More information can be found in the book "The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy" by David E. Hoffman. It really is a Dr. Strangelove inspired "Doomsday Device".
The sections of that book about Biopreparat were deeply unsettling. Knowing the lengths they went to keeping the program a secret, it wouldn't shock me if they did continue to develop or conduct secret research on biological weapons after 1995. With nuclear weapons you want everybody to know you have them, but bio weapons by nature are secretive. It's the kind of cruel and horrifying weapon that even your own people can't know about.
Russia is even now accusing the US of hosting Biolabs in Ukraine to make weapons specifically targeted at Slavic peoples. I'm sure someone in the world is doing it, even if Russia is just making stuff up here.
The book also covers a broad range of late Cold War events and weapons programs - it's well worth the read, just don't expect it to be a mirror image of something like Eric Schlosser's Command & Control (which is also a great read but with a much narrower focus).
I haven't read this book, but I did recently read Eric Kaplan's "The Bomb", he goes into detail the decision processes of the US nuclear response and how much it changed (or didn't!) throughout all of the presidents
I also think there is a second human stage after the system has been activated.
From my understanding after Dead Hand is armed with the access codes it goes into a monitoring state.
Until all conditions are met nothing happens but upon losing its links to all nuclear commands -and- it detects that a nuclear strike has landed on Soviet soil only then does it provide nuclear arming codes to the staff of the Dead Hand control bunker.
These poor souls then make the decision to end humanity or not by launching the control missiles which will activate all automated nuclear weapons, transmit authorizations to bombers and submarines etc - which too will have humans that need to make the call if they want to take part in the apocalypse.
Though AFAICT Russia still has enough land based ICBMs to level every major city on earth and all of those are probably 100% automated so I don't think the poor airmen/seamen will have to worry too much about their conscience no matter which choice they make.
> Though AFAICT Russia still has enough land based ICBMs to level every major city on earth...
I learned the other day that there are two main strategies for targeting nuclear weapons, counter-force (nuking military targets) vs counter-value (nuking cities). The former requires a lot more warheads for an effective deterrent, and the large stockpile of nukes in the US and Russia implies that they're doing a lot of counter-force targeting (though I suppose that doesn't mean they won't also attack counter-value targets as well).
IIRC, according to this an exclusive counter-force nuclear attack against Russia would use far more warheads, but kill less people than an exclusive counter-value attack (~10 million vs 50 million deaths).
For me the counter-value strategy seems like a more effective deterrent though from a MAD/counter-attack perspective. It's meant to be a terrifying outcome and maximally terrifying is the best possible configuration to prevent nuclear war.
There is only ~500 cities in the world with over 1mil population, Russia has over 5k operational nukes. That is ~10 nukes for every large city on Earth. If they were only interested in nuking the US that is still ~100 nukes per US state.
There has been some speculation about how many of these will still work due to periodic remanufacturing requirements, that would be interesting to get some hard data on. Probably a very closely guarded state secret.
I have read a lot of chatter about the state of the Russian military being significantly degraded by material and financial diversions, skill shortages and even looting parts not only from spares but actual deployed equipment.
Maintaining a nuclear arsenal and the infrastructure to deploy it is eye-wateringly expensive. I am sure many people are questioning the degree of threat posed by whatever remains of Soviet nuclear armaments.
The primary fissile material remains a threat but what about the ability to deliver it and actually trigger the intended explosion once it arrives? I would prefer not to put it to the test, even if 20% still works we are screwed.
Some good friends work in this community, so to speak. They have all expressed confidence in the current state of the Strategic Rocket Forces (as in we should expect everything to work).
The SRF is handled differently than, say, a random mechanized infantry unit. They get funding, better troops, better training and maintenance, etc. For example, you wouldn't see the tires failing on their missile transporter-erector-launchers (TELs) because they actually take them out for a spin now and then, unlike some of the vehicles in Ukraine.
The Russians have also gotten quite good at maintaining their deterrent at the lowest level of expenditure possible. Their submarines can "patrol" from the pier, as they are designed to be able to launch their rockets from port, only sortieing in times of tension. Their TELs can fire from within their storage barns.
Russian culture seems to treat everything as an excuse for skimming and corruption, so it's very unlikely that the entire arsenal would work as planned.
Apparently it's also mostly tactical warheads which don't have a long-range delivery system.
My best guess is that many of the bigger US and European cities would be wiped out, but neither continent would be turned into a sterilised desert - which is what would happen after a no-compromise exchange.
It used to be assumed an initial exchange would target first strike and retaliatory systems, and cities would only be targeted if there was anything left when that phase was over.
The Russian attacks on civilian targets suggests the opposite. Initial attacks would be on Western cities and populated areas, and the Russians wouldn't care about having their own cities wiped out in response.
No one cares about having second strike silos being wiped out in Nebraska or the Urals when big population centres are already on fire.
None of this is encouraging. Some cities and infrastructure might survive, but the aftermath would still be extremely unpleasant.
Considering the US still pays Russia to ferry its astronauts to and from space I suspect that they still have the skills and the parts to maintain enough functional missiles to send what's left of to society after a nuclear exchange with the US back to the stone age.
I don't. I expect "we" do - or at least we have a pretty good idea. If black-market tritium was worth enough to hungry people in Russia we could probably set back readiness even more.
That's difficult to ascertain. Russia (then the Soviet Union) stopped testing nuclear weapons in 1990. The US in 1992, the UK in 91 and France in 96[1]. Since then, their nuclear arsenals had to be maintained "by model". Is this difficult? Is it reliable? I don't know, and I suppose that 99.9% of the people who know are not allowed to talk.
But what we do know is that it's expensive. The latest US budget (2022) allocated $20 billion for "Nuclear Security" [2], $15 of which are for "weapons activities". I'm not an expert, but I think it roughly means the money needed to keep the nuclear weapons functional.
But maybe the US if very spendthrift. You know, the military-industrial complex, and all that. Well, it turns out France and the UK are not doing it on the cheap either. France spends a about $5.9 BN per year [3], and the UK about $6.2 BN/year on nuclear deterrence, and they have a much smaller arsenal compared to the US.
Well, Russia has a larger arsenal. And their total defense spending is less than $50 BN/year. I don't know if they spend $10 BN / year on their nuclear forces, but if they did, it would not surprise me if a lot were siphoned out. How would anyone know, if there is no actual nuclear test going on?
As a cute little tidbit of information. All current nuclear bombs are "boosted" [4]. Boosting requires Tritium (an unstable Hydrogen isotope). Tritium happens to be the most expensive substance on the planet, with a price of about $30k per gram. It has a half-life of 12 years, so there have been about 2 half-lives since the Soviet Union collapse. A nuclear bomb needs to have its Tritium replaced periodically if it is to remain effective. What is the probability that someone in Russia dipped a bit in the Tritium fund to buy a yacht or something?
you seem to be conflating Russian military with Soviet military as if they enjoyed a significant divergence, but in reality one is just a progression of the other. the SU35 for example can still stalk down an SR71, just as its soviet SU25 could.
Dead Hand is not a former soviet technology, it is actively maintained, staffed, and funded. as the CCCP invented the ICBM, i have full confidence in Russias ability to deliver it.
Sarmat is the latest ICBM in development with planned service this year. much like their American counterparts (minuteman) missiles and technology are regularly advanced and upgraded.
Man, you must have been living under a rock for past month. All these statements about Russian military were claimed for few decades on general level, and they seemed to match reality when small conflicts were happening.
Then Ukraine happened and basically none of the predicted capacities and skills 'actively maintained' of russian military were displayed when facing actual equipped and trained army.
You disregard completely utter corruption, thievery and incompetence on all levels including top of power pyramid. I have 0 doubts that Russians have working nukes of various loads and range. I am very positive that number of usable ones is somewhere in 1-5% range and its often not immediately clear which are which.
If there was any maintenance to be done, rest assured it was skimmed and funds stolen. If any replacement should have happened, it was stolen too. Few nukes got probably stolen themselves. That's how state works for a long time, that's how Volodya keeps all bloodthirsty underlings happy, and these are side effects.
> Then Ukraine happened and basically none of the predicted capacities and skills 'actively maintained' of russian military were displayed when facing actual equipped and trained army.
> Then Ukraine happened and basically none of the predicted capacities and skills 'actively maintained' of russian military were displayed when facing actual equipped and trained army.
What do you suppose should have happened? Especially in regards to strategic arms which are discussed in the thread?
> What do you suppose should have happened? Especially in regards to strategic arms which are discussed in the thread?
I think the implication is that some of the problems the Russian military has had in Ukraine could be indications of systemic issues (e.g. neglecting basic maintenance even before a planned war, like the tire thing I linked below). Maybe their nuclear forces don't have those issues, but maybe they do.
However, personally, I wouldn't bet on those issues continuing (even if they in fact do), because it's more risky to underestimate and become overconfident.
>I have 0 doubts that Russians have working nukes of various loads and range. I am very positive that number of usable ones is somewhere in 1-5% range and its often not immediately clear which are which.
I've been thinking about this possibility for a while:
* Putin fires tactical atomic weapon at some empty plot of Ukrainian land, and announces it as a "demonstration" of Russian might.
* The weapon is a dud.
I'm not sure whether this outcome might not be worse in the long run, in terms of geopolitical stability, than if the weapon performs as expected!
Isn't the SU-25 [1], a close air support plane roughly equivalent in role to the A-10 [2]?
The Su-37 had its first flight in early 2008 [3] about ten years after the SR-71 was retired [4]. If you mean the SU-27 that indeed flew in 1977 [5] but only has a service celling of 19km, much less than the SR-71's 26km.
Above top secret has an interesting thread on how you would actually go about such an interception [6]
> the SU35 for example can still stalk down an SR71, just as its soviet SU25 could.
At best, you are confusing Sukhoi with Mikoyan-Gurevich at least once here; the Su-25 definitely couldn't stalk a SR-71. (A MiG-35 or Su-35 doing so is a bit of stretch, too, but less implausible.)
I think they watched Doctor Strangelove and said "yeah, let's do that"
Excerpt: It was meant to be a backup communication system, in case the key components of the "Kazbek" command system and the link to the Strategic Missile Forces are destroyed by a decapitation first strike.
To ensure its functionality the system was designed as fully automatic, and with the ability to decide on the adequate retaliatory strike on its own with no (or minimal) human involvement in the event of an all-out attack.
According to Vladimir Yarynich, a developer of the system, this system also served as a buffer against hasty decisions based on unverified information by the country's leadership. Upon receiving warnings about a nuclear attack, the leader could activate the system, and then wait for further developments, assured by the fact that even the destruction of all key personnel with the authority to command the response to the attack could still not prevent a retaliatory strike. Thus, use of the system would theoretically reduce the likeliness of a false-alarm-triggered retaliation.
Assuming Perimeter worked as intended, it would finish the job automatically eliminating the fear that no one would be alive to fire a retaliatory strike. Moscow would not longer have to fire their nuclear weapons in a panic.
During the Cold War, MAD implied you had to be suicidal to launch a nuclear strike against another nuclear-armed adversary—the adversary fires everything in retaliation and kills you. So the mission in a first-strike shifted to taking out the adversary's leadership preventing them from launching a retaliatory strike. This created a situation where the US and the Soviets were incentivized to fire at the slightest provocation: if Moscow thinks Washington launched a nuclear strike, Moscow better fire before American nukes come down.
With the Dead Hand, Moscow could activate Perimeter which would listen for certain indications of nuclear strikes and if it was determined that a nuclear strike occurred, automatically launch Soviet nuclear weapons in retaliation.
> Assuming Perimeter worked as intended, it would finish the job automatically eliminating the fear that no one would be alive to fire a retaliatory strike. Moscow would not longer have to fire their nuclear weapons in a panic.
> ...This created a situation where the US and the Soviets were incentivized to fire at the slightest provocation: if Moscow thinks Washington launched a nuclear strike, Moscow better fire before American nukes come down.
> With the Dead Hand, Moscow could activate Perimeter which would listen for certain indications of nuclear strikes and if it was determined that a nuclear strike occurred, automatically launch Soviet nuclear weapons in retaliation.
If the Russians developed Perimeter to address these concerns, what did the US do? I'd assume it built more resilient command and control infrastructure with more delegation, because Russia seems less comfortable with decentralization than the US, but I don't really know.
Dead hand can be stopped by the normal command and control system. The idea is that by starting the timer in a way that guarantees the missiles launch if command and control is wiped out, that gives them another option than 'launch the missiles now because we won't get a second chance'.
Because you KNOW that if it hits the fan, they'll launch, you aren't as tempted to early launch thinking that if it IS an attack and aimed at you, you won't be able to order the launch.
That probably doesn't clear it up. Let's try again.
1. Nuke incoming, maybe.
2. If it is incoming, it will hit me, and I will be unable to order a retaliation.
3. Therefor, I should order it now to be safe.
Instead you replace 3 with "I will arm the dead hand, and it WAS an actual strike, the dead hand will retaliate for me. If it was not, nothing will happen."
Friendly reminder that getting out of all those pesky nuclear arms control treaties meant a greatly reduced reaction time on both sides. And having 15 instead of 45 minutes to react to a detected launch makes errors naturally a lot more likely.
Nuclear war doesnt need crazy people on both sides ready to ride the bomb to end human civilization. It only needs sufficiently brainwashed bureaucrats who are stuck in the process of an apparatus that believes they have their hands forced to retaliate.
edit: And just in case somebody still has any delusions of efficiency left, most of those past cases of "almost ended the world" were down to one men who had the power and accompanying backbone to overrule and /or block a strike decision. With Vasily Arkhipov it was 2 to 1 for the "retaliatory" nuclear strike against depth charges aimed at getting them to surface.
> Friendly reminder that getting out of all those pesky nuclear arms control treaties meant a greatly reduced reaction time on both sides. And having 15 instead of 45 minutes to react to a detected launch makes errors naturally a lot more likely.
Could you be more specific about the treaties?
It kind of sounds like you're talking about the INF treaty given the comment about reaction time, but IIRC that treaty never covered submarine-launched missiles and a treaty isn't any good if it's not actually complied with (e.g. the Wikipedia page lists a decade of alleged violations prior to withdrawal, and furthermore the treaty didn't bind all relevant powers).
In February Biden left the Russian Arms Control Talks in reaction to the Russian troop movements. They were discussing reinstating the INF. With intermediate range missiles like the SS20 and Pershing with especially short reaction cycles. Which we actually got rid of in the 80s.
> a submarine-based missile could strike in as little as 10 to 15 minutes after launch
IIRC, INF treaty only banned US and Russian land-based intermediate-range missiles. It didn't ban similar sea-based missiles nor did it ban Chinese land or sea-based intermediate-range missiles.
And we had solid intel under the Obama administration that the Russians were cheating w/ INF. I am a huge fan of INF and think it was one of the great achievements of Cold War arms control. I also think it didn't make sense to keep it given Russian cheating and the fact that China's not covered at all.
Cheating isn't new with Russia: during the Late Unpleasantness, the SA-5 system was given an ABM capability in clear violation of applicable treaties.
And they were renegotiation, a point in time where addressing such shortcomings was a real possibility. China is also not currently involved in reckless power plays. It was plain and simply better then the alternative.
We are stuck with people having an end of the species button and are left dealing with this somehow. There are two approaches, one is to do everything to prevent accidental triggering. You put a case over it and and agree to not make any sudden movements. Arms control is about giving both sides a clear picture that the other one isnt going to use theirs. In short deescalation, making sure nobody is getting nervous because we know that nuclear holocaust would be a bad thing.
The other is to use it as a threat. In short escalation.
It is quite clearly heavily escalating with the second approach in a time where the former is absolutely necessary.
Lets not sugarcoat it, such behavior is very much in villain territory. Its risking the end of the species for short term political power plays.
edit: Differently put, i am going to go out on a limb here and argue that increasing the risk for a nuclear holocaust is a bad thing. I havent seen many people disagree here outside of some posadist circles
The 'government' isn't necessarily looped into every such decision. A lot of 'should we shoot' escalations are ultimately in the hands of local commanders.
The "semi autonomous" in the title makes me think of FSD cars. It's amusing to think of the differences in caution for adopting new technology: "might cause a crash" versus "might end the world".
As someone who has worked with extremely intelligent and skilled system engineers, who have all checked each other's work, but still a critical infrastructure issue slips by, this scares the shit out of me. The hubris of thinking human beings can design a robust system that, if it fails, kills everyone alive in short order, is insane.
There are multiple humans in the loop. Only the most scary (and likely inaccurate) descriptions of the system make it seem fully automated. AFAICT there is still a bunch of folk buried deep in a bunker that still need to decide if the world should end.
From that wikipedia link: "Colonel General Varfolomey Korobushin, former Deputy Chief of Staff of Strategic Rocket Forces, in 1992 said that the Russians had a system, to be activated only during a crisis..."
Activated only during a crisis? In late February Putin announced that "deterrence forces" were placed on high alert. Reporting on the topic was vague, with no answers about what this announcement meant. In a Reuters article after that announcement, an unnamed US official said this was "putting in play forces that, if there's a miscalculation, could make things much, much more dangerous" [0]. I wonder if Putin's announcement meant activating this dead hand system.
Finally I suggest watching Dan Ellsberg's "Doomsday Machine" talk [1].
Why counterattack, though? MAD is for deterence, so if one side attacks, MAD failed.
Counterattack will likely not help anything other than further escalation and further losses on the counter-attacking side. It would be kinda irrational at that point.
Your understanding of MAD seems fundamentally flawed. MAD works precisely because of the existence of a credible counter-attack strategy, it doesn't matter whether that attack is before or after the missiles strike.
He is absolutely correct. MAD is for deterrence. If your enemy already launched the missiles, there is no point in killing millions just for revenge.
Obviously, you cannot have this benevolent mindset in the first place, because your enemy will know he can destroy you without consequences and thus won’t be very much deterred from it.
Even the name MAD was a reminder to the other country that the US was indeed crazy enough to destroy and kill millions if USSR attacked.
Yes, I understand that correctly. You can have credible existance of counter attack ability for MAD, but it can still be irrational to counter-attack once one side drops a nuke.
It’s not just capacity to counter-strike, but willingness to do so.
This is a whole game theory thing that was developed in could war.
To be willing to kill millions even if it was pointless is part of the game: the enemy must be completely and absolutely convinced that a counter strike will happen. This is the only way to deter.
Absolute and complete certainty cannot be faked (given spies). It can only be provided if indeed the willingness to counter attack is real and enforced.
It's 1-part reinforcing MAD and 1-part guaranteed revenge.
Simply by existing it rules out any kind of first strike at all.
No matter which targets you hit (you can't destroy all the nukes, that is essentially impossible), even if Moscow is a glass crater and you successfully hit every nuclear command bunker this thing is still going to wipe you out.
Yes, all this does is end humanity - but the threat needs to be there to avoid the first strike in the first place and the contract is if you hit us with a nuke you are going to burn with us.
It's not rational, just like it's not rational to kill a hostage when your demands aren't met, but you need to actually carry the threat out, in order for your threats to be credible.
Isn't both sides alwats full of informants? I don't think you could confidently design a non functioning system and be sure the other side doesn't know it doesn't work
> I don't think you could confidently design a non functioning system and be sure the other side doesn't know it doesn't work
Well. The UK's "Letters of Last Resort" are kind of that. It intentionally keeps it ambiguous what will be the reaction of the British ballistic missile submarines in case of an unexpected decapitation attack.
The idea is that an incoming Prime Minister writes four identical, hand written letters to the commanders of the subs. They place these letters in safes on the submarines. Only the Prime Minister knows what the letters say.
In case the UK command structure is destroyed in a sudden decapitation strike, the submarine will detect this. For example by the fact that all naval broadcast cease to transmit. But nobody wants a single point of failure accidentally triggering a war, so they also check if the BBC 4 is still broadcasting, and they probably check other things too but the specifics are kept secret.
After the commander of the submarine, in agreement with a few other officers come to the conclusion that the UK is no more they open and read the letter. The letter gives them an instruction. It can tell them to retaliate with all they got. It can tell them to not retaliate, find a safe port and live the rest of their lives to the fullest. It can tell them to use their best judgement based on what they know. It can tell them to join the navy of a friendly country.
> Isn't both sides always full of informants?
The system assumes so yes. It is very hard to keep something secret once multiple people knows it. The idea here is that the secret is only known to one person, it is only distributed to a very limited set of very secure locations and everything is kept very low-tech to make it easier to manage the risk. Probably there are other undisclosed security arrangements too. (For example I wouldn't be surprised if the letter is carried by multiple trusted people, checking each other to prevent an enemy snooping or doing a switcheroo.)
Well the "counterattack guarantee" has to exist in order for MAD to be true. If A can attack B fast and hard enough that they can't counter attack, then there is no MAD.
As for rationality, don't assume everyone acts perfectly rationally -- or even partially.
I have to imagine there's a strong murderous urge to get back at whoever just burned your country down in nuclear fire, regardless of the greater good.
Aside from the MAD arguments others have pointed out, there is simple revenge.
You say this is irrational, but that depends on your values.
If you prioritize revenge over avoiding further losses, it is perfectly rationale.
For example, if someone killed my family, I may value killing them over my personal life. This doesn't make me irrational, but rather speaks to my value system and what I am optimizing for.
The most consequential recipient of said orders is going to be a ballistic nuclear submarine deep underwater, and water is a terrific shield for the higher frequency radio bands a satellite will have access to. I'm guessing the command rocket will spool out an extremely long wire on its flight trajectory and give access to the VLF or ULF radio bands that can penetrate the ocean.
I think the command signal is merely picked up by existing repeaters that broadcast to the submarines.
I actually think the most consequential recipients are actually the land based ICBMs as those are likely 100% automated installations.
Even if the submarines are already at launch depth I would assume there would still be final humans in the loop in all nuclear bombers and subs, making them unreliable launchers. (who really wants to press the "end the world" button?)
I actually wouldn't be surprised if it did have a direct VLF antenna system. If the Dead Hand had triggered, that suggests multiple Soviet C&C headquarters went offline due to a first strike, and at that point you can't really assume your repeaters or silos are still online. The submarine fleet's primary purpose is to be the surviving second strike capacity.
It’s funny how the presence of the last sentence changes the vibe of your comment from “well-intentioned question implicitly asking the reader to give it some thought” to “crazy talk coming from a conspiracy-theorist.”
They didn't. Various mobile nuclear C3 assets were created and/or modernized, GWEN was started, etc. We didn't need the precise equivalent because we chose a different route: redundant mobile command assets and a great deal of effort into preserving the Presidency (the office, not the person) at least until the combatant commanders had launch authority delegated to them.
FWIW, the US used to have launch code broadcast rockets. The early ones were housed in dedicated sounding rockets. Later, radio "warheads" were secretly dispersed among the Minuteman fields. We no longer use them because there are enough reliable nodes to get the word out even while under attack (e.g. Milstar).
Fun fact: missile command centers fitted to support the command rockets had a voice console where a crew member would read the current go codes into a microphone to be recorded on the "warhead" just before launch. Try not to stutter!
Historically, I think the answer is even scarier: the Dead Hand system presupposes that a centralized power is necessary to start nuclear war, the American system has been to delegate that power to regional and even theater-level military commanders (particularly in the bomber days, when sending orders to the Pacific theater was never going to work in the necessary timescale). It makes sense from a game theory perspective--if the commander-in-chief was literally the only person with strategic command authority, an assassination could render the entire country vulnerable to an unopposed first strike.
An airfield on the northern edge of Japan is close enough to Russian airspace that, at alert, the local airfield commander was going to have to make the call to sortie their bombers while the runways were still intact, and once deployed it wasn't unimaginable that a Dr. Strangelove-style scenario could go down.
It's been a few years, but I think this was mostly detailed in The Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg.
My pet theory on Putin's ability to maintain power and avoid a coup at this point is that he has spent the last 20 years rigging this system (or something similar) to a personal dead man switch, and is actively holding the entire country of Russia hostage. Everyone in his inner circle is made aware of it once they get close enough, and any leak about it ends with you falling from a window. He's just cynical enough that it goes from "comic-book farce" to "terrifying possible reality" the more you think about it.
Kinda sorta. My understanding is that he maintains a situation where everyone in power is dirty and you must be demonstrably dirty to get close to the levers of power. That shared guilt helps keep the ruling clique together. Add to that the very real threat of assassination, and it seems pretty airtight.
Your idea has the flaw that the leak would be damaging if done, and sometimes people are willing to take action at suicidal personal cost.
I think I'd rather have the Soviet system of having this system that you can turn on that fails deadly while also requiring multiple parties to agree to turn it on or launch than the US system where just one person has the authority to launch a nuclear attack all on their own.
I think this is more of a dead mans switch and not replacement for individual authority. I would not be surprised if something similar exists somewhere in the US defense system actually. I'm sure there were individuals in the Soviet Union who could fire a nuclear weapon.
It's not that it's a replacement for individual authority, it just removes the need for that individual authority. You can't rely on getting several people together to make the decision to launch a retaliatory attack in time, hence the need in the US system to invest that power in one person. Because retaliation is handled by the dead man switch you can require other uses of nuclear weapons to require consensus.
