January 22, 2018
In a joint project with the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a team of CNS experts have used open-source information to recreate the US Raven Rock Mountain Complex and Russia’s Kosvinsky Bunker, the elaborate network of underground facilities where leaders can ride out— and continue fighting— an all-out nuclear war. Players in the video game Minecraft can now interact and explore these top-secret facilities, which raises important questions about each country’s attachment to nuclear deterrence. As team leader Jeffrey Lewis writes, “Nothing better illustrates the continuing absurdity of plans to fight a nuclear war than the massive complex of underground bunkers that the United States and Russia have built to survive and fight on even after both societies have collapsed. … The plans – known in the United States as “continuity of government” – are to create a kind of zombie government that fights on to protect people who are long-dead. In the United States, the Executive Branch had a discussion about whether to include Congress, but ‘it was decided that no, it would be easier to operate without them.’ Congress, of course, felt differently. Not to be left out, it funded its own bunker underneath the Greenbrier resort, in Pennsylvania.”
Explore It Yourself
Interested in exploring the facilities in Minecraft?
Read instructions to get you started.
You can also take a sneak peak in this video trailer:
