In 1975 the United States doomsday plan changed to fight WW3 from the air. The Joint Chiefs of Staff knew that the underground bunkered American command structure would not survive a direct hit from a multimegaton nuclear weapon. If a properly shaped kiloton nuclear charge will carve a ten-foot diameter hole a thousand feet long into solid rock (McPhee 159), then a 100 megaton shaped charge will dig anyone out of a bunker. So, in order to survive the American military moved their command and control into the air.
This move left American doomsday command vulnerable to decapitation via communications jamming and nuclear air burst. The placement of the Dugas, whose radar beams crisscrossed over the midwestern states of the United States, shows that the Soviets were attempting to triangulate the position of the E4-B. Which was based out of Offutt AFB in Nebraska. There were also psychological and electronic warfare elements to Duga system.
The Duga system interrupted telephone communications in Western Europe, air to ground communications in the United States and wiped out parts of the ham radio spectrum. So, there was a psychological warfare component to the Duga. And because the Duga-3 radar was placed near the Chernobyl nuclear plant shows that the power out of the radar was going to be in the 6-gigawatt range making Duga-3 a massive electronic warfare weapon. Which is probably why Chernobyl was attacked in 1986.
Bibliography:
McPhee, John A. The Curve Of Binding Energy. Farrar, Straus And Giroux, 1973.
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