What does Doomsday Machine mean in Dr. Strangelove?

Answer 1

The 1964 movie was "Dr. Strangelove (or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)."

In the movie, the doomsday device was a device designed to automatically destroy all of civilization if the country (in this case the USSR) were to be attacked. Similar to the theory of "Mutual Assured Destruction" (MAD), it was supposed to discourage any attack. Of course, it also meant that no lesser response was available other than self-annihilation.

The actual device consisted of buried nuclear weapons with a shell of "Cobalt-Thorium G" (a fictional analog of tampers producing radioactive cobalt-60) -- when automatically set off, they would create a worldwide layer of deadly fallout, killing all humans and all life on the surface, a so-called "doomsday shroud." The only way for anyone to survive would be to hide in deep underground caves for 100 years until the level of radiation lessened.