Dead Hand en · PROPN
Meanings
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A weapons system, implemented by the Soviet Union and by the Russian Federation as the successor state thereof, capable of closing a strategic nuclear strike control loop in the absence of normal command and control channels, analogous in concept to a dead man's switch, in anticipation of a decapitation strike.
Sometimes people glibly speak as if the Dead Hand were a thing of the past, but it is foolhardy to assume so.
Near-synonyms: doomsday weapon, doomsday device, doomsday bomb
The system may no longer be a central element of Russian strategy—US-based Russian arms expert Pavel Podvig calls it now "just another cog in the machine"—but Dead Hand is still armed.
2009 September 21, Nicholas Thompson, “Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday Machine”, in Wired, →ISSN:
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Any such system, whether the cardinal instance (the Soviet/Russian one) or another.
The talk then turned darkly to the prospects for building a Dead Hand of their own.
Hypernyms
Relateds
dead hand · counterstrike · fail-deadly · deadman