Fascinating

The Soviets may have developed a doomsday devise, but for different reasons than Strangelove hypothesized.

The silence can be attributed partly to fears that the US would figure out how to disable the system. But the principal reason is more complicated and surprising. According to both Yarynich and Zheleznyakov, Perimeter was never meant as a traditional doomsday machine. The Soviets had taken game theory one step further than Kubrick, Szilard, and everyone else: They built a system to deter themselves.

By guaranteeing that Moscow could hit back, Perimeter was actually designed to keep an overeager Soviet military or civilian leader from launching prematurely during a crisis. The point, Zheleznyakov says, was "to cool down all these hotheads and extremists. No matter what was going to happen, there still would be revenge. Those who attack us will be punished."

Cold War psychology is fascinating to me. I worry about all this stuff because our principal enemies today are a different creature - religious/tribal fanatics who do not care about life on this earth, but rather, the afterlife. They are delusional, but would absolutely eliminate all life on this planet if given the power to do so and the slightest provocation.