Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

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Would Russia’s undersea “doomsday drone” carry

a cobalt bomb?

Edward Moore Geist

To cite this article: Edward Moore Geist (2016): Would Russia’s undersea “doomsday drone”
carry a cobalt bomb?, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, DOI: 10.1080/00963402.2016.1195199

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2016.1195199

Published online: 14 Jun 2016.

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 BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS, 2016
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2016.1195199

Would Russia’s undersea “doomsday drone” carry a cobalt bomb?

Edward Moore Geist

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Following the November 2015 “leak” of a classified slide purporting to show a Russian nuclear- Cobalt bomb; doomsday
armed and nuclear-powered drone intended to create long-lasting “zones of extensive radiolo- machine; Status-6;
gical contamination,” both Russian and Western observers have suggested that Moscow may be unmanned underwater
vehicle
developing a cobalt bomb. This conjectural device, which served as the basis of the “doomsday
machine” in the classic 1964 film Dr. Strangelove, would employ radioactive cobalt to create
unusually intense long-lived fallout. This article reviews the history and science of the cobalt
bomb to assess the likelihood that Russia is developing such a weapon. It argues that while the
lethality of the cobalt bomb compares unfavorably to that of “conventional” thermonuclear
Downloaded by [University of California Santa Barbara] at 09:40 15 June 2016

weapons, it might actually be a preferred means of creating long-lasting radioactive contamina-

tion because it could force an adversary to abandon territory while minimizing the number of
immediate fatalities. But exploiting this principle in practice would be forbiddingly difficult
because of the difficulty of predicting the ultimate distribution of the radioactive contamination,
particularly for an underwater detonation like that envisioned for the “Status-6” drone seen in the
Russian slide. While the underwater detonation of a massive cobalt or “conventional” nuclear
weapon might create zones of long-lasting contamination, Russian decision makers would have
little confidence that these areas would be in the intended locations, undermining the strategic
case for such attacks. These findings suggest that the Kremlin is not pursuing radiological
“doomsday bombs,” even though the nuclear-powered drone on the slide seems to be a real
research project.

Is Russia building the dreaded “cobalt bomb”?
Following a leak about a supposed nuclear-armed
underwater drone on Russian television in November,
observers, including the nuclear analyst Jeffrey Lewis
and the renowned physicist Max Tegmark, have echoed
claims made by well-placed commenters in that coun-
try that Moscow is pursuing such a “doomsday
weapon.”
On November 10, 2015, President Vladimir Putin
met with his generals in Sochi to discuss the develop-
ment of Russia’s strategic nuclear forces. A briefing
slide (see Figure 1) appeared momentarily in TV
news reports about the meeting that described the
“Oceanic Multipurpose System ‘Status-6,’” a nuclear-
armed and nuclear-powered undersea drone. While
many veteran Russia-watchers suspect that this “leak”
was intentional (See “Russia’s underwater ‘doomsday
drone’: Science fiction and real danger” by Igor
Sutyagin in this issue), the Russian government insists
that the slide was a genuine classified document
(Podvig 2016).
Attention immediately focused on the Status-6’s sta-
ted mission: “Destruction of important enemy
economic targets in coastal regions” and infliction of
“unacceptable damage to the territory of the country.”
This would be done “by creating zones of extensive
radiological contamination that would be unsuitable
for military, economic, or other activity for extended
periods of time.” Although no mention of cobalt
appears on the slide, many speculated that this was a
reference to a cobalt bomb, a hypothetical type of
nuclear explosive designed to produce large amounts
of long-lived radioactive fallout. The fact that Russian
state-owned media outlets such as the newspaper
Rossiiskaia Gazeta echoed this assessment gave cred-
ibility to the notion that Russia might really be building
this nightmarish weapon (Valagin 2015).
First proposed by Leo Szilard in 1950, the cobalt
bomb aims to create unusually intense and long-lived
radioactive fallout by employing the neutrons from
nuclear fusion to irradiate cobalt-59 (Co-59) (Bethe,
et al. 1950, 109). Upon absorbing a neutron, this non-
radioactive isotope becomes cobalt-60 (Co-60), a
powerful gamma emitter with a half-life of slightly
more than five years. Szilard theorized that such a
source of long-lived radiological contamination would

CONTACT Edward Moore Geist egeist@stanford.edu

© 2016 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
 2 E. M. GEIST
Figure 1. English translation of the slide that appeared on Russian television on November 10, 2015 (Source: Author).
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be deadlier to people and ecosystems than the much
more intense, but shorter-lived, fallout from fission,
most of which decays within a few days (Arnold
1950). The notion that cobalt or other “salted” bombs
could be used to wage radiological warfare soon
entered popular culture, most famously in the 1964
film Dr. Strangelove. In both Stanley Kubrick’s classic
movie and Neville Shute’s 1957 novel On the Beach,
salted bombs created by Communist powers result in
the extinction of the human race. In reality, however,
these bombs fail to live up to their apocalyptic reputa-
tion. Much like the nuclear power plant accidents at
Chernobyl and Fukushima, cobalt bombs would render
substantial areas uninhabitable but not kill very many
people directly compared to the fallout from “normal”
hydrogen bombs. While this could appeal to decision
makers eager to impede enemy “military, economic, or
other activity” and disinclined to commit mass murder,
it seems unlikely that the Russians are really building
radiological weapons such as cobalt bombs because
they would have little assurance that these bombs
would contaminate the intended target areas.
The cobalt bomb is no doomsday machine
During the Cold War, both superpowers were very
interested in the possibility of radiological warfare
(Bernstein 1985), but they never developed “salted”
bombs because these proved a relatively inefficient
means of inflicting radiation casualties. While laymen
often assume that longer-lived radioisotopes must be
deadlier, in practice the opposite is generally the case,
as shorter-lived isotopes typically cause greater expo-
sures over shorter periods of time. As it happens, the
fission of uranium or plutonium in a conventional
nuclear weapon produces an array of short-lived fission
products (essentially the “ashes” of the fission of
nuclei) that are extraordinarily radioactive, even if
they largely decay within a few days. While Co-60 is
an unusual combination of a relatively long-lived iso-
tope that produces high-energy gamma rays, in terms
of sheer lethality it compares unfavorably with fresh
fission products.
As it happens, the neutrons produced by fusion in
nuclear weapons can be harnessed to produce fission in
inexpensive materials (namely depleted uranium) and
increase yield. Since the mid-1950s, most thermonuc-
lear weapons, except those designed to be “clean” and
produce as little fallout as possible, have exploited this
principle to one degree or another. While weapons
designers largely did so to increase the blast yields of
the weapons without increasing weight or using costly
nuclear materials, they inadvertently created devices
capable of turning neutrons into deadly fallout very
efficiently. A rudimentary analysis shows that these
bombs, thousands of which were stockpiled during
the Cold War, are probably much more lethal radiolo-
gical weapons than the fictional cobalt bomb. The
long-lived cobalt fallout might render large areas too
contaminated for humans to inhabit for years or dec-
ades, but unlike fission fallout, which would subject its
victims to fatal doses in the space of hours or minutes,
people could flee the contaminated area before suffer-
ing mortal radiation injuries.
The fast neutrons produced by fusion can be used
either to cause fissionable nuclei to split and form fission
products, or to irradiate Co-59 and produce Co-60.
While these fission products have very short average
half-lives, they are initially many thousands of times
more radioactive than the Co-60.1 As a consequence,

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Figure 2. Comparison of Co-60 and Fission Fallout.2
in the first few hours after the explosion, fission fallout
results in exposure rates about 10,000 times higher than
from Co-60. While the fission products decay to be less
radioactive than the cobalt in less than two weeks, it
takes a period of several years for accumulated expo-
sures from cobalt to exceed that from the fission pro-
ducts (see Figure 2). Furthermore, this analysis is biased
in favor of the cobalt bomb, as the fission events
produce neutrons that can produce additional
fissions, while Co-59 can only absorb neutrons (Lapp
1955, 342).
As a consequence, conventional thermonuclear
bombs using fissionable components are far more
lethal radiological weapons than cobalt bombs. The
intense exposure from their fallout would be more
effective both at inflicting prompt human casualties
and creating long-term ecological disruption. Both
humans and other species are better able to withstand
radiation exposures delivered at lower dose rates, so the
rapid exposure from fission fallout would kill even
relatively radiation-resistant organisms, such as hard-
wood trees and insects, that might survive the less
intense cobalt fallout. The additional energy released
by fission events would also help disperse the fallout
more effectively, so the sacrifice of blast yield to induce
radioactivity in cobalt could result in areas receiving
BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS 3
relatively little fallout, meaning both humans and other
species there could survive. In short, the cobalt bomb
just is not a very good doomsday machine.
Fictional cobalt bombs such as the one in
Dr. Strangelove are often envisioned as devices for pro-
ducing as much global fallout as possible, but the tele-
vised Russian slide clearly indicates that Status-6 is
intended to affect specific areas. There are two types of
fallout: local fallout, which reaches the surface hours or
days after a nuclear explosion, and global fallout, which
can take years to make its way to the ground. Extremely
high-yield nuclear explosions can loft very small radio-
active particles into the stratosphere, where they can
then travel great geographic distances before reaching
the surface. In On the Beach, global fallout from a
nuclear war fought mostly in the northern hemisphere
encircles the Earth and kills off all human life.
Starting in the 1950s, scientists devoted much atten-
tion to the possible threat posed by this phenomenon.
By the 1980s, however, it became apparent that global
fallout from fission products would pose a compara-
tively minor hazard relative to the other effects of
nuclear war (Pittock, et al. 1986). But this is due to
the short average lifetime of fission products. Thanks
to its longer half-life, most global fallout from Co-60
would reach the surface while still possessing the bulk
 4 E. M. GEIST
of its initial radioactivity. As it turns out, this apparent
“advantage” to would-be doomsday machine builders
is likely an illusion because of the prohibitive quantity
of neutrons required to produce dose rates lethal to
populations. It is unclear just how much the inclusion
of cobalt in a thermonuclear weapon would compro-
mise its performance, but the few public statements on
the subject by nuclear weapons design experts suggest
it is quite steep. Instead of the cheap alternative to
conventional nuclear arsenals imagined in Kubrick’s
film, a massive cobalt bomb would consume astronom-
ical quantities of costly nuclear materials relative to the
superpowers’ nuclear stockpiles. In any case, cobalt
bombs make little sense as regional radiological weap-
ons unless their limited prompt lethality is seen as an
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advantage rather than a disadvantage.
A counterintuitive conclusion emerges from this
analysis: that if cobalt bombs have any use at all, it is
as nuisance weapons. While humans could flee the area
contaminated by the radioactive cobalt before accumu-
lating a lethal dose, much of this region would be too
hazardous for humans to work and live for many years.
If a nation-state wanted to create long-lasting “zones of
extensive radiological contamination” without killing
populations outright, then cobalt bombs might be pre-
ferable to conventional thermonuclear weapons
designs. Edward Teller even propounded the possibility
of such “humane” radiological warfare in a 1958 book
(Teller and Latter 1958). It therefore might seem like a
cobalt bomb would be an ideal means of achieving the
goal stated on the slide for Status-6. But it seems more
probable that Status-6, if it exists, is intended to carry
some other payload, as any application of a cobalt
bomb would inevitably be subject to the Achilles’ heel
of radiological warfare: It is too difficult to predict with
any kind of assurance whether the contamination will
end up in the intended target area.
Is status-6 a radiological weapon?
If the designers of Status-6 aimed to inflict as many
radiation casualties as possible, they could arm it with a
different kind of radiological weapon designed to cre-
ate as much fission fallout as possible. These bombs
would require no untested technology and would avoid
the tradeoff between fallout and blast yield inherent in
the cobalt bomb. If the diagram on the leaked slide is
accurate, the Status-6 can carry a cylindrical nuclear
warhead about 1.5 meters in diameter and 4 meters in
length. A sophisticated nuclear-weapons state such as
Russia can easily develop a device with these dimen-
sions producing tens of megatons of fission fallout.
Despite this, it would be extremely difficult to predict
whether this weapon could achieve particular strategic
objectives by means of radiological contamination. The
dispersal of fallout depends not just on a weapon’s
design and targeting, but also on unpredictable factors
such as atmospheric conditions. Furthermore, atmo-
spheric nuclear tests were mostly carried out in ways
intended to minimize fallout, reducing the opportunity
to validate fallout models. As a consequence, even the
best of these models has only limited predictive value,
giving decision makers little confidence that radiologi-
cal attacks would have the desired effect.
This uncertainty would be compounded by the mar-
itime nature of Status-6. Only a handful of underwater
tests were conducted by the United States and Soviet
Union, and the largest of these was only tens of kilo-
tons in yield, yet a wide range of variation appeared in
those tests (Glasstone and Dolan 1977). It is plausible
that an underwater burst with a yield of tens of mega-
tons would produce previously unseen physical effects
analogous to those that appeared in extremely high-
yield atmospheric explosions. Due to these uncertain-
ties, the United States never developed the ability to
model radiological contamination from underwater
bursts, and there is no evidence in the open literature
that the Russians have either (Loborev, et al. 2009). As
a consequence, it seems unlikely that the Status-6 is
primarily intended as a radiological weapon.
Moscow’s message
Given the difficulty of using radiological contamination
to achieve concrete strategic objectives, the Russian
“leak” may have been intentional disinformation aim-
ing to obscure the reality behind an actual research and
development program. Russia is known to be develop-
ing undersea drones as well as compact nuclear reac-
tors to power them, and earlier rumors suggested that
Moscow planned to employ such systems armed with
high-yield thermonuclear warheads to threaten strate-
gic sites along the coasts of the United States, such as
submarine bases (Gertz 2015; Podvig 2016). Soviet
researchers are known to have extensively studied the
potential applications of high-yield nuclear-armed tor-
pedoes in the 1950s and 1960s, including the possibility
that they could be used to create artificial tsunamis to
inundate the United States (Adamskii and Smirnov
1995). Such attacks would inevitably be associated
with substantial, difficult-to-predict radiological conse-
quences that might be considered a kind of strategic
“bonus” by Russian military planners. The fact that
Soviet military planners thought of fallout this way

when targeting nuclear weapons against the United
States during the Cold War bolsters the plausibility of
this hypothesis.
Another possibility is that the Russians engineered
the “leak” in order to signal their willingness to
embrace extreme alternatives to the current nuclear
strategic paradigm in order to protect their national
interests. The Kremlin has repeatedly expressed its
frustration with US investments in force modernization
and missile defense that it sees as undermining Russia’s
second-strike capability. A system such as Status-6
would be largely immune to existing US defenses, and
coupling it to a Strangelovian goal of “creating zones of
extensive radiological contamination” could be
intended to send a message that if the United States
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continues to erode Russia’s security, Moscow may
upend the existing nuclear order in response. This
possibility should give US policy makers pause, even
if Status-6 is not a “doomsday bomb.”
Notes
1. One kiloton of fission is about 1.45 × 1023 fissions, and
therefore consumes this many neutrons. This number of
fissions produces about 530 gamma Megacuries of radio-
activity (measured at one hour after detonation), while
the absorption of one neutron by 1.45 × 1023 Co-59
atoms produces a mere 15635.399 curies (Glasstone and
Dolan 1977).
2. The relationship between the density of radioactive
contamination and dose rates (variously dubbed as
the Source Normalization Constant or “k-factor” in
US fallout literature) is highly uncertain (Bridgman
2001). Values here assume that the dose rate from
15635.399 Ci of Co-60 per square kilometer is equal
to 1/8750 that of fission products at one hour after
detonation, chosen to adjust for the relatively higher
penetrating power of gamma rays from Co-60 decay
relative to the fission products.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding
agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS 5
Notes on contributor
Edward Moore Geist is a MacArthur Nuclear Security Fellow
at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and
Cooperation. Previously a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at
the RAND Corporation, he received his doctorate in history
from the University of North Carolina in 2013.
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