it, what the Americans or the Chinese have is difficult to say, but there is no reason to think that the Pindos and the Chinese have not bothered with a similar system. There are no proofs either, for pativeen. So that. And still inspires. Also Kuz'k's mother.
At the same time, as it turned out, a similar cunning plan was also ripening in the minds of the Americans. Quickly realizing that, since the Japanese are afraid of tsunamis, then whoever knows how to cause them will thrill them, the tsunami creation system was seriously tested off the coast of New Zealand. True, the main difference between this system and the proposal developed in the Soviet Union was the use of a large number of conventional bombs, located at regular intervals along the coast, and detonated according to a pre-calculated scheme. This was the wines: according to the Yankees, to create a tsunami comparable to the Fukushima one, it would take only a few thousand bombs, which, although it is a difficult task, can be solved by the army method. Actually, in this case, the presence of the bomb was no longer initiated, but covered up the project: the prudent Yankees decided that a fried Japanese is no worse than a drowned man, and the absence of the need for the sea allows the life-giving experience to be extended to other places in the world.
In the collective unconscious
There are many DDD virtualities, thousands of them. Mainly, cinematography: megavillains are tirelessly building DDD, but they don't give a chance to test it. The second place is occupied by toys (where, for example, in strategies, the entire game plot can end with the creation of DDD).
In this case, DDD is a useless device by definition (since if everything is cut out, then there will be no one to take advantage of the joy of the Brave New World), but the righteous genius is beyond doubt. However, in the aforementioned Strangelove, the following argument is made: the country that built the DDD and notified everyone about it can be calm about an enemy hit with missiles / bombs, since the enemy will not attack, realizing that in any case vin ≡ fail: the government backed to the wall will press the red button. If the system is automated, the situation improves - even a decapitation blow or a cowardly button operator will not be able to stop the DDD launch, and a war with such a country becomes completely hopeless. In that film (spoiler:fucked up precisely because the Russians who built the DDD did not have time to notify the Pindos about it, as a result of which the B-52 bombed across the USSR caused a global fuck.)
Due to the dominance of humane positions on the issue under consideration, all works where DDD did work (that is, no happy end) - already by design stand out from the gray mass of comrades.
Selected quotes
|
All three smoked in silence for several minutes. Then Peter asked, “So is this how you think it eventually broke out? After the Russians attacked Washington and London? Osborne and the Towers stared at him in amazement. “The Russians never thought of bombing Washington,” Dwight said. - In the end, they proved it. Now Peter looked amazed. - I mean the very first attack. - That's it. The very first attack. Russian IL-626 long-range bombers attacked, but the pilots on them were Egyptians. And they flew from Cairo. |
| Peisatel's copy-paste source. Neville Shute, On the Shore |
|
This was after the Big Mistake, but before the Earth became uninhabited. We usually drove into the estate when "remission" came - this vague term meant short (ten to eighteen months) periods of calm between planetary spasms. At this time, the black mini-hole, which the Kiev Group planted in the very center of the Earth, seemed to be digesting the contents of its womb in anticipation of another feast. And when the "period of activity" came again, we set off "to Uncle Cove," that is, to a terraformed asteroid located beyond the Moon's orbit, which had been towed there even before the Vagabonds exodus. |
| Dan Simmons, Hyperion. An example of good use |
|
And when He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven, as if for half an hour. And I saw seven Angels that stood before God; and seven trumpets were given to them. And another angel came and stood before the altar, holding a golden censer; And a great deal of incense was given to him, so that with the prayers of all the saints he might place it on the golden altar that is before the throne. And the smoke of incense ascended with the prayers of the saints from the hand of an angel before God. And the Angel took the censer, and filled it with fire from the altar, and cast it on the earth: and there were voices and thunders, and lightnings and an earthquake. And the seven Angels, who had seven trumpets, prepared to blow the trumpets. The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there was hail and fire, mingled with blood, and fell to the ground; and a third of the trees were burnt up, and all the green grass was burnt up. The second Angel sounded his trumpet, and, as it were, a great mountain blazing with fire fell into the sea; and a third of the sea became blood, and a third of the animate creatures that dwelt in the sea died, and a third of the ships perished. The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a large star fell from heaven, burning like a lamp, and fell on a third of the rivers and on the sources of waters. The name of this star is "wormwood"; and a third of the waters became wormwood, and many of the people died of the waters, because they became bitter. The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and the third part of the sun and the third part of the moon and the third part of the stars were struck, so that the third part of them was eclipsed, and the third part of the day was not bright, just like the nights. And I saw and heard one Angel flying in the middle of heaven and speaking with a loud voice: woe, woe, woe to those who dwell on earth from the rest of the trumpet voices of the three Angels who will trumpet! |
| Apocalypse |
|
Somewhere in the vastness of the Galaxy there is a place where the asteroid belt revolves around the red sun. Several centuries ago, we discovered intelligent arthropods there, which called themselves "wilis". It was not possible to establish contact with them. They refused offers of friendship and cooperation from all known races of intelligent beings. In addition, they killed our ambassadors and sent us their bodies dismembered. When we first met them, the Wilis had only interplanetary ships. However, after a very short time, they mastered the secret of interstellar travel. They robbed and killed wherever they appeared, and then hid again in their system. Perhaps the Wilis did not imagine then the forces of the intergalactic community, or they just didn’t give a damn about it, but, nevertheless, they correctly reasoned that it would be a long time before we agree to act as a united front. Actually, interstellar warfare is extremely rare. The Peyans are the only race that knew of it. And when all our attacks were repulsed, and the remnants of the united fleet were withdrawn, we began to shell the planet from afar. However, the Wilis possessed more advanced technique than we first thought. They had an almost perfect missile defense system. In the end we retreated, taking them into the ring of the blockade. But they did not stop their raids. Then the Name-bearers came to the rescue. Three worldformists - Sang Ring of Kreldea, Carf'ting of Mordea, and myself - were drawn by lot to carry out the operation. We had to join forces. And so in the Jeep system, far from the orbit of their home planet, the asteroid belt began to gather into something resembling a planetoid. Piece by piece, it grew, gradually changing its orbit. We and our machines are located outside their solar system, managing the formation of the new world and its progress towards the intended goal. When the Jeep realized what was happening and tried to destroy it, it was already too late. But they did not ask for mercy, and none of them tried to escape. They waited and the day came. The orbits of the two planets crossed, and now only a ring of fragments of the once inhabited world revolves around the red sun ... After that, I drank without rest for a whole week. |
| Roger Zelazny, Isle of the Dead |
Also
- DDD is a graphical frontend for a couple of debuggers.
- DDD is a trinity of brothers - Dagon, Dagnu and Dagan (aka "BLACK BLOOD BROTHERS") - pit bosses of the Elan location from the online game RF Online - the source of the most epic jewelry in terms of characteristics, as well as no less epic AOE attacks capable of significantly overlap the health reserves of any character of any level, with the exception of specially devoured and equipped tanks.
- DDD is the encoding of two-chamber atrioventricular biofeedback pacemakers.
- DDD is problem-oriented design invented by a certain Eric Evans.
- The subject of the article is devoted to the subject of the ballad from the racial Pindossian ensemble Devourment, which is called Fifty Ton War Machine.
see also
Links
| Doomsday machine - a guarantee of defeat | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
| The Doomsday Machine is a flower. The berries are yet to come. | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||
Loading...
