When was mutually assured destruction created

But how did this frightening concept of the Cold War fade from people's psyches? Today the notion of all-out nuclear war is rarely discussed. There are concerns about Iran and North Korea's nuclear programmes and fears that terrorists might get hold of a nuclear bomb. But the fear of a war in which the aim is to wipe out the entire population of an enemy has startlingly diminished. In , the concept of mutually assured destruction started to play a major part in the defence policy of the US. In essence it meant stockpiling a huge nuclear arsenal.

In the event of a Soviet attack the US would have enough nuclear firepower to survive a first wave of nuclear strikes and strike back. The response would be so massive that the enemy would suffer "assured destruction". Thus the true philosophy of nuclear deterrence was established. If the other side knew that initiating a nuclear strike would also inevitably lead to their own destruction, they would be irrational to press the button.

Several thousand additional retired but intact warheads are awaiting dismantling, probably 3,, as of August October Cuban missile crisis - US blockades Cuba after photos show Soviet missile bases being built there. In the past, wars had been fought by defeating your opponent on the battlefield by superior use of force. But MAD was a radical departure that trumped the conventional view of war. NATO allies of the credibility of the American deterrent, for example, seems to have also played an important role in shaping American policy.

They still do. Consider the following counterfactuals: Would U. Would it have looked the same if Washington had tried to extend deterrence with conventional forces , instead of relying primarily on nuclear weapons? My hunch is that nuclear competition would have still taken place — contrary to the dictates of the theory of the nuclear revolution — but that the arms race would have developed with significantly less intensity.

By the late s, Soviet nuclear forces began to approach parity with the American arsenal. Proponents of the nuclear revolution mark this as the moment when the superpowers began to live in a state of mutually assured destruction. Both countries possessed seemingly secure second-strike forces of such size that, no matter how well they executed a first strike, neither would escape a devastating retaliatory blow.

Neither country could limit damage to itself in any appreciable way, no matter what combination of offensive or defensive counterforce capabilities it threw at the problem. For proponents of the theory of the nuclear revolution, this condition would provide the foundation for an uneasy peace, if only the superpowers would embrace it. Green convincingly demonstrates that the superpowers were buying none of it. Each made efforts to escape MAD, with the United States ultimately getting the better of the Soviets in the counterforce competition.

The Revolution that Failed is quite good at illustrating the U. Taken together with advances in communication, surveillance, and precision, America fielded an impressive array of counterforce capabilities. These would permit the United States to exploit vulnerabilities in Soviet nuclear-armed bombers and submarines. And the improved accuracy of U. Did these U. I think that the answer is more political than technical. On the technical side, Green and others have provided persuasive evidence that the United States could have limited significant damage to itself in a nuclear exchange.

Given these improvements in counterforce capabilities, the United States likely could have avoided assured destruction without resorting to the absurd civilian defense schemes that were promoted by people like T. Nonetheless, being on the receiving end of any kind of Soviet retaliatory strike seems unpleasant, to put it mildly.

Cold War studies of limited nuclear attacks on the United States or the Soviet Union still paint a fairly destructive picture, with tens of millions of casualties on each side. And if anything, these studies probably downplayed the effects of mass fires.

Moreover, the jury is still out on how many nuclear weapons detonations would cause a nuclear winter. The Revolution that Failed has persuaded me — albeit in an uneasy way — that the United States might have escaped Armageddon in a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union.

However, I do not think the country would have emerged unscathed. The United States would have been better off than proponents of the theory of the nuclear revolution have claimed, but there would have still been plenty of pain to go around. Put another way, Washington might have broken out of MAD only to find itself still in the condition of mutually assured retaliation. If both testify, each will receive a two-year sentence. In this scenario, it may seem like the rational choice is to testify because assuming your accomplice does not testify, this choice leaves you with the least amount of jail time one year.

Plus, if you do not testify, you risk unfairly going to jail for much longer than your accomplice. However, in an ideal scenario, if both criminals here realize that there is mutually assured destruction, they will both do nothing, resulting in only one year of jail time each. The dilemma provides evidence for the equilibrium strategy, as the best move is no move — but it is dependent on a high degree of trust between both parties that the other side will cooperate.

Mutually assured destruction only achieves peace when the bearers of the arms have an equal amount of power. A nation will only stop themselves from attacking another nation if they believe the attack will result in their own destruction as well. If there is a power imbalance, such deterrence is not likely.

One modern-day example of the power imbalance disabling the peace of mutually assured destruction is the historical relationship between Black people and police officers. Unfortunately, implicit biases often make police subconsciously fearful of people of color, due to stereotypes that people of color are dangerous. This implicit bias leads police to act in particularly hostile ways towards people of color, particularly Black men.

The mutually assured distrust can cause minority communities to retaliate, which then causes law enforcement to often violently crack down on riots and retaliations. In order for mutually assured destruction to work, police officers must learn not to abuse their authority. Alternatively, a different tactic that aims at improving the trust and relationship between police officers and racialized individuals needs to be employed. In this article, our writer Justin Fox outlines the evolution of decision-making.

He discusses mutually assured destruction as a response to the revolution of rational decision-making that emerged during the World War II era.

There was belief, during this time, that the rational thinking employed by statisticians and mathematicians could be applied to other fields, like warfare. One of the criticisms against mutually assured destruction as a peacekeeping strategy is that power imbalances — real or perceived — threaten the phenomenon.

In this article, our writer Namrata Raju explores how overconfidence and an inflated sense of power can lead people to launch unprovoked attacks on competitors without fear of retaliation. Mutually Assured Destruction. Theory, meet practice TDL is an applied research consultancy. Key Terms Nuclear Deterrence : A military strategy that uses the threat of retaliation to dissuade a nation from a particular kind of attack. History On August 6th, , an American pilot dropped the first ever deployed atomic bomb over Hiroshima, Japan, immediately killing 80, people.

Controversies Mutually assured destruction is based on the principle that if a particular weapon is used in an attack, the nation being attacked will be able to retaliate with equal force and destruction. Yet, for all these efforts, it is highly probable that a conventional war in Europe or, even more likely, the limited use of nuclear weapons would have prompted a full-scale nuclear war that would have resulted in mutual destruction. In response, U. Most dramatically, President Ronald Reagan called for missile defense, declaring in that "to look down to an endless future with both of us sitting here with these horrible missiles aimed at each other and the only thing preventing a holocaust is just so long as no one pulls this trigger — this is unthinkable.

When the United States emerged as the dominant military power, defense became a much more attractive option than deterrence. Why threaten to punish another country for an attack when you can beat it back? According to MAD, trying to protect yourself is destabilizing because it threatens the other side.

In a world where the United States faces no peer competitor that could threaten it with complete annihilation, thinking in these terms makes no sense. Indeed, even the simplest missiles are difficult to intercept. Ironically, primitive warheads that tumble in flight — the very types of missiles that might be launched by low-tech U. And adversaries could deliver nuclear weapons in a variety of other ways, such as by airplanes, ships, and cargo containers.

The threat of terrorism also makes defense preferable to deterrence. How do you deter a suicide bomber? In theory, the U. But these options are politically unpalatable. Defense, however, may not work either. Warding off 99 terrorist attacks does little good if the th succeeds, especially if weapons of mass destruction WMD are used.

A defensive strategy that could achieve even 99 percent efficiency is hard to imagine short of incredible worldwide cooperation, expense, and sacrifice of civil liberties. Confronted with these dilemmas, the Bush administration has turned to what it calls preemption, but what is actually prevention.

The difference between the two is in the timescale: The former means an attack against an adversary that is about to strike; the latter is a move to prevent a threat from fully emerging. An adversary who cannot be deterred and whose attacks cannot be defended against must be stopped before it gains the capability to do great harm.