Quite an interesting system, made in response to Reagan’s plans for a Star Wars defence shield, the Soviet Union set up an automatic nuke-launching system, which could control all of it’s nuclear silos and destroy the world (ie. strategically aim to hit most of the land on Earth such that most people would die and a nuclear winter would follow) in the event that nuclear explosions were detected and communication with the Soviet military command has been lost.
The interesting thing is, the system is designed to launch regardless of who initiates the first attack – be it USA or SU. The system was designed not only as a deterrent to the Americans, but also to any Soviet leader who could be contemplating starting a nuclear war.
Now there’s some pretty epic self control!