The “dead hand”, also called “perimeter” is an automated nuclear system developed in the 1980s under the USSR when the Cold War is in full swing. Ultra-secret and ultra-secure project, its operation remains partly a mystery and we do not know if it is always effective. Its purpose is to respond automatically to a possible nuclear attack against Russian territory. Thus, even in the event that the Russian chain of command is fully destroyed, a salvo of nuclear missiles is automatically launched. This automation would be possible thanks to a network of seismic sensors, atmospheric pressure, or radioactivity, which would detect the attack, as described by BFMTV.
The development of this type of system took a predominant place in Moscow’s military deterrent policy. The United States would also have been equipped with an equivalent system. “”This made it possible to calm all these extremists and these burned heads. Whatever happens, there would always be revenge. Those who will attack us will be punished “, Testimated Alexander Zheleznyakov, a Russian rocket engineer interviewed by Wired in 2009
“Russia is preparing the most important defense program since the collapse of the USSR” in anticipation of a “large -scale war”
Nevertheless, the Foundation for Strategic Research considers that this defense system would in reality be only “semi-automatic”, because the decision to retaliate would be in the hands of “ A group of officers dedicated to a secure place“. A theory also defended by the American journalist David E. Hoffman, who investigated the” dead hand “.”They built a semi-automatic system which would entrust the fate of the earth to three surviving service officers, buried deep underground in a concrete bunker in the shape of a globe“, He wrote in his investigation.