You know that Doomsday Device fron Doctor Strangelove? Russia actually has one, and has had it since the Cold War. It's called the "Death's Hand" and it will, if it detects a nuclear explosion on Russian soil, launch all of their missiles at predetermined targets. The biggets difference between the movie and the real thing is that the real one is not constantly on, and somebody needs to flip a switch to activate it (they were originally going to make it always active but figured that might be a bad idea).
My favorite are the salted nuclear bombs. Of particular interest is weapons like cobalt salted nuclear weapons. Toxic and then radioactive :3 Fun.
Next up with be large area effect neutron weapons. *Zap* you dead. The one instance of fiction that is supposedly reasonable depiction of the weapons use in a war fare scenario was chilling.
The Dead Hand or Perimeter system mentioned earlier
My new favorite is the U.S. is experimenting with gamma ray weaponry.
edited 28th Jan '11 12:29:37 AM by TuefelHundenIV
Who watches the watchmen?

What's your position on the use of these machines?