Fail-deadly is a concept in
nuclear military strategy that encourages
deterrence by guaranteeing an immediate, automatic, and overwhelming response to an attack, even if there is no one left to trigger such retaliation. The term ''fail-deadly'' was coined as a contrast to ''
fail-safe
In engineering, a fail-safe is a design feature or practice that, in the event of a failure causes, failure of the design feature, inherently responds in a way that will cause minimal or no harm to other equipment, to the environment or to people. ...
''.
Fail-deadly can refer to specific technology components, or the controls system as a whole. The
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
's fail-deadly policies delegate strike authority to submarine commanders in the event of a loss of command (using
letters of last resort), ensuring that even when uncoordinated, nuclear retaliation can be carried out.
See also
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AN/DRC-8 Emergency Rocket Communications System
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* ''
Dr. Strangelove''
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Mutual assured destruction
Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy which posits that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would result in ...
(MAD)
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Two Generals' Problem
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Dead Hand
Dead Hand, also known as Perimeter (, with the GRAU Index 15E601, Cyrillic script, Cyrillic: 15Э601), is a Cold War–era automatic or semi-automatic nuclear weapons control system (similar in concept to the American AN/DRC-8 Emergency Rocket ...
References
{{Reflist
Nuclear command and control
Nuclear strategy