Comment by alfiedotwtf
7 hours ago
> we want our adversaries to know how we control our nuclear forces so they don't panic and preemptively attack us
The Russian’s dead man switch is the exact opposite. I wonder if it’s still in place.
Quick question though - are their fake launches to see if crew would actually send the nukes? I’m picturing like a firing squad where nobody knows who has the real bullet
> Quick question though - are their fake launches to see if crew would actually send the nukes? I’m picturing like a firing squad where nobody knows who has the real bullet
That's exactly what we were told when I toured a Titan II launch facility [0], but I have no idea if that still applies to the modern Minuteman III facilities that this article is about.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Missile_Museum
> The Russian’s dead man switch is the exact opposite. I wonder if it’s still in place.
Perimetr? That's misunderstood. The idea behind Perimetr was that the Premier of the USSR did not have first-strike authority. Only the Politburo did. After they got rid of Stalin, the later governments of the USSR were very wary of a leader with too much power. Further down, control was divided between the KGB, which controlled the warheads, and the Strategic Rocket Forces, which controlled the launchers.
The most the Premier could do on his own was enable Perimetr. If it detected actual nuclear explosions and could not communicate with any of the top command bunkers, it would, after a delay of hours, release the arming codes for ICBMs to lower levels of authority. So it only worked for a second strike where a first strike had taken out most of the leadership. That was more restrictive than the US system.
Today, both Putin and Trump have first strike authority. Sleep well.