Bologoye, Russia -- Deep below ground in a hardened nuclear-command bunker, Cmdr. Alexander Kapryushkin of Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces has his finger on Russia's nuclear button.
The days of Cold War confrontation are over, but down in the bunker, 34-year-old Kapryushkin still sees America as Russia's enemy. "We can clearly see that the imperialist world, led by the United States, is rapidly advancing toward us," he says with conviction. "Their goal is to destroy our state."
Russia's estimated 6,000 nuclear warheads are no longer aimed at the United States, but they are capable of being re-targeted in a few minutes. An SS-25 missile of the type that Kapryushkin controls from his bunker at the Bologoye rocket base north of Moscow can obliterate an American city just ten minutes after launch. And the ability to launch the missiles lies literally at the fingertips of low-level officers like Kapryushkin. There's no fail-safe system to prevent an accidental launch or keep a rogue commander from triggering nuclear Armageddon.