M.A.D

I will discuss the ridiculousness, yet stability of mutually assured destruction and argue that it in today’s world, it acts as the best deterrent.  The quote, "Offense is defense, defense is offense. Killing people is good, killing weapons is bad", sums up the theory of mutually assured destruction rather well.  While it may seem illogical, this thinking has been a basis for U.S. nuclear strategy for decades, and has served rather well. At the heart of the nuclear restraint is the concept of mutual assured destruction, meaning each side maintains nuclear forces sufficient to inflict devastating damage on its opponent even if the other side strikes first. The greatest deterrent to nuclear war is a strategic force that can withstand an opponent's first strike and still retaliate in kind. In this situation, neither side has an incentive to strike first, which would only arise if one side could destroy the other's weapons in a primary strike. Then a tremendous advantage would go to the side striking first. Similarly, if one side had some means of protecting its population from nuclear attack, it might also be tempted to begin nuclear warfare, because it would be reasonably safe from retaliation.

This thinking then leads to the conclusions that threatening to kill people is good because it deters nuclear attack. While threatening to destroy weapons is bad because it challenges the ability of the other side to retaliate.  An invulnerable nuclear force is the best deterrent, so offense is the best defense, and an effective anti-ballistic missile defense or an ABM upsets the balance, which means defense is offense. The acronym for mutual assured destruction, M.A.D, is very deserving.  It is truly madness that in 1972, Nixon and Brezhnev, signed an ABM Agreement which prohibited either side from defending itself against a missile attack by the other. This meant that millions of Americans were offered as the Soviet Union’s hostages in the game of nuclear strategy and in return President Nixon got the right to hold a hundred million Soviet citizens as his hostages.  This is the core of mutually assured destruction.   

How many nuclear bombs does it take to deter a nuclear attack though?  While the logical answer would be a few at the most, the United States has over 7000 separately targetable nuclear warheads.  The dramatic increase in the number of nuclear warheads is the result of several factors, but whatever the reasons, we now find ourselves in the unsettling situation of having enough warheads to destroy the world many times over. Even the Pentagon admits that the force is more than enough for assured destruction. Still, in today’s world, the United States continues to need new and better weapons.

We would all prefer a world in which our nation was invulnerable to nuclear attack, an international system in which national survival would not depend on our ability to slaughter millions of people. That is not possible in the world we live in today though, and it is not likely in the foreseeable future due to all of the nuclear force present today. Although no one should be happy with the paradox of mutual assured destruction because it is essentially a mutual suicide pact signed by two nuclear superpowers, it seems that in world of nuclear strategy, M.A.D. is the best deterrent to keep the world from entering into a nuclear war.