Imagine standing on a serene beach, only to be met with the prospect of an impending radioactive tsunami of catastrophic proportions. That is the terrifying possibility presented by Russia’s Poseidon torpedo, a nuclear-powered, long-range underwater drone designed to unleash destruction on an unprecedented scale.
In January 2023, it was reported by the Russian news agency TASS that the first batch of these doomsday weapons had been produced. Nuclear strategists have warned that a single Poseidon torpedo could wipe out a coastal city by causing radioactive flooding that could kill millions. In recent years, stories in tabloids have dramatically relayed how a 1,000-foot-tall radioactive tsunami would come crashing onto British shores, destroying everything and making whole cities uninhabitable.
The Poseidon torpedo, well known in the United States as Kanyon, Oceanic Multipurpose System, Status-6, was declared by the Russian Navy in 2015 and tested in November 2016. It is a nuclear-powered underwater drone armed with nuclear weapons, launched from submarines, with first deployments planned for 2027.
It is believed that Poseidon will travel at 100 knots, powered by a compact nuclear reactor, with a range of some 10,000 kilometers and operational depths of up to 1,000 meters. Its design is supposed to avoid detection by acoustic tracking devices; it will have a diameter of about 1.6 to two meters. While the payload for this torpedo is rather alarming, a nuclear warhead with at least several megatons of yield, early reports have pegged it at up to 100 megatons. By way of comparison, an estimate places the yield from a blast of Russia’s Tsar Bomba, the strongest nuclear weapon tested, at some 50 megatons.
Though many speculate that Poseidon might be a propaganda tool, most experts agree that “very real” behind it, which the Russian armed forces have put massive investments into. Intelligence reports revealed that Poseidon has undergone many trials, with submarines such as the Sarov having been modified to trial prototypes. The Russian Navy intends to procure at least 30 Poseidon torpedoes, mounting them on four submarines.
The concept of nuclear-armed torpedoes dates back to the 1950s when the Soviet Union launched programs placing nuclear warheads on submarine-launched torpedoes, such as T-5 and T-15, among others. All these had been part of a far greater Soviet effort at developing nuclear capabilities. During the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, a Soviet submarine armed with a T-5 nuclear-tipped torpedo got very close to firing against US forces, only to be stopped by that submarine’s deputy commander, Vasili Arkhipov.
Unlike its predecessors, the Poseidon torpedo will be remotely controlled and autonomous on board, thus opening up a possible risk of hacking, technical malfunctioning, and accidental escalation due to environmental factors. This case exemplifies the evolution that Russia’s nuclear deterrence strategy has undergone, one that hitherto rested on such systems as the Dead Hand, an automated nuclear command and control system developed during the Cold War.
According to Russian authorities, Poseidon is a multipurpose system, so presumably, it could play several roles that would also include bypassing U.S. ballistic missile defenses aimed against aircraft carrier groups and coastal cities. The development of the Poseidon was designed to respond to new U.S. missile defenses and the overthrow of the 1972 U.S.-Soviet Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
The induction of autonomous platforms for nuclear delivery, of which Poseidon is a premier example, has raised a host of questions about strategic stability. Advances in artificial intelligence and unmanned systems could further reduce the degree of direct human control over nuclear weapons, introducing new risks. Others, however, including former US Secretary of Defense James Mattis, believe that Poseidon’s entry into the Russian arsenal would not change the fundamental strategic nuclear balance between Russia and the United States.
First of all, Poseidon should be regarded as a kind of psychological weapon, just a nuclear signaling device rather than a real weapon to be used. Some even say it won’t move farther than the prototype stage, serving political goals only by jump-starting negotiations with the United States on missile defense systems. It could be that the main idea behind this weapon lies in uncertainty and fear.
Automated weapons, like that of Poseidon, complicate decision-making in times of crisis and make AI an active participant in strategic adversity. These systems have created controversy over whether these systems should be fully automated, given the extreme risks involved with misjudging an opponent’s intentions. Further research is required to help better understand the problems posed by unmanned, automated nuclear vehicles like Poseidon, needing more information about the weapon itself.
The themes of risk reduction and arms control are timely for the alleviation of some uncertainty related to new weapon systems, like Poseidon. This can be used to enable both parties to shed light on each other’s nuclear forces and be better prepared for some of the associated risks with modern technologies.