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Oddly enough, I'm actually a little relieved that it does eventually come down to a person's decision. I guess if the decision is to end the world, a 24 year-old junior officer is as qualified to make the decision as anyone else.

I'm definitely more than a little concerned that they're still maintaining this thing though.... creepy

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As the article says, when all of the information said junior officer has points to the fact that his country has been destroyed, he is just about as likely to turn the key as an if/else statement.

The fact that we'd tit-for-tat several hundred million lives is a saddest reality of the cold war. It's frightening how destructive our revenge emotion can be.

So a possibility just occurred to me. Build the whole device, but disable the key. You can't launch!

It would serve all sorts of deterrent purposes, but in the end, no revenge.

Of course, you'd need a few people to keep secret, but you could probably keep this to 2 or 3 people.

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