How the Russian "Dead Hand" System works:
http://www.think.cz/issue/29/dead.html
Yeltsin may have come within a few minutes of using this system during a US missile test launched from Norway on January 25, 1995. If he had, about four thousand two hundred hydrogen bombs would have rained down on the US and Europe. There's no way to call them back once launched.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/missileers/falsealarms.html
See p. 17 of this Rand study, 'Possible scenarios for accidental or unauthorized nuclear use'.
So far as is publicly known, the system, or something like it still exists in Russia. According to unclassified sources, there has been something of the sort reputedly in the UK too involving a "cobalt bomb".
I was thinking about this incident recently reflecting on how weird it would be for Klaire and Pirateracer if this thing went off while they were in Antarctica. Would the US and other nuclear powers retaliate and blow us all away? Would they hit the antarctic bases too? Or would Vladimir Vasilyevich Ustinov and George Walker Bush be coming over to stay with them for a while?
Are penguins edible? Their eggs? Do they taste like chicken? Doesn't everything?
http://www.think.cz/issue/29/dead.html
Yeltsin may have come within a few minutes of using this system during a US missile test launched from Norway on January 25, 1995. If he had, about four thousand two hundred hydrogen bombs would have rained down on the US and Europe. There's no way to call them back once launched.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/missileers/falsealarms.html
See p. 17 of this Rand study, 'Possible scenarios for accidental or unauthorized nuclear use'.
So far as is publicly known, the system, or something like it still exists in Russia. According to unclassified sources, there has been something of the sort reputedly in the UK too involving a "cobalt bomb".
I was thinking about this incident recently reflecting on how weird it would be for Klaire and Pirateracer if this thing went off while they were in Antarctica. Would the US and other nuclear powers retaliate and blow us all away? Would they hit the antarctic bases too? Or would Vladimir Vasilyevich Ustinov and George Walker Bush be coming over to stay with them for a while?
Are penguins edible? Their eggs? Do they taste like chicken? Doesn't everything?
If Bush were to show up, I am sure he would find himself lost on the shelf somewhere.
Penguins are indeed edible, they taste like shit I am told, because of their high fat content. Though I know the Antarctic forefathers did consume both adults and babies.
I think about that scenario often considering how shitty things are going in the North lands. I am rather content to be here for a very long time.
~cheers