People out of habit do not pay attention to the fact that the world on the planet during the last decades stands on the brink of an abyss, and with it not only the lives of billions of people, but also the integrity of the planet Earth itself. And this global danger of a global scale catastrophe has arisen since the creation of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery - intercontinental ballistic missiles.
The history of the past decades has known moments when the threat of fomenting a nuclear war, followed by a nuclear winter, includes dozens, if not hundreds of cases. The most ingenious plans for nuclear strikes were developed, as a result of which the existence of the Soviet Union would have been history long ago, but not in such a form as it is now, but in a different, apocalyptic one.
However, in the very last moments, as if some unknown force stopped the finger of the American officer from pressing the red button. Can it really exist, and can there be this deterrent force today? As it turned out relatively recently from semi-official and for understandable reasons from unverified sources, such a restraining force does exist.
Today, such a restraining force, even from thoughts of fomenting a third world war, is a certain strictly classified system inherited from Russia by the USSR. It will make a return nuclear strike real, even if command posts and lines of communication in strategic nuclear forces are completely destroyed. We have this system called "Perimeter", and Western military analysts called it "Dead hand", which translates from English "Dead hand."
As a system with the name "Perimeter" could work in the era of the USSR
The apocalyptic scenario could be developed according to the following scenario. In a balanced world, the military-political situation would sharply worsen, for example, because of some small country, for example, the Middle East region. The long tolerance of the "western democracy" instigated by the military-political leadership of the member countries of the North Atlantic alliance would have come to an end.
Seeing no alternative to the current situation, and considering himself to be completely safe, the president of one of the dominant states in this bloc would have made a decision and gave the order to launch a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union, justifying it as a pre-emption. Of the great number of mines from several continents, without warning, the most deadly missiles on the planet would be launched, but this is not the whole picture of a massive nuclear strike. In addition to a ground attack, the launchers on nuclear submarines plying the world’s ocean would be activated, strategic bombers and other aircraft carrying nuclear weapons would attack the territory of the USSR from the air.
Major cities, nuclear power plants, strategic and military-industrial complexes, military facilities, as well as launching mines with strategic ballistic missiles would be delivered the most powerful nuclear missile attack. Rockets and bombs, filled with many thousands of warheads, would have attacked the unsuspecting peacefully resting Soviet population, destroying everything around with unprecedented power.
For some time, the Soviet party leadership, who was in a shocked and panicked state, but had time to move into special underground bunker-type shelters, would have discovered the situation of a general nature. In a half-awake state, the military-political leaders would try to contact at least someone and find out: wasn’t the tragic error made, and is there a prospect of rectifying the current situation? However, the incident could no longer be corrected by anything, and the government as a whole would have been eliminated - intelligence pointed out the exact coordinates of its shelters.
With the largest metropolitan areas, with strategic industrial facilities and military centers, command and control centers and communications, a single massive attack would end. The powerful nuclear arsenals of the Soviet Union simply did not have time to take advantage: there wasn’t, and there was no one from whom the command had arrived, and in the absence of leaders in command centers, any of the most serious opponents was blinded and immobilized.
When satellite photos taken here would show that only ruins and ashes remained on the territory of the once powerful superpower. When the political leadership of the member states of the alliance, together with the NATO generals, would try to celebrate victory no longer in a cold war, but in a hot war. In those very moments, when all the "winners" would have raised glasses of champagne and sounded "victorious" toasts, suddenly something unthinkable and incomprehensible would happen.
It would seem that the eternal enemy that had been silent for ever seemed to be awakened. The most complex equipment would have notified, and the vaunted intelligence immediately confirmed that the launch of strategic ballistic missiles was discovered from the ruins and ashes. Thousands of nuclear missiles would rush in the opposite direction from the initial launch, towards the aggressor, who ventured first to press the "red button", counting on a swiftly carried out successful operation.
The same feelings and emotions: surprise, fear, panic, but also not very long. All this would have lasted exactly as long as ballistic missiles would have been needed to reach specific western states and drop their deadly cargo. Having flown to targets, like bees, thousands more of their warheads would fly out of the head of the missiles.
With incredible efforts and enormous costs, a built missile defense would hardly intercept anything. Soviet missiles, known in the west as "Satan", would have begun to erase large cities, military bases, command centers from the earth's surface. No winners, no losers - no one. A nuclear winter would quietly land on the planet.
So would the system called the Perimeter in the Soviet Union, which acquired the blood-chilling name Dead Hand in Western expert circles, would react. This would have been the consequences of the last argument of the Soviet (and now the Russian) strategic forces. Despite the numerous doomsday machines (doomsday machines) invented by science fiction writers, guaranteeing retribution for any enemies who could get there and completely eliminate it, only Perimeter really will be able to do it.
However, the system of inevitable retaliation "Perimeter", is in such a strictly secretive mode, that there were a lot of doubts about its actual existence and there were as many misinterpretations. There were also rumors about the well-known American system "IDF". It was said that all bluff to quickly ruin the economic situation of the Soviet Union. So, what can you learn from open sources?
The system of inevitable retribution "Perimeter"
None of the most secret secrets that the Soviet military "defense industry" concealed in itself would ever know about the existence of a "Perimeter" in the former Soviet Union, whenever one person, a development engineer, thought up to move to the United States. There, he successfully managed to give out information of particular importance on the availability of a system for obtaining an American passport without any problems. Already in 1993, the panic article spread by the influential American newspaper The New York Times with the sensational headline about the Doomsday machine allegedly available in Russia.
The United States newspaper system was described as immoral. The “perimeter” had to be on alert for several years after its “exposure”, because under the START I agreement it was removed from combat duty in 1995.
A little later in December 2001, the director of the project on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons was given some information in which he shared the so-called "truth of life". The American strategic nuclear forces (SNF) have formed such a configuration in order to carry a constant military threat to Russian nuclear as well as economic facilities. Even at the time of holding talks with President V. Putin, their Kremlin office keeps them on sight.
In December 2011, an interview with the commander of the Strategic Missile Forces S. Karakayev was published in one of the newspapers, in which he confirmed that Perimeter was still operating. Moreover, he has to be in combat duty, and in the event of the necessary retaliatory strike, when there is no chance of bringing the signal to any part of the launchers, these commands can come from the Perimeter missiles.
System of weapons of payment "Perimeter": automatic start
In the magazine Wired it was written that Russia has the only weapon in the world that guarantees the use of a retaliatory nuclear strike on its enemies, even if no one else has to make a decision about it. It was also emphasized that with the help of a unique system, a counterattack will occur automatically.
Around the world, Kiselev’s famous phrase that Russia is the only country that could "turn the United States into radioactive ashes" was discussed. At the same time, the presenter of “Vesti of the Week” was briefly told about the “Perimeter”. But how exactly does this system work?
In the same Wired magazine, one of the system engineers, Vladimir Yarynich, was informed of the information of the Perimeter operation algorithm. The system was designed in such a way that it remained in sleep mode, until such time as a high-ranking official was activated under extraordinary circumstances. Then the sensors would be monitored by it — seismic, radiation, atmospheric pressure — to detect signs of a nuclear explosion.
Before launching a retaliatory strike, the system should check four “ifs”:
- If the system were activated, it would determine if nuclear weapons were used in the USSR;
- If this were the case, the system would check the connection with the General Staff;
- If there was a connection, the system automatically disconnected. After some time, from 15 minutes to one hour, which passed without hints of an attack, she would assume that the list of officials capable of issuing an order to strike was still in place;
- If there was no connection, Perimeter would decide on the approach of the Doomsday, and then he would give the right to make this decision to anyone who could then be in a deep and protected bunker, bypassing the usual numerous instances.
Such a system is proposed in the official source, but how things really are, one can only guess.
