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Comment by 1gor | Hacker News Reader

From the article:

    The Russians still won't discuss it, and Americans 
    at the highest levels—including former top officials 
    at the State Department and White House—say they've
    never heard of it.

From "Dr. Strangelove":

    "Yes, but the whole point of the doomsday machine 
    is lost if you keep it a secret! Why didn't you tell 
    the world?"

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Please read the entire article. It explains that the main function of the system was not intended to be deterrence towards the enemy, but deterrence towards the own side's hawks, who might be less eager to launch a nuclear response based on incomplete data when they know that there is an automated response designed to work when all else fails.

I still think it's a little odd that they wouldn't want to simply achieve both goals at once by telling people about it. That would still mean that they would be less likely to preemptively pull the trigger themselves, and at the same time would deter the US from attacking them.

Not to mention, if I (as the US) knew that this system was in place, I would probably be a little less terrified that the USSR was going to randomly decide to attack (since this is clearly meant to be a purely reactive system). This would subsequently lead ME to be less likely to randomly attack, etc, etc.

you are ignoring the fact that if the awareness of the doomsday machine rose above suspicion, then Americans would take steps to attempt to locate and preempt the machine

perhaps, but this is talking back during the cold war (maybe today would be different). I would think that we'd be too afraid to try something like that during the cold war in fear of starting a legitimate war.

But again, maybe that would be different today, and we might not-so-politely ask them to disarm the system

> I would think that we'd be too afraid to try something like that during the cold war in fear of starting a legitimate war.

It certainly didn't sound that way from the speeches of B-rate actor you had in charge of your military at the time.

* I would think that we'd be too afraid to try something like that during the cold war in fear of starting a legitimate war.*

Yes, but the system could be located in advance and disabled as part of a first strike. Even the vague details in the article would give an attacker a lot of ideas on how the system could be disabled -- apart from bombing the bunkers (which is difficult) you could spoof the sensors, or just convince the computer that it's still in contact with Moscow.

And even if the Americans can't find a way to disable the system, the fact that the Russians don't know that the Americans can't disable the system means that the Russians can't trust it any longer and so are back to being more likely to make a first strike.

The optimal solution is probably just to hint to the Americans that you might have such a system. Then again, you also have to assume that the Americans are clever enough to have figured out that you might have such a system anyway, so you probably don't even need to hint about it.

Gosh, Cold War game theory is fun. I wish I could travel back to the 60s and get a job with RAND.

They could also, if needed, point out they have a "doomsday machine" ready to go if they were pressed into it by the US.

The article's explaination is not convincing so the question still stands.

How exactly is "not convincing", compared to the alternative?

That Dr. Strangelove quote is in the article as well, page 3.

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