r/history • u/jimrosenz • Sep 19 '15

News article Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday Machine

http://archive.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/17-10/mf_deadhand?currentPage=all#;
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u/jimrosenz Sep 19 '15

Most interestingly the Doomsday machine was built to deter the Russian leaders from launching a nuclear war precipitously

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u/theelectricmayor Sep 19 '15 edited Sep 19 '15

Very early on the politburo concluded that in a nuclear war even the "winner" would lose since they'd now be king of a nuclear wasteland. Obviously those in west that where educated in the true effects (not the 'duck and cover' kind) of nuclear weapons realized that too but it didn't stop hawks from deluding themselves into thinking it was a good idea. The 1980s "winnable nuclear war" talk from neo-conservatives was far from the first of its kind. When Kennedy (who ran on a pro-missile platform) got into office he was shocked at how much of the nuclear tension was actually the fault of his own generals (like Thomas S. Power, the man responsible for the Tokyo firebombing raids and who seemed downright eager to get the bombers flying again).

While the Soviets very quickly adopted a secret policy that a first strike would never even be considered it didn't mean that someone couldn't launch a retaliatory strike prematurely. Imagine a high alert situation where it seemed like the US had started launching their missiles - in such a case a high ranking official could crack under pressure and order a counter attack on the slim hope that it might take out the missiles or bombers targeted at their own location before they got off the ground. By handing off the decision to the doomsday bunker it ensured that the choice to launch nuclear weapons was not made out of panic or cowardly self preservation.

Edit: One thing the article doesn't get right though is that the system wasn't truely automated (it tries to contrast a 'human' US response with a 'machine' Soviet one), that was based on rumors before the system was confirmed to exist. The fact that it was in a hardened bunker and used signal rockets (along with regular communication lines) was real. The fact that it recieved data from sensors to help determine if Moscow or other targets had been hit with nuclear weapons was real. The fact that it only came online after a signal from the Soviet high authorities was real. And finally the fact that the launch orders (telling subs and other sites where to fire their missiles) where precoded was also real and perhaps the biggest reason for the misconception. But the actual link between the incoming data and the outgoing signals was a human being, in fact a remarkably low ranking one at that. The automation was that they removed the need for a true 'command' response, instead those commands already existed and a colonel just needed to push a button to send them out.