Introduction The Samson Option (Hebrew: ברירת שמשון, b’rerat shimshon) is the name that some military analysts and authors have given to Israel’s deterrence strategy of massive retaliation with nuclear weapons as a “last resort” against a country whose military has invaded and/or destroyed much of Israel. Commentators also have employed the term to refer to… Read More
Introduction Dead Hand (Russian: Система «Периметр», Sistema “Perimetr”, lit. “Perimeter” System, with the GRAU Index 15E601, Cyrillic: 15Э601), also known as Perimeter, is a Cold War-era automatic nuclear weapons-control system (similar in concept to the American AN/DRC-8 Emergency Rocket Communications System) that was constructed by the Soviet Union. The system remains in use in the… Read More
Introduction Looking Glass (or Operation Looking Glass) is the historic code name for an airborne command and control centre operated by the United States (US). In more recent years it has been more officially referred to as the ABNCP (Airborne National Command Post). It provides command and control of US nuclear forces in the event… Read More
Introduction The letters of last resort are four identically-worded handwritten letters from the prime minister of the United Kingdom (UK) to the commanding officers of the four British ballistic missile submarines. Refer to Operation Looking Glass, Dead Hand, and the Samson Option. They contain orders on what action to take if an enemy nuclear strike… Read More
Introduction The phrase “balance of terror” is usually, but not invariably, used in reference to the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Refer to Mutual Assured Destruction. Outline It describes the tenuous peace that existed between the two countries as a result of both governments being… Read More
Introduction The concept of absolute war was a theoretical construct developed by the Prussian military theorist General Carl von Clausewitz in his famous but unfinished philosophical exploration of war, Vom Kriege (in English, On War, 1832). It is discussed only in the first half of Book VIII (there are only a couple of references to… Read More
Introduction The Frisch-Peierls memorandum was the first technical exposition of a practical nuclear weapon. It was written by expatriate German-Jewish physicists Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls in March 1940 while they were both working for Mark Oliphant at the University of Birmingham in Britain during World War II. The memorandum contained the first calculations about… Read More
Boot Camp & Military Fitness Institute 