Hey there and welcome to BrainStuff.
I'm Josh Clark, and this is the BrainStuff
where I explain to you what the Dead Hand
is.
Let’s go back, shall we?
We'll go way back.
Into the Cold War.
Where the United States and the Soviet Union
had the whole world effectively polarized.
Everybody was on one side or the other, except
for those countries that weren't.
Those were the Third World countries, because
they didn't subscribe to one world or the
other.
That's actually where the term comes from.
One thing that the Soviet Union and the United
States loved to do to one another was escalate.
If one side created a stockpile of nuclear
weapons, the other side would create twice
as many.
Move some missiles to Europe?
We'll move ours to Cuba.
And so on and so forth until we reach the
1980s, when superpower leader Ronald Reagan
had a really great idea.
He said, "Why don't I do something that scares
the beejeezus out of the USSR and also spends
them right out of the Cold War?"
And this great idea that superpower leader
Reagan hit upon was called the Strategic Defense
Initiative (or SDI), or, more popularly, Star
Wars.
It was called Star Wars because the whole
idea was a missile defense shield in space.
So the SDI had its intended effect.
The Soviets were very much scared.
They realized that if the United States had
a missile defense shield in space, that the
United States' nuclear arsenal could survive
a first strike from the USSR with enough weaponry
left to launch a counterstrike that could
still wipe Russia off the face of the map.
So Russia (again, quite scared of this idea)
did what any superpower would do: they created
a doomsday device.
They called it "Mertvaya Ruka," or the "Dead
Hand."
The details on this thing are kind of sketchy
because the Russians have never officially
acknowledged it existed.
But based on interviews, some investigation
by westerners, and a little anecdotal evidence,
it appears that the Dead Hand was kind of
a primitive computer network that came online
around 1985.
It was designed to rain nuclear hell down
upon the Americans if they launched a first
strike against the Soviets, even if the Soviet
Union had already been incinerated.
Formally they called the thing the Perimeter.
But they also could've called it "We Got You
Back!"
Or "My poluchili vas obratno!"
So the Perimeter (or We Got You Back or the
Dead Hand) worked something like this: Most
of the time this computer network lay dormant.
But it could be activated by the Soviet military
in case of an emergency.
And once it was activated, when left alone,
it would stay that way for about 15 minutes,
and then it would go back to being dormant
again.
But while it was online for that 15 minute
period, it was constantly communicating with
Soviet central command.
And it was taking in input (data) from sensors
all around the country that were looking out
for air pressure, seismic activity, and most
importantly, radioactivity.
Things that would indicate there was some
sort of attack that the Americans had carried
out.
If the Perimeter sensed that there was some
sort of nuclear attack, and it could no longer
communicate with Soviet central command, it
basically let it all hang out.
And anyone who was in the room that made up
its nerve center at the time, could trigger
it.
When triggered, 4 command missiles are launched.
They fly around the USSR and say, "Wake up!
Wake up all thermonuclear warheads!
Go get the US!"
And remotely activate a counterstrike on the
United States of America even if the USSR
doesn't exist any longer.
That's why they called it the Dead Hand.
Even more horrific than the idea that the
Perimeter was a real thing is the idea that
it still might be a real thing.
The Russian government isn't talking.
But at least one retired high-ranking Soviet
official says, Yeah, that thing is still real.
Let's all just keep cool everybody.
What do you think about the Dead Hand?
What do you think about nuclear war?
Let us know in the comments below.
Hopefully you're against it, but we'll find
out.
And while you're down there go ahead and subscribe
to BrainStuff.
And for more awesome stuff like this, go to
HowStuffWorks.com.
