Comments
  1. You must read the article before you can comment on it.
    • thorgalle
      Top reader this weekScoutScribe
      11 months ago

      How revenge on a human extinction level was encoded into a system and entrusted to a single fallible human. This area of thinking gets woefully absurd.

      • KapteinB
        Top reader this weekReading streakScoutScribe
        11 months ago

        Add the absurdity of constructing a deterrent, then not telling anyone they constructed a deterrent.

        By guaranteeing that Moscow could hit back, Perimeter was actually designed to keep an overeager Soviet military or civilian leader from launching prematurely during a crisis. The point, Zheleznyakov says, was "to cool down all these hotheads and extremists. No matter what was going to happen, there still would be revenge. Those who attack us will be punished."

        It's interesting to me that this may have been the real purpose of the system. And maybe it actually worked, and this doomsday machine deserves part of the credit for nuclear armageddon not happening (yet)?