Dead Hand, known also as Perimeter, is a Cold-War-era nuclear-control system used by the Soviet
Union.
General speculation from insiders alleges that the system remains in use in post-Soviet
Russia.
An example of fail-deadly deterrence, it can automatically trigger the launch of the Russian
intercontinental ballistic missiles 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; however, it is said to remain fully functional and able to serve
its purpose whenever needed.
Motivation The purpose of the "Dead Hand" system, as
described in a book of the same name, 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 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 attack,
an attack against an opponent's weapons.
SLBMs were reserved for attacking cities, where accuracy was of less importance.
In the first case, an opponent with effective radar and satellite surveillance could expect
a 30-minute warning of an attack before the first detonation.
This made an effective first strike difficult, because the opponent would have time to launch
on warning to reduce the risk of their forces being destroyed on the ground.
The development of highly accurate SLBMs, such as the Trident C4 and later the D5 upset
this balance.
The Trident D5 is considered to be as accurate as any land based ICBM.
Therefore, US or UK Trident submarine systems could stealthily approach an enemy's coast
and launch highly accurate warheads at close range, reducing the available warning to less
than 3 minutes, making a counterforce first strike or a decapitation strike viable.
The USSR 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 misjudgement
by political or military leaderships in the tight decision making window between SLBM
or cruise missile launches, and impact.
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."
Operation 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Accounts differ as to the degree of automation of Dead Hand.
In a 1993 issue of The New York Times:
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 capital 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.
The communication missile would work similarly to the US Emergency Rocket Communications
System.
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."
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 E. 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.
Current use It is not known whether Russia continues to
use the system, and it is possible that it is still in place.
Some commentators say the system never operated in fully automatic mode.
A 2009 article in Wired magazine claimed Dead Hand exists, is ready to react as intended,
and still receives system upgrades.
In 2011 the commander of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces, Sergey Karakaev in interview
to a Russian tabloid confirmed operational state of Perimeter assessment and communication
system.
See also Fail-deadly
Mount Yamantaw Operation Looking Glass
Letters of last resort Dr. Strangelove
Space Cowboys Dead man's switch
References