Fail-deadly

One, admittedly extreme, means of reducing the impact of a command, control, and communication failure would be the adoption of a "fail deadly" mode of operation. For example, as opposed to requiring a positive signal to proceed on to target after launch-on-warning, airplanes might be permitted to continue until a negative recall signal were received. The risk of unauthorized action would be increased, as would the danger of accidental or inadvertent war due to equipment malfunction.

If one were to assume a more traditional Realist image of human fallibility, then one's confidence in the safety of the elaborate nuclear "fail deadly" deterrence order might not be so sanguine.

[F]ail-deadly is a concept from nuclear military strategy, suggesting deterrence by an immediate and forceful response to an attack. It is interesting to investigate what differentiates these two design approaches to security protocols, and what they have in common when we consider a family of protocols where both fail-safe and fail-deadly versions are considered.