Having been able to catch up face-to-face in Tbilisi last month, Danny and I take the opportunity to discuss The Coming War with Russia article. Danny walks us through the article in detail and - very helpfully - allows us to discuss the policy temperature in the White House. Where Rubio seems to be leading the charge on re-engaging the US in the war. To, no doubt, the delight of Zelensky, and the leaders of NATO, the EU and the E3.
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One thing worth emphasizing with regards to nuclear attack/response is Russia's "Dead Hand" system (officially codenamed "Perimeter") which is a highly deterrent automated nuclear retaliation command system.
What I have gathered is the system's concept originated from the "doomsday machine" idea proposed by nuclear physicist Hermann Kahn and started it’s developed by the Soviet Union in 1974 when it modified a dedicated command rocket based on the UR-100UTTKh (NATO designation SS-17 "Ankirchen") missile, with flight testing beginning in 1979, and full-scale live-fire verification was completed in 1984 when a command missile launched from Polotsk successfully sent commands to the RS-20 (SS-18 "Satan") missile silos at Baikonur, and the missile accurately hit the Kura test range on the Kamchatka Peninsula.
In January 1985, the "Perimeter" system was officially deployed and entered combat duty, becoming the world's first automated nuclear counterattack command system to be deployed in actual combat.
In the summer of 1995, the system was suspended due to the constraints of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I). In December 2011, Sergei Karakaev, Commander of the Russian Strategic Missile Forces, officially announced that the "Dead Hand" system had resumed combat duty, filling a gap in Russia's extreme nuclear deterrent.
Its initial purpose was to counter the US's "Star Wars" missile defense program and "decapitation strike" tactics, ensuring that even if the highest command level of Russia was completely destroyed in the first wave of nuclear attacks, a nuclear counterattack could still be automatically completed, thus achieving an extreme nuclear balance of "mutually assured destruction."
The system itself remains in a dormant state for the vast majority of the time, retaining only basic environmental monitoring and self-testing functions, and is not continuously powered on but when the system detects multiple nuclear explosion characteristic signals nationwide, such as abnormal seismic waves, gamma-ray bursts, atmospheric shock waves, and a surge in nuclear radiation concentration, it will automatically enter a state of alert.
Upon activation, the system repeatedly attempts to contact the Russian top leadership, the Central Nuclear Command Center, and backup command nodes via encrypted lines to confirm whether the command structure is still operational.
If contact with the command structure cannot be established within the set time limit, the system will determine that the national command system has been completely destroyed and will launch a special "command missile" which is a missile which in itself does not carry a nuclear warhead and will fly over Russian territory, broadcasting pre-sealed launch commands via encrypted radio signals to all pre-designated nuclear silos, mobile launchers, and other sites within the country, directly initiating a large-scale nuclear counterattack.
The system itself is not a completely automated system without human intervention. In some versions, the final step of the launch is still manually confirmed by the duty officer in the underground bunker, and is/was not entirely determined autonomously by AI which may or may not be the case these days. Since the initial design of the system, the system itself has gone through several iterations and upgrades, the SS-17 command missiles has been replaced with a modern intercontinental ballistic missiles with improving penetration capabilities and resistance to nuclear electromagnetic pulses, the monitoring network has been upgraded and expanded, the communication system upgraded and optimized, and today it might included the Oreshnik, the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile/UAV as part of the system and other technology’s and experience that Russia has accumulated through the special military operation over the years.
Publicly available information indicates that its pre-designated targets are primarily nuclear-armed adversaries such as the Britain, France and the United States. Some sources suggest it could cover major industrial cities worldwide, and once triggered, it could lead to a chain reaction of nuclear retaliation, ultimately resulting in a global nuclear catastrophe.
The existence of this system creates an extremely strong "mutual destruction" deterrent, ensuring that any country attempting a preemptive nuclear strike against Russia will bear an unbearable cost in addition to the system itself, Russia has formidable nuclear torpedo arsenal as an example the 2M39 a.k.a Poseidon, is a nuclear-powered intercontinental torpedo, which is designed to deliver a multi-megaton thermonuclear warhead directly to coastal targets and can trigger a radioactive tsunami, flooding major port cities and rendering them uninhabitable afterwards.
NATO countries regardless if they are part of the nuclear-sharing arrangements or not should expect a nuclear response from Russia, not to be exempt from it, since Russia has no way of knowing which of NATO member state has the B61-series gravity bomb so as soon as an F-35A would take off and Russia might detect the fighter jet, it might nuke whatever place it came from. I’m not sure people living in those countries are even aware that their country is part of that agreement or such aircraft might take of from airfields/bases stationed there so they might be oblivious to why those are suddenly getting nuked.
When it comes to countries with nuclear capabilities themselves I’m not sure how it is these days in UK but if I’m not mistaken France would require a constitutional change prior to France being able to respond with nuclear attack on behalf of another country and such change to the constitution is extremely unlike to pass given that the French are neither Russophobes nor harbor any particular hatred or will to go to war with Russia, on top of that Macron’s political career is seemingly already over in the country.
I watched your interviews with Diesen and Davis, and strongly concur with your analysis.
For years I've been saying that although Russia might not be able to defeat Ukraine, it could easily crush NATO, and without NATO support, Ukraine would collapse, ending the war. So oddly enough, NATO represents Ukraine's "soft underbelly."
Unfortunately, I also agree with you that a wave of Russian strikes on NATO drone and missile factories would almost certainly lead to the full NATO war with Russia that you envision. As you suggest, this would probably end with Europe's economic devastation, and perhaps even some risk of a nuclear escalation.
Therefore, I've proposed a different Russian strategy, intended to establish its escalation dominance over NATO but with reduced risk of a full war.
Russia should declare that it considers NATO a co-belligerent, but that its initial military retaliation will take the form of a very limited demonstration strike.
Russia could announce that in three days' time it will use its hypersonic missiles to demolish the NATO HQ in Brussels at twelve noon. Russia would urge that NATO ring the building with all its best and most effective anti-missile systems, providing a real-life test of the two competing weapons systems.
The building could be evacuated, absolutely minimizing any loss of life. This would greatly reduce the likelihood of NATO going to war in retaliation.
By providing such advance notice and an exact time-window for the attack, Russia would be giving the defense every possible advantage. But hypersonics are unstoppable, so the building would still be demolished. That would prove that Russia could destroy anything anywhere in Europe, with no NATO defense being possible.
If necessary, Russia could then repeat that same process a couple of additional times with other targets until NATO sued for peace and agreed to end its support for Ukraine.
I've sketched out this analysis several times over the last couple of years, most recently in this piece:
https://www.unz.com/runz/would-a-billion-people-watch-the-high-tech-duel-that-decided-the-ukraine-war/