Soviet Doomsday Device left over from Cold War still armed!!!

[Ardentfrost]

Wired Science - Wired Blogs

Soviet Doomsday Device Still Armed and Ready

The Soviet doomsday device -- a giant cobalt bomb rigged to explode were Russia ever nuked, rendering the earth's surface uninhabitable -- gained fictional fame in Dr. Strangelove. However, P.D. Smith's Doomsday Men, available in the UK and due for stateside publication in December, tells the story of the real Doomsday device -- and it's still armed.

Fearing that a sneak attack by American submarine-launched missiles might take Moscow out in thirteen minutes, the Soviet leadership had authorized the construction of an automated communications network, reinforced to withstand a nuclear strike. At its heart was a computer system similar to the one in Dr Strangelove. Its codename was Perimetr. It went fully operational in January 1985. It is still in place. Its job is to monitor whether there have been nuclear detonations on Russian territory and to check whether communications channels with the Kremlin have been severed. If the answer to both questions is “yes” then the computer will conclude that the country is under attack and activate its nuclear arsenal. All that is then needed is final human approval from a command post buried deep underground. It would be a brave officer, adds Smith, who, having been cut off from his superiors in the Kremlin, could ignore the advice of such a supposedly foolproof system. [...]

We all face the prospect that, if Russia were ever attacked, its strategic nuclear warheads could be launched by a computer system designed and built in the late 1970s.


That quote was from the Times' review, and Slate's Ron Rosenbaum recently revisited the book within the chilling context of Russian president Vladimir Putin's decision to put his country's nuclear bomber fleet back in the air. (Are they actually armed? Only he knows! Shiver.)

So what's this doing on a science blog? Well, it's Friday afternoon, my thoughts are meandering, and earlier I read a review of a God Delusion rebuttal. Wrote the reviewer,

... Dawkins’s first sleight of hand ... dishonestly bundles all religious belief and practice into one crude bag that supposedly equals fanaticism.

This is rather like suggesting that all science is dangerous because it has brought nuclear weapons....

And that seems like a very valid point, both for being fair to religious people and for keeping our own belief in science from turning to ideological dogma. After all, if the world is nuked by a Cold War doomsday device because some Islamic fundamentalist group hits Russia with dirty bombs, it'll be a fetid mix of religious and secular madness that does us in, each happy to use the tools that scientists have provided.

Whoa!

Cobalt bomb that will make the surface of the Earth uninhabitable if Russia were ever bombed still armed and running on a nearly 40 year old computer!?!?!

:faint:

[JaJae]

I think the Cobalt bomb was the fictional story. The real story is the computer network rigged to their nuclear arsenal.

[Ardentfrost]

Oh, sorry, I got confused. It being run on computers from the 70's is still valid though

[Nonphixion]

Wired mentions "the dirty bomb" which is a farce, and isn't any more powerful than a conventional explosion. And by ALL standards of the Board of Atomic scientists a dirty bomb would kill no one.

And this has been proven by 2 tests, it is impossible -- and possibly would be less powerful than any conventional explosive device in terms of damage and blast radius.

[RMNIXON]

Perhaps it is time to start sending our most attractive young women down into the deeper mine shafts for the breeding?

[Ardentfrost]

Originally Posted by RMNIXON

Perhaps it is time to start sending our most attractive young women down into the deeper mine shafts for the breeding?

After I got a DVD player, Dr. Strangelove was maybe the third or so DVD I bought

[Joe_Cool]

Originally Posted by RMNIXON

Perhaps it is time to start sending our most attractive young women down into the deeper mine shafts for the breeding?

We cannot allow a mineshaft gap!

[DosEquis]

Originally Posted by JaJae

I think the Cobalt bomb was the fictional story. The real story is the computer network rigged to their nuclear arsenal.

Skynet lives

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by DosEquis

Skynet lives

Yea and probably running off a Dos environment, thank god they didn't let that shit run off Microsoft, could you imagine communist Soviet programming in the Windows environment. We'd have hell on earth right now.

[hsmith]

No fighting in the war room!

[David Octavius]

Its weird to me that Russia in this day and age is still so paranoid of the US as to keep these types of systems online - they have no useful purpose, no other country save for the US can pose a significant enough threat to warrant the types of paranoia Russia has. I guess they still view us an enemy...so much for democracy spreading peace and stability

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by Joe_Cool

We cannot allow a mineshaft gap!

[RMNIXON]

Originally Posted by hsmith

No fighting in the war room!

[avsp]

Originally Posted by Nonphixion

Wired mentions "the dirty bomb" which is a farce, and isn't any more powerful than a conventional explosion. And by ALL standards of the Board of Atomic scientists a dirty bomb would kill no one.

And this has been proven by 2 tests, it is impossible -- and possibly would be less powerful than any conventional explosive device in terms of damage and blast radius.

This is a case of 'it all depends' isnt it?

I wouldnt want to get a covered in the radioactive dust from a portable machine for x-raying oilpipes, even if it didnt kill me straight away.

Also a 'slow' dirty bomb could be a really effective killing machine, steadily dosing people as the repeatedly walked by it on the way to work or whatever.

Either way I doubt that Perimetr would detect a dirty bombing attack. Even if it did would the comms be cut anyway?

I'd worry more about something like a solar flare, (possibly?) that cut the comms.

Either way Perimetr really forms part of MAD. MAD has worked & so I'm in two minds about switching it off.

BTW is your esscence is pure? & I'll have to answer to the Coke-Cola Corporation of America.