Dead Hand (Russian: Система «Периметр», Systema "Perimetr")[1], known also as Perimeter,[2] is a Cold-War-era nuclear-control system used by the Soviet Union and might still be in use in Russia. An example of fail-deadly deterrence, it can automatically trigger the launch of the Russian ICBMs if a nuclear strike is detected by seismic, light, radioactivity and overpressure sensors. By most accounts, it is normally switched off and is supposed to be activated during dangerous crises only.
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The purpose of the "Dead Hand" system, as described in a book of the same name,[3][4] was to maintain a second strike capability, by ensuring that the destruction of the Soviet leadership would not have prevented the Soviet military from releasing its weapons.
Soviet concern about the issue grew with the U.S. development of highly accurate submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) systems in the 1980s. Until then, the United States would have delivered most nuclear weapons by long-range bomber or ICBM. Earlier U.S. sub-launched missiles, such as the 1960s-vintage UGM-27 Polaris and 1970s-vintage UGM-73 Poseidon, were considered too inaccurate for a counterforce or first strike — an attack against an opponent's weapons. SLBMs were reserved for attacking cities, where accuracy was of less importance. An opponent with effective radar and satellite surveillance could expect 30 minutes' warning of an attack before the first detonation. This made an effective first strike difficult, because the opponent would only have time to launch on warning to reduce the risk of their forces being destroyed on the ground.
Some Game theorists have argued that, if one country believed it could defeat another's command-and-control system in a first strike, it would attempt to do so. The USSR therefore took steps to ensure that nuclear retaliation, and hence deterrence, remained possible even if its leadership were destroyed in a surprise attack. In contrast, Thompson argues that Perimeter's function was to limit acts of misjudgment by political or military leaderships in the tight decision making window between SLBM or cruise missile launches, and impact.[5] He quotes Zheleznyakov on the purpose of Perimeter being "to cool down all these hotheads and extremists. No matter what was going to happen, there still would be revenge."[5]
In the early 1990s several former high-ranking members of the Soviet military and the Central Committee of the Communist Party in a series of interviews to the American defense contractor BDM admitted the existence of the Dead Hand, making somewhat contradictory statements concerning its deployment.[6]
Colonel General Varfolomey Korobushin, former Deputy Chief of Staff of Strategic Rocket Forces, in his 1992 interview admitted that the Russians had a system which would automatically launch all missiles, triggered by a combination of light, radioactivity and overpressure, even if every nuclear command center and all of their leaders were destroyed. According to him, the system was to be activated only during a crisis.[7]
Colonel General Andrian Danilevich, Assistant for Doctrine and Strategy to the Chief of the General Staff in 1984–90, stated in 1992 in an interview that the Dead Hand had been contemplated, but the Soviets considered automatic trigger systems too dangerous, furthermore they became unnecessary with the advent of efficient early warning systems and increased missile readiness, so the idea had been rejected.[8]
In 1993 Vitaly Katayev, Senior Adviser to the Chairman of the Defense Industry Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1967–85, responsible for strategic arms and defense policy, arms control negotiations and military doctrine, confirmed in an interview to John G. Hines that the Dead Hand had been "definitely operational" by the early 1980s. According to him, it was not completely automatic, supposed to be activated manually during a threatening crisis. It was to be triggered by numerous sensors sensitive to light, seismic shock, radiation or atmospheric density.[9]
Although both Katayev and Korobushin claimed that the mechanism had already been deployed, Viktor Surikov, Deputy Director of the Central Scientific Research Institute for General Machine Building (TsNIIMash) in 1976–92, confirmed in a 1993 interview that they had designed the automatic launch system with seismic, light and radiation sensors, but said that the design had been ultimately rejected by Marshal Sergey Akhromeyev on advice of Korobushin and never materialized.[10]
Accounts differ as to the degree of automation of Dead Hand.
In a 1993 issue of The New York Times:[11]
The dead-hand system he [Dr. Blair] describes today takes this defensive trend to its logical, if chilling, conclusion. The automated system in theory would allow Moscow to respond to a Western attack even if top military commanders had been killed and the capitol incinerated.The heart of the system is said to lie in deep underground bunkers south of Moscow and at backup locations. In a crisis, military officials would send a coded message to the bunkers, switching on the dead hand. If nearby ground-level sensors detected a nuclear attack on Moscow, and if a break was detected in communications links with top military commanders, the system would send low-frequency signals over underground antennas to special rockets.
Flying high over missile fields and other military sites, these rockets in turn would broadcast attack orders to missiles, bombers and, via radio relays, submarines at sea. Contrary to some Western beliefs, Dr. Blair says, many of Russia's nuclear-armed missiles in underground silos and on mobile launchers can be fired automatically.[11]
The communication missile would work similarly to the US Emergency Rocket Communications System (ERCS).
However, more recent sources indicate the system was semi-automatic. In a 2007 article, Ron Rosenbaum quotes Blair as saying that Dead Hand is "designed to ensure semi-automatic retaliation to a decapitating strike."[12] Rosenbaum writes, "Of course, there's a world of difference between a 'semi-automatic' doomsday device and the totally automatic — beyond human control — doomsday device."
David Hoffman wrote on the semi-automatic nature of Dead Hand:
And they [the Soviets] thought that they could help those leaders by creating an alternative system so that the leader could just press a button that would say: I delegate this to somebody else. I don't know if there are missiles coming or not. Somebody else decide.If that were the case, he [the Soviet leader] would flip on a system that would send a signal to a deep underground bunker in the shape of a globe where three duty officers sat. If there were real missiles and the Kremlin were hit and the Soviet leadership was wiped out, which is what they feared, those three guys in that deep underground bunker would have to decide whether to launch very small command rockets that would take off, fly across the huge vast territory of the Soviet Union and launch all their remaining missiles.
Now, the Soviets had once thought about creating a fully automatic system. Sort of a machine, a doomsday machine, that would launch without any human action at all. When they drew that blueprint up and looked at it, they thought, you know, this is absolutely crazy.[13]
It is not known whether Russia continues to use the system, and it is possible that it is still in place.[12] Some commentators say the system never operated in fully automatic mode.[14][15] A 2009 article in Wired magazine claimed Dead Hand exists, is ready to react as intended, and still receives system upgrades.[16]
Deadhand is used by the villain in the 2nd book of J.C. Hutchins' 7th Son Trilogy to take out NORAD's satellites and destroy Saudi Arabia's oil facilities. The missiles are reprogrammed by a Trojan Horse planted in the central Perimeter database in Moscow.
A similar automatic retaliation system called the "Doomsday Machine" is also featured prominently in the movie Dr. Strangelove. The system depicted there is however completely automatic, and impossible to shut down. Thus, an American nuclear bomb dropped by accident on the Soviet Union causes an automatic full-scale retaliation and the extinction of all life on Earth.