Kevin's Watch

Mutually Assured Destruction; which supplemented a significant ingredient to the Cold War. The concept; which incorporated the use of nuclear weapons to utilize in the event of having been assaulted by nuclear weapons; to ensure that if one side was destroyed or attacked, so would the other side.

America and the Soviet Union used this policy since the point where both sides acquired the potential to formulate a nuclear strike (1949)

So I was wondering, do you think this was a good tactic? Did it keep peace, does it have it’s flaws?

Flawed as it may have been, it worked.

While very risky, it at least put of any thoughts of conflict on the back-burner. I know i'd be much more willing to have peace talks with the threat of Nuclear War hanging over me.

The "nuke" drills we did in elementary school always cracked me up: yeah, huddling under your desk is really going to help you.

In case of attack:
lossen tie
put head between legs
kiss ass goodbye!

and now New Mexico has to sit on all the deactivated European warheads-hence our bumpersticker: WMD Iraq 0 Albuquerque 2000

Like Cail said, it worked.

Yeah, I agree. It only really has one significant flaw...the possibility of a leader wo didn't care.

--A

...which didn't happen.

Which didn't happen.

On a related note though, I wonder if it can legitimately be called a military strategy though...I dunno...maybe...or a social one? Or psychological?

--A

I think it's all of them. From a military standpoint, it makes sense.

Hell, it works with firearms too. Crime rates have dropped in areas that allow concealed carry. Criminals are much less likely to attack you if they think you're packing.

Cail wrote:I think it's all of them. From a military standpoint, it makes sense.

Hell, it works with firearms too. Crime rates have dropped in areas that allow concealed carry. Criminals are much less likely to attack you if they think you're packing.

I'm not so sure, i'd imagine criminals are more likely to carry a gun themselves if they think their victims might have one aswell.

Statistics have borne out the correlation.

It worked back when we were afraid of nukes, and men were more resonable. The political climate today, with zealots lording over or close to having nukes makes one pause for a moment.

I think MAD today may become just another form of Robert Conrad daring you to knock the Duracell off of his manly shoulder.

I agree with Cail about the guns in a sense...Here, (where if you carry a firearm, it has to be concealed), there is much less "petty brutality" if I can call it that, than I saw in the UK. I'm talking aout brawls and beatings and stuff. Here, they just shoot people.

I don't know if men were more reasonable Guns, but we were certainly afraid. I do agree that in the age of the zealot, it's probably not the way forward. (More MAD) I mean. But maybe that's part of the problem. For Iran, for instance, to be capable of assuring the destruction of America, well, it's never gonna happen. Not for a long long time anyway. So without that ability, they're potentially frustrated, and therefore potentially much more dangerous than if the felt themselves on equal footing, destruction-wise.

--A

Avatar wrote:I agree with Cail about the guns in a sense...Here, (where if you carry a firearm, it has to be concealed), there is much less "petty brutality" if I can call it that, than I saw in the UK. I'm talking aout brawls and beatings and stuff. Here, they just shoot people.

I don't know if men were more reasonable Guns, but we were certainly afraid. I do agree that in the age of the zealot, it's probably not the way forward. (More MAD) I mean. But maybe that's part of the problem. For Iran, for instance, to be capable of assuring the destruction of America, well, it's never gonna happen. Not for a long long time anyway. So without that ability, they're potentially frustrated, and therefore potentially much more dangerous than if the felt themselves on equal footing, destruction-wise.

--A

I am more comncerend about Isreal and "X" (fill in the blank here). The US is something of an untouchable quantity. We have the vast arsenal and only N Korea is truly a threat. The Soviet economy is too tied to the US for MAD to become an issue any more (i think).

Avatar wrote:I agree with Cail about the guns in a sense...Here, (where if you carry a firearm, it has to be concealed), there is much less "petty brutality" if I can call it that, than I saw in the UK. I'm talking aout brawls and beatings and stuff. Here, they just shoot people.

I don't know if men were more reasonable Guns, but we were certainly afraid. I do agree that in the age of the zealot, it's probably not the way forward. (More MAD) I mean. But maybe that's part of the problem. For Iran, for instance, to be capable of assuring the destruction of America, well, it's never gonna happen. Not for a long long time anyway. So without that ability, they're potentially frustrated, and therefore potentially much more dangerous than if the felt themselves on equal footing, destruction-wise.

--A

Agreed. The Iranian leader has stated numerous times that he wishes to blow Israel “off the map”. Just how effective can the concept of MAD be in the face of fundamental extremism?

No, that's not what I meant. I meant that as long as he can be blown off the map, and can't blow anybody else off the map, he's going to be nervous because he doesn't have MAD insurance. And nervous people do foolish things.

--A

A few weaknesses of MAD off the top of my head:
-www.mosnews.com/feature/2004/05/21/petrov.shtml
Imagine having someone, as Avatar notes, nervous in such a situation.
-Assumes that neither nation will develop any sort of method of concealing the weapons until they've hit.
-Only worked because neither Russia or America was controlled by religious fanatics who believed they'd go to heaven if they killed the enemy.
-As technology gets better and better, it becomes harder and harder to assure that MAD will work in any way. If the cold war hadn't ended, we'd have MAD going on in a world where a country could probably plant a bomb rather than send in easily locatable missiles. Hell, maybe we'll even make a Metal Gear eventually XD

Other problems:
-The buildup which took place because russia and the USA never went into conflict has resulted in two things. First, Russia still has its nukes. Second, other countries are taking nukes from russia, meaning that MAD will never work again because there will be far too many variables, like developing nations with nukes (very simple to do) who may seek a quick victory with a lucky first strike, etc. Note that most of the countries on the globe have looked into building nukes.
-If MAD didn't exist, there'd be a win-lose scenario in place. With MAD in place, you have a permanent draw until things go wrong. Then you either get win-lose or lose-lose. Anotherwards, the result of implementing MAD is that the US, Europe, the warsaw pact countries, and I assume China would've been obliterated had things come to a head.

Further commentary on the second point...is this good or bad? I would argue that, going by the logic of the US in bombing Japan, MAD was a bad thing. By allowing Russia to create nukes and letting the MAD scenario come into place, we risked destruction of much of the world, especially as the two nations built power-blocs and expanded the cold war around the globe. Considering that the US seemed to believe it was just to use nukes once to force diplomacy, and twice to force it faster, I wonder why by that logic we didn't go for a win when we could've. After all, the deaths which would've occurred in an invasion of Japan would be minimal compared to any situation in which the USA and Russia came to blows.

A Gunslinger wrote:I am more comncerend about Isreal and "X" (fill in the blank here). The US is something of an untouchable quantity. We have the vast arsenal and only N Korea is truly a threat.

What? NK isn't a threat to America.

Good post Holsety.

--A

All credit goes to Kojima, Solid Snake, and the Metal Gear game series. They are my muses for all things related to the cold war, nukes, and war in general.

Avatar wrote:

A Gunslinger wrote:I am more comncerend about Isreal and "X" (fill in the blank here). The US is something of an untouchable quantity. We have the vast arsenal and only N Korea is truly a threat.

What? NK isn't a threat to America.

Good post Holsety.

--A

He does have a missle that can reach our border, though not the warhead...yet. NK is I suppose more of a future threat.