Dead Hand

Dead Hand (Russian: Система «Периметр», Systema

Dead Hand
"Perimetr", lit. "Perimeter" System, with the GRAU Index
15E601, Cyrillic: 15Э601),[1] also known as Perimeter,[2] is a Place of origin Soviet
Cold War-era automatic nuclear weapons-control system (similar Union
in concept to the American AN/DRC-8 Emergency Rocket Service history
Communications System) that was used by the Soviet Union.[3]
The system remains in use in the post-Soviet Russian In service January 1985–
Federation.[4][5] An example of fail-deadly and mutual assured present
destruction deterrence, it can automatically trigger the launch of the Used by Russian
Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) by sending a Strategic Missile
pre-entered highest-authority order from the General Staff of the Forces
Armed Forces, Strategic Missile Force Management to command
posts and individual silos if a nuclear strike is detected by seismic, Production history
light, radioactivity, and pressure sensors even with the No. built 1
commanding elements fully destroyed. By most accounts, it is
normally switched off and is supposed to be activated during times of crisis; however, it is said to remain
fully functional and able to serve its purpose whenever it may be needed.[6]

Contents
System concept
Working principles
Components
Commanding rocket
Autonomous command and control system
Motivation
Operation
Current use
In culture
See also
References

System concept
"Perimeter" appeared as an alternative system for all units armed with nuclear weapons. It was meant to be
a backup communication system, in case the key components of the "Kazbek" command system and the
link to the Strategic Missile Forces are destroyed by a first strike in accordance with the "limited nuclear
war" concept developed in the United States.
To ensure its functionality the system was designed as fully automatic, and with the ability[7] to decide on
the adequate retaliatory strike on its own with no (or minimal) human involvement in the event of an all-out
attack.

According to Vladimir Yarynich, a developer of the system, this system also served as a buffer against
hasty decisions based on unverified information by the country's leadership. Upon receiving warnings
about a nuclear attack, the leader could activate the system, and then wait for further developments, assured
by the fact that even the destruction of all key personnel with the authority to command the response to the
attack could still not prevent a retaliatory strike. Thus, use of the system would theoretically reduce the
likeliness of a false-alarm-triggered retaliation.

Working principles
Upon activation and determination of the happening of a nuclear war, the system sends out a 15P011
command missile with a special 15B99 warhead that passes commands to open all silos and all command
centers of the RVSN with appropriate receivers in flight. The command missile system is similar to the US
Emergency Rocket Communications System.

Components

Commanding rocket

This is the only well-known element of the entire system. In the complex sits a 15P011 rocket with the
index 15A11 developed by KB "Yuzhnoe", based on the 15A16 (Or MR UR-100U) rocket. With a
commanding radio warhead designated 15B99 designed by the LPI Design Bureau, this ensures the
transmission of launch orders from the central command post to all missile launch complexes under the
impedance of nuclear explosions and active ECMs during the unpowered flight phase. Technical operation
is completely identical to operating the 15A16 base rocket. The 15P716 launcher is a shaft-shaped
automatic passive system of the "Missile launch facility" type, most likely an upgraded facility coded as
OS-84, but does not rule out the possibility of basing the rocket in other types of silos. Development began
in 1974 by the order of the Ministry of Defense. Flight tests were carried out on the NIIP-5 range
(Baikonur) from 1979 to 1986. A total of 7 launches (with six successful and one partially successful) were
conducted and the system had entered service in January of 1985. [8] The 15B99 warhead weighs 1412 kg.

Autonomous command and control system

This is the least publicly understood component of the entire system, the key element of the doomsday
device, with no reliable information on its existence. Speculation exists that this is a complex system, fully
equipped with a variety of communication systems and sensors that control the military situation. This
system is believed to be able to track the presence and intensity of communications on military frequencies,
and receive telemetric signals from the command posts, measure the level of radiation on the surface and
determine intense radiation sources in the vicinity that, combined with the detection of short-term seismic
disturbance, signifies a multiple-warhead nuclear strike, and the system may possibly even be able to track
people still alive in command posts. The correlation system, after analyzing these factors, may take the final
step on launching the missiles.

Another hypothesis suggests that a dead man's switch is utilized. Upon receiving information about a
missile launch, the supreme commander sets the system active, which, if not detecting a signal to stop the
combat algorithm, automatically launches the commanding missile.
In an informal interview with Wired, Valery Yarynich, one of the developers, revealed the following
information about the algorithm "Perimetr" works on:

It was designed to lie semi-dormant until switched on by a high official in a crisis. Then it
would begin monitoring a network of seismic, radiation, and air pressure sensors for signs of
nuclear explosions. Before launching any retaliatory strike, the system had to check off four
if/then propositions: If it was turned on, then it would try to determine that a nuclear weapon
had hit Soviet soil. If it seemed that one had, the system would check to see if any
communication links to the war room of the Soviet General Staff remained. If they did, and if
some amount of time—likely ranging from 15 minutes to an hour—passed without further
indications of attack, the machine would assume officials were still living who could order the
counterattack and shut down. But if the line to the General Staff went dead, then Perimeter
would infer that apocalypse had arrived. It would immediately transfer launch authority to
whoever was manning the system at that moment deep inside a protected bunker—bypassing
layers and layers of normal command authority.[9]

It is claimed that the command post of the system is in a bunker under Kosvinsky Kamen mountain in the
northern Urals.[10][11]

Motivation
The purpose of the Dead Hand system, as described in the book of the same name,[12][13] 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.[3]

Soviet concern about the issue grew with the U.S. development of highly accurate submarine-launched
ballistic missile (SLBM) 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 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 three minutes, making a counterforce first strike or a decapitation strike viable.

The Soviet Union took steps to ensure that nuclear retaliation, and hence deterrence, remained possible
even if its leadership were to be destroyed in a surprise attack.[3] In contrast, Thompson argues that
Perimeter's function was to limit acts of misjudgment by political or military leadership in the tight decision-
making window between SLBM/cruise missile launches and impact.[14] 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."[14]

Operation
In 1967, the Soviet Union first attempted to create a system, called "Signal", which they could use to create
30 premade orders from their headquarters to the missile units.[3] Although the system still was not
completely automatic, their intent was no different.

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.[15]

Colonel General Varfolomey Korobushin, former Deputy Chief of Staff of Strategic Rocket Forces, in
1992 said that the Russians had a system, to be activated only during a crisis, that would automatically
launch all missiles, triggered by a combination of light, radioactivity and overpressure, even if every
nuclear-command center and all leadership were destroyed.[16]

Colonel General Andrian Danilevich, Assistant for Doctrine and Strategy to the Chief of the General Staff
from 1984 to 1990, stated in 1992 that the Dead Hand had been contemplated, but that the Soviets
considered automatic-trigger systems too dangerous. Furthermore, such systems became unnecessary with
the advent of efficient early-warning systems and increased missile readiness, so the idea had been
rejected.[17]

In 1993, Vitaly Katayev, Senior Advisor to the Chairman of the Defense Industry Department of the
Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1967–1985, responsible for strategic arms and defense
policy, arms control negotiations and military doctrine, confirmed that the Dead Hand had been "definitely
operational" by the early 1980s. According to Katayev, it was not completely automatic but was intended
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.[18]

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
(TsNIIMash) in 1976–1992, confirmed in 1993 that the Soviets 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.[19]

Accounts differ as to the degree of automation of Dead Hand. In a 1993 issue of The New York Times:[20]

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.[20]

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".[10] 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 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.[21]

Current use
In 2011, the commander of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces, Colonel General Sergey Karakaev, in an
interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda, confirmed the operational state of the Perimeter assessment and
communication system.[22]

In 2018, Colonel General Viktor Yesin, the former chief of Russia's Main Staff of the Strategic Missile
Forces, stated that the Perimeter system might become ineffective in the wake of the United States'
withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.[23]

In culture
American Horror Story: Apocalypse
Leftovers, season 3, ep. 'The Most Powerful Man in the World (and His Identical Twin
Brother)'
Dead Hand Control, studio album by Baio

See also
AN/DRC-8 Emergency Rocket Herman Kahn
Communications System Lethal autonomous weapon
1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident Letters of last resort
Doomsday device Mount Yamantaw
Dead man's switch Mutual assured destruction
Dr. Strangelove (film) On Thermonuclear War (book)
Fail Safe (1964 film) Operation Looking Glass
"Dead Man's Switch" (The Outer Limits) Samson Option
Emergency Rocket Communications Space Cowboys (film)
System
 UVB-76, a Russian numbers station
sometimes rumoured to be connected to
the Dead Hand facility

References
1. Literally, "Perimeter System"
2. Yarynich, Valery E. (20 September 2004). "C3: Nuclear Command, Control Cooperation" (htt
p://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/bookrev/yarynich.html). Air & Space Power
Journal. Retrieved 25 May 2015.
3. "The Origin of Buzzer Monolyths, The Soviet Nuclear Defense System, and The Myth of the
Dead Hand" (https://web.archive.org/web/20150201001116/http://www.numbers-stations.co
m/buzzer-monolyths-and-nuclear-defence-system). The NSRIC. Archived from the original
(http://www.numbers-stations.com/buzzer-monolyths-and-nuclear-defence-system) on 1
February 2015. Retrieved 30 January 2015.
4. "Russia, Military Power: Building a Military to Support Great Power Aspirations" (http://www.
dia.mil/Portals/27/Documents/News/Military%20Power%20Publications/Russia%20Militar
y%20Power%20Report%202017.pdf) (PDF). Defense Intelligence Agency. 2017.
5. Bender, Jeremy (5 September 2014). "Russia May Still Have An Automated Nuclear Launch
System Aimed Across The Northern Hemisphere" (http://www.businessinsider.com.au/russia
s-dead-hand-system-may-still-be-active-2014-9). Business Insider. Retrieved 21 June 2015.
6. Thompson, Nicholas (21 September 2009). "Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday
Machine" (http://archive.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/17-10/mf_deadhand). Wired.
17 (10)..
7. Torchinsky, Jason. "The Soviets Made A Real Doomsday Device in The '80s and the
Russians Still Have It Today" (https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-soviets-made-a-real-doo
msday-device-in-the-80s-and-1794225196). Foxtrot Alpha. Retrieved 5 April 2018.
8. "Perimetr 15E601" (https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/russia/perimetr.htm).
GlobalSecurity.org. GlobalSecurity.org. Retrieved 4 April 2021.
9. Thompson, Nicholas. "Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday Machine" (https://www.wire
d.com/politics/security/magazine/17-10/mf_deadhand?currentPage=all). Wired. Retrieved
18 December 2016.
10. Ron Rosenbaum, Slate magazine "The Return of the Doomsday Machine?" (http://www.slat
e.com/id/2173108/pagenum/all/), 31 August 2007.
11. 1231-й центр боевого управления (в/ч 20003) (https://armius.ru/rvsn/vch20003)
12. Coyle, Harold (2002). Dead Hand. Forge Books. ISBN 978-0-8125-7539-2.
OCLC 49883057 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/49883057).
13. Doomsday: On The Brink, Learning Channel, 1997, "That order will ultimately be obeyed,
even if nobody is left alive to obey it". In the film, Dead Hand was mentioned along with the
Norwegian weather rocket incident of 1995, and nuclear proliferation in the Muslim world, to
show that Doomsday did not go away with the Berlin wall.
14. Thompson, Nicholas (21 September 2009), "Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday
Machine", Wired (https://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/17-10/mf_deadhand), ¶
starting "The silence can be attributed..." and 3 following paragraphs.
15. Hines, John G (1995), "II. Soviet View of the Strategic Relationship", Soviet Intentions 1965–
1985 (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb285/doc02_I_ch2.pdf) (PDF), BDM
Federal, pp. 9–21 – via GWU.
16. Summary of narrative: Korobushin (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv//nukevault/ebb285/vol%2
0II%20Korobushin.PDF) (PDF), II, GWU, pp. 106–108.
17. Summary of narrative: Danilevich (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb285/vol%20i
I%20Danilevich.pdf) (PDF), II, GWU, pp. 19–69.
18. Summary of narrative: Kataev (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb285/vol%20II%2
0Kataev.PDF) (PDF), II, GWU, pp. 96–101.
19. Summary of narrative: Surikov (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb285/vol%20II%
20Surikov.PDF) (PDF), II, GWU, pp. 134–135.
20. Broad, William J (8 October 1993), "Russia Has 'Doomsday' Machine, U.S. Expert Says" (htt
ps://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/08/world/russia-has-doomsday-machine-us-expert-says.htm
l), The New York Times.
21. Terry Gross and David Hoffman, Fresh Air, "'Dead Hand' Re-Examines The Cold War Arms
Race" (https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=113579843) 12
October 2009.
22. Baranets, Viktor (16 December 2011). "Командующий РВСН генерал-лейтенант Сергей
Каракаев: "Владимир Владимирович был прав - мы можем уничтожить США быстрее
чем за полчаса" " (http://kp.ru/daily/25805/2785953/). Komsomolskaya Pravda (in Russian).
Retrieved 9 August 2015.
23. "Without INF Treaty, USA can destroy Russian nuclear weapons easily" (http://www.pravdar
eport.com/news/russia/politics/09-11-2018/141954-dead_hand-0/). Pravda.ru. 9 November
2018. Retrieved 10 November 2018.

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