Héloise Fayet
It’s July 2025. After a week of building tensions between Russia and the United States, following what seems to be a failed meeting between Trump and Putin in Anchorage, Donald Trump posts an oddly worded message[1] on his social network, Truth Social: He plans to “position” US nuclear submarines in the “appropriate regions,” in a clear reference to Russia. This post comes after a not-so-subtle reference by former Russian President Dimitri Medvedev on X (the social media site formerly known as Twitter) to the so-called “Dead Hand” mechanism, a method initiated in the Soviet Union era, of automatically ensuring a nuclear response if an attack eliminated all the officials in the country’s usual line of command.
This indirect exchange generated some surprise in the strategic community and the public: Many articles were suddenly written on the Dead Hand tool, and some speculation arose about these two additional subs supposedly stationed nearer to Russia: Were they nuclear missile-carrying submarines or attack submarines that carry only conventional weapons? Were they already on patrol or were these submarines ordered to leave port?
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