Talk:Mutual assured destruction

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 25 January 2021 and 7 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Yoitsjebbush, BigBird5528.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 04:42, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

John Von Neumann

Why does Von Neumann not get a single mention on this page? He is widely considered as the father of MAD and you can find plenty of articles to this effect. Plus on his page it mentions him as one of the leaders of the theory with a link to this page, yet when you come here he's not mentioned once.

Continuing Discussion

Anyone with operational experience with the policy should post here.

Old comments

Was M.A.D. created under Eisenhower or Kennedy?

---

I think Switzerland's military defense strategy during WW2 is at best marginally related to MAD since Switzerland did neither have the military potential nor the military strategy to destroy Nazi-Germany during WW2. I have therefore deleted that reference.

---

someone care to review "assured destruction" and make sure it fits well enough in context for those reaching it from this point?

Another murderously tough topic...

Also there is a big literature on multiparty standoffs in game theory, and peace and conflict, etc., and the role of the original two-party US/USSR MAD in developing this theory should probably be mentioned.

---

When I go directly to mutually assured destruction, I get redirected here - to the proper name for the Cold War doctrine MAD - that's reasonable as long as we didn't have a generic definition. Now we do, I wrote it, and I linked multiparty assured destruction to it. To keep this clear:

Mutual Assured Destruction is a doctrine from the Cold War that no longer applies officially as the ABM Treaty has been abrogated (by Bush). Mutually assured destruction is a generic term to apply to similar situations. Since the role of third parties in containing the conflict, acting as mediators, etc., is now very broadly recognized, there is no value in distinguishing between multiparty and mutually assured destruction in the modern context.

So, I want to remove the redirect so that MAD goes to MAD, and the two ways to say "m.a.d." go to the right place.

If that's controversial, let's discuss it. But I can't figure out how to *do* it.

---

What other premises apply to MAD in the Cold War between the US and the Soviets? Was there the assumption that either side would launch a first strike if it dared? Was there a (perhaps related) assumption of moral equivalence? If so, who was making that assumption? Did the Soviets believe that we would launch a first strike -- to conquer them (for our profit) or to "liberate" their citizens (to end socialism) -- if we dared? Would the United States have gone so far as to conquer the USSR with a first strike, or have stopped only at the point where the Soviet arsenal no longer presented a level of threat leading to assured destruction?

Note that I'm not arguing for or against any of these points. I'm interested only in accurate presentation of history. Who thought (or said) what? That's what I want to know.

User:Ed Poor

---

The term "multiparty assured destruction" does not give ANY hits on Google - are we sure it's not made up by 24.150.61.63?

Guppie

---

I think the term has fallen out of use for the reasons I list: it just isn't separate from modern use of the term "mutually". Anyway it is just a redirect and helps to clarify the relationship to multiplayer or multiparty game theory.

If you want to remove it, remove it, but it just makes it harder to follow the related game theory, diplomacy, history, and military science of this topic.

If you can think of any other meaning that term could have, well... ?

Ad to Ed's answers.

The biggest and scariest assumption of MAD was that rogue acts could be contained. The fear and hatred on both sides was such that there were several cases much like the rogue general in Dr. Strangelove that both sides hushed up.

nothing that went that far, of course... so operational control became key to the doctrine - a big assumption.

The moral equivalence assumption was only made openly by third parties - which is outlined a bit in "mutually assured destruction" - that should be enough... there were analysts in the USSR who believed in capitalism's triumph, and others in the USA who believed in Marxism. But I think both side saw just how corrupt each other's implementations were - there was moral equivalence at that tactical and policy level at least. This was most obvious to Europeans who pursued mixed economy strategies all through that period, and often had Marxist and classic economics in the same departments of the same universities.

I believe all positions from "destroy the entire planet down to the algae" to the "only blow up the Kremlin and the White House" approaches were explored - both sides were doing a lot of scenarios...

---

Also, if you look up "multi-party assured destruction" you find quite a few links to this transition literature, none of it seemingly using the term quite the same way. It seems to have settled down 1980-1990 or so. For instance there is reference to BLIND - Britain's Little Independent Nuclear Deterrent, etc., which indicates some cracks in the MAD two-player mythos of US/USSR.

I don't think this literature or the history of how MAD became m.a.d. needs a separate explanation - the fact of the adjective versus adverb use is probably the single best indicator of mind-set, "war threat" versus "peace process".

---

Tried to fix link to ABM treaty, but still broken. I'll try again.

---

This statement is wrong

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union and a reduction of tensions in the 1990s, and as nuclear arms proliferation increased the number of parties involved, the proper term and doctrine of two-party MAD has fallen largely out of use, and is now usually confused with the generic usage. To distinguish the two in speech, especially diplomatic negotiation, the terms mutually assured destruction and multiparty assured destruction are now generally preferred.

---

What's not true? Many people think MAD in its original form disappeared with the ABM Treaty abrogation recently. It might be debatable - in which case it should be rewritten to something less debatable.

If I talk about "Mutual" as opposed to "mutually" assured destruction, then I am referring to the old US-USSR standoff as opposed to some process by which two or more other parties are assuring each other.of dstruction. That's the usage in the peace movement, usually.

However, as long as we have separate entries for "M.A.D." the Cold War rules, and "m.a.d." the peace movement argument (applicable not just to US/USSR nuclear but anything truly nasty and all-encompassing, like biowar or ever-growing "terrorism"/retaliation).

The "First Strike" issue applies to M.A.D. for instance but not m.a.d. which plays out generally over a longer time with more escalation.

Also, we have a problem if we try to name the current standoffs in the world "mutual assured destruction" becuse wiki doesn't let something else be Mutual..." argh.

---

Removing all this stuff:

"The generic term mutually assured destruction or multiparty assured destruction has come into use in part to preserve that acronym and the general reference to nihilism and futility of conflict that it represents."

Usual 24.150.xxx.xxx thing: zero google hits, presumed idiosyncratic until a verifiable cite can be offered.

---

You may remove the motivation or rationale, but the term "mutually assured destruction" does describe the modern use:

COL ALAN J. PARRINGTON, USAF http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj97/win97/parrin.html

"During the 1950s, Air Force leaders, almost to the man, did not believe in the stability of mutual deterrence, describing the concept as ?a dangerous fallacy? and ?a tremendous disservice.? One leader wrote, ?I suggest that the so called atomic ?stalemate? or ?standoff? is more of a psychological than a real deterrent. At best it is a cliché born of the natural tendency to rationalize away the prospects of total atomic war."

Note the use of "mutual" to describe the Cold War situation... and in the same article " the strategy behind the weapons?a strategy oddly known as mutually assured destruction (MAD)."

So, "mutual" is referring to the "deterrence", "mutually" to the strategy.

---

That's right, 'mutually assured destruction' is a phrase that has often been used. Indeed, 'Mutual Assured Destruction' and 'mutually assured destruction' are the same thing. That's why I redirected the latter to point at the former. The Anome

---

No, they are only "the same thing" to an American. Your "reasons why" are of no interest. It's the outcome of your action (convincing readers that there is no current situation in which the futility and waste of M.A.D. circa 1950 is echoed) that is of interest, and that action is to render this whole line of discussion useless.

The 1950 doctrine is not the 2000 doctrine. Read the papers, and you'd know that. How many talks have you given at DARPA?

---

1. I'm not an American. What gave you that idea? 2. Which papers? Cites please. 3. None. Are you implying that you have? Evidence, please.

The Anome

---

---

1. I didn't sya you were American, but the idea that the implications for behavior under M.A.D. and all other contexts where destruction is mutually assured are the same, is an American idea. I've heard it often in the U.S.A. that all conflicts must be resolved to American moral standards up to but not including global thermonuclear standoff. At which point everyone is suddenly supposed to stiffen up and behave totally predictably without moral judgements on each other justifying attacks. You have a bias on this issue, and I think rather than play with ethnicity or personal history I'll say that you're making the same mistake as those who dreamed up that doctrine...

2. The Parrington article cited above. The quote provided makes it clear enough that some elements of the U.S. military leadership never believed in M.A.D. as anything *but* "assurance" or rather psychological warfare...

3. Yes, once. They didn't like these arguments either...

Evidence? Then I'd have to shoot you...

---

In the top of the article it says MAD refers only to two party standoff, then later on it says that China will be moved to MAD... which is what? Some kind of multi-party assured desturction? If the outcome isn't mutual in that all of China, the USA, and Russia, are all totally destroyed, then isn't it best to say that they are "mutually assured" of some level of destruction, but not promising any mutual "assured destruction" of all players?

This article now makes exactly no sense. Also the doctrine applies almost as clearly and obviously to biowar as it would to nukes. Which this avoids.

---

proposal: *one* of us, either you or me, writes *one* article which refers to the full generality of the *strategy* of mutually assured destruction... That would include substantially all of the text herein describing the Cold War original two-player M.A.D. game and the potential for a Chinese move to three-party m.a.d. thanks to "S.D.I." - then another article to do the same for the peace movement, with roughly the same structure.

Else, this is going to be stomp city, as I restore everything previously written with mild rewrites to remove a few things you don't like because of their common Latin roots...

Looking more generally at the meta here, we have had arguments regarding both this and the reasonable method issue. We may well be in a mutually assured destruction scenario w.r.t. each other's edits - although we are clearly not in a Mutual Assured Destruction scenario with nuclear weapons.

If you agree, we can search for a "reasonable method" to get us out of it - a 'peace process'.

That process will likely demonstrate who is the best to write what article.

Don't you think?

You first... what's the reasonable method here?

---

No-one is 'the best to write an article'. It's not a contest. They are multi-author works. I suggest the following: we both go away and do some research on this subject. Web, books etc. Then, armed with lots of nice non-crank cites, both start to edit the article a little piece at a time, with justification, line by line if necessary, in the /talk. Other editors will step in and help, if they can see a genuine striving for truth. See other articles, such as feminism for examples of how different world-views can work together to delineate an agreed picture of their disagreements.

What I find exhausting to deal with is the sheer volume of writing you have produced up till now: smaller, slower edits allow collaborative progress between multiple parties.

The Anome

---

That sounds like a reasonable method to me. I added a bit to 'assured destruction' and I think the new article raises a point I should have, but missed... I disagree with the idea that the weapons must always be nuclear and the destruction must always be total... whatever that means... there should be mention of submarines in this (M.A.D.) entry as typically they and their secure command chain provided the post-first-strike ensurance.

I put in a far less judgemental Gandhi quote in 'assured destruction', and I don't have to add the death penalty until there is far more consensus here...

---

The article implies that MAD was in effect at least up to the end of the Cold War. Maybe some mention is needed of Carter's "Presidential Directive 59" (25 Jul 1980) which introduced the "countervailing strategy". Russian cities were no longer targetted, just the military and leadership. It has been argued that at this point the US moved from MAD to trying to win a nuclear war.

Pwd

---

Mutually assured destruction sounds more gramatically correct. LirQ

The grammar could be argued either way--I think it's "mutual destruction" rather than "mutually assured"--but the phrase is sufficiently well established that the question is moot. Vicki Rosenzweig 02:04, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Yahoo! gets twice as many hits for mutually. LirQ

I personally prefer "mutually," but see how it can be "mutual." Is there any way we could have some sort of vote on this? -- Mattworld 02:08, 29 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Note that I did not start the below vote, if it matters. -- Mattworld 22:55, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)

No such thing as could without fear or not about it, no fear no matter what. Do things not fear things. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cjidkwl (talk • contribs) 18:40, 10 December 2018 (UTC)

VOTE

• Mutual
  1. Ryan_Cable
• Mutually
  1. LirQ
  2. till we *)
  3. Mattworld - seems to be the more popular way of saying it
  4. Secretlondon
  5. Punkche
  6. Jack 04:42, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)
  7. Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi- as reflexive.
• Both acceptable (like the alternate spellings of color and colour)
  1. Rossami
  2. Sleepdelay (talk) 12:40, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

---

Yes, "mutually" is probably more grammatically correct, but the phrase used is "mutual assured destruction". It's like Apple's slogan of "think different", which should be "think differently", but we're not here to "fix" that. We can mention that it might be grammatically awkward, but we should still stick with the phrase as it has been used for many years. [1] Nearly every encyclopedia and dictionary website uses the phrase "mutual assured destruction", since this is how it was coined. References: [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] --Minesweeper 23:04, Nov 8, 2003 (UTC)

just thought i'd post this on google hits (not that i put much into that, though)... mutual - 93,100 hits mutually - 54,200 hits reddi 23:30, 8 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Regardless of history and arguments about original usage, these two terms are now semantically equivalent. Note the large number of hits under both forms. I vote to stop this argument and move on to enhancing the content. Leave "mutual" vs. "mutually" to a semantic historian. Rossami 22:25, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

This article in its present form

This article contains several factual errors. I'll fix it later. Stargoat 17:32, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Criticism section

Seems pretty odd to have a criticism section that doesn't really include much historical context to the criticisms. There's historical examples, but no context. Especially given that this article is largely about an event in the past, and that the "strategy" explained by this article was fully successful. It would be better if it were buttoned up at the end with some small discussion about how all of these criticisms proved to be meaningless during the Cold War. 70.62.44.107 (talk) 21:54, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

I didn't take out the criticisms myself, but I thought about it. The problem, I think, is that Wikipedia is not a place for itemized lists of criticisms and then an itemized list of responses -- it looks too much like tit-for-tat. A better solution might be to write up a more cogent paragraph which merges criticisms and responses, and keeps in mind that most of this is in a historical context. A good deal of the criticism responses are just plain false in that line: deterrence is not just about the USA vs the USSR, it's also about PRC vs USA even if the PRC has no ambitions to first strike capability (all that is needed for deterrences is a credible second strike capability, because even if the PRC could never totally destroy the USA, the threat of even devastating one of its major cities would be enough to keep the USA from risking a first strike). You could replace PRC and USA with UK and USSR if you wanted to; the point still stands. Anyway, I was tempted to modify them but, again, felt like it would soon get into a tit-for-tat -- so maybe somebody sober-minded can merge those lists into something thoughtful? --Fastfission 18:51, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The criticism list is full of errors, weak logic and foolish assumptions. It adds nothing to the article, and is very partisan in its language and makeup. The criticism list does require a response, but neither is required, or belongs, in the article. Stargoat 20:06, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Okay, then let's pull it here and discuss it for a while. To answer Fastfission's questions, we frequently include criticisms sections in articles. That is often the only way to present a full and NPOV discussion of the topic. Looking at the history, the rebuttal was a recent addition and had not been well integrated yet. The bulleted list was a compromise made a while back to clean up a worse format. Improvements would always be welcome. I'm not sure what your point was about the country dependence. I don't read that into the criticisms section. They seemed fairly country-agnostic to me. Perhaps you could make that clearer?

To respond to Stargoat's concerns, obviously, I believe that these are serious criticisms based on reasonable assumptions and logic. And to preempt an objection, no, they are not original thought. In my personal experience, I have heard or read these arguments in sources including Scientific American (too long ago for me to easily cite the article though), US Army Officer Training, Wall Street Journal articles and other credible journals. I will grant you that it is no longer actively discussed. Nor would these arguments have been appropriate at all times during the Cold War nor would they be appropriate for all versions of MAD. They do, however, have enough general applicability that they deserve discussion. So, asking you to be very specific, what are your objections or concerns? Rossami 21:56, 25 Aug 2004 (UTC)

from the article ==Criticism==
Critics of the MAD doctrine noted that the acronym MAD fits the word mad (meaning insane) because it depended on several challengable assumptions:

• Perfect detection
  • No false positives in the equipment and/or procedures that must identify a launch by the other side
  • No possibility of camouflaging a launch
  • No alternate means of delivery other than a missile (no hiding warheads in an ice cream truck)
  • The weaker version of MAD also depends on perfect attribution of the launch. (If you see a launch on the Sino-Russian border, who do you retaliate against?) The stronger version of MAD does not depend on attribution. (If someone launches at you, end the world.)
• Perfect rationality
  • No rogue states will develop nuclear weapons (or, if they do, they will stop behaving as rogue states and start to subject themselves to the logic of MAD)
  • No rogue commanders will have the ability to corrupt the launch decision process
  • All leaders with launch capability care about the survival of their subjects
  • No leader with launch capability would strike first and gamble that the opponent's response system would fail
• Inability to defend
  • No shelters sufficient to protect population and/or industry
  • No development of anti-missile technology or deployment of remedial protective gear

---

What does alternate means of delivery have to do with MAD? MAD isn't SSI (are you proposing that anyone thinks it was feasible for the USSR to have first strike capability with warheads hidden in ice cream trucks?). --Fastfission 00:06, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Most versions of MAD were discussed as the weaker version of MAD - that is, the retaliation would/should be limited to retaliation only against the initial attacker. This created a strong need to attribute the attack correctly. In addition, the later version of MAD assumed that part of the first strike would deliberately target the victim's retaliatory power. In order to guarantee their ability to retaliate successfully, both sides created structures to launch their retaliatory strike before the first strike landed. The warning systems that were actually developed and deployed were thus designed to identify and attribute launches, not merely weapon strikes. Alternate means of delivery would be unattributable and were feared to be functionally impossible to detect prior to detonation. In such circumstances, MAD would be ineffective as a deterrent.

The ice cream truck is simply the most common example that I remember being used in the readings and, yes, there were respected scholars who feared the use of a truck as delivery mechanism. They were generally expressed not as worries that the USSR would do so but that some other, smaller state would. In particular, I remember reading about that fear during the Libyan crisis of the early 1990s. As you said above, the concept of MAD was not supposed to be limited to the precarious balance between the US and USSR. Rossami 15:07, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I think the main problem with this list is that it isn't clear which versions of MAD are involved. At the very worst it should be seperated out into weak or strong versions, even better would be something which talked about the arguments made by scholars/analysts in their own words. There are many passages in Spencer Weart's Nuclear Fear: A History of Images which include analysis and criticism of MAD by people such as Kahn and Teller, which might work better than these bullet points, which look very unprofessional and are hard to believe are taken seriously as criticisms (whether they are ones which have been voiced or not). I'll try and work some of those in when I get the chance but that might not be a few weeks. Part of the problem with MAD and nuclear weapons in general is that it is very easy to get caught up in the emotional arguments of it (either in support or against it), and I think that this article risks appearing like just another part of that. --Fastfission 18:58, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Interesting point of view. I've always tended to consider bulleted arguments more professional and to give them greater credibility than dense prose. I do agree that this would be a stronger article if we could put the criticisms "in their own words" and will try to find some source text as well. (No promises on how fast that will happen though.) Looking forward to your builds. Rossami 21:38, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

the problem

with the generalized doctrine of mutually-assured destruction (people aiming guns at each other, etc. not just nuclear states) is that sometimes one party doesn't mind being killed themselves and just wants to destroy the other. militant fundamentalists, etc. you can't use MAD as a defense against suicide bombers, in other words. - Omegatron 18:15, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

What is total weaponry escalation

The last couple lines mention a change in policy to "total weaponry escalation" could someone explain what this is in terms of nuclear war or armed conflict between the US and Russia? I looked around a bit on google and found a lot of information about the US making nuclear weapons smaller, seemingly for use as a first-strike or tactical weapon, but nothing seemed to fit a weaponry escalation meaning I was looking for.

I agree, this claim is dubious. As far as I know the GWB admistration is sympathetic to tactical "bunker-busting" nuke development, but it still supports disarmament of the strategic nuclear arsenal (even if they haven't been making many efforts in that direction lately). I don't know what this "total weaponry escalation" business is; it should be sourced if it's going to stay in the article. (I deleted the text from the article and copied it below.) Redquark 18:24, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The George W. Bush administration approached Russia with the idea of moving away from MAD to a different nuclear policy of total weaponry escalation. Russia has thus far been unreceptive to these approaches largely out of fear that a different defense posture would be more advantageous to the United States than to Russia.

Doomsday?

Why does 'doomsday device' link here?

Isn't "Mutually-assured destruction" the exact point of a "Doomsday device" (ala Doctor Strangelove)?

Atlant 00:26, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Automatic link from nuclear deterrance

Why should nuclear deterrance link to MAD? MAD is only a specific scenario under nuclear deterrance? Tfine80 29 June 2005 15:29 (UTC)

ideology?

MAD is not an ideology, it's a doctrine. To refer to it as an ideology implies that the entire world, for the whole of the Cold War, was attempting to destroy, and desired to destroy, all of human civilisation. Discuss? --Si42 00:35, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

My first reaction was {{sofixit}} but then I noticed that "ideology" isn't actually used on the page. What's your point? Rossami (talk) 02:22, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Er, yeah. I'm sure it did appear when I read it - must have been down the pub when I wrote that or something ;)... --Si42 15:21, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Criticism section

This entire section is a WP:OR violation in that it's all uncited essay - original reaserch. Also, the section shoudl be re-written for pros and cons, not just cons. → Wombdpsw - @ ← 01:45, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

It does lack citations but it is not original research. Give it some time and I'm sure we can find the citations. As to rewriting the section to include both pros and cons, it is the criticisms section. The pros are covered in the preceding section. The layout follows the generally recommended manual of style for presenting controversial topics. I'm unclear what you think should be done with that section. Rossami (talk) 02:33, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it needs citation. Some of it might fall under OR (or at least being not-very-common criticisms), but I'm sure we can scratch up some of them. I think it would be better to write them up as prose rather than a list, but that's just my preference. --Fastfission 03:22, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

MUTUALLY assured

Mabye I'm wrong but shouldn't the title be MUTUALLY assured destruction? 24.81.12.38 23:37, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

See the discussion at the top of this page. Both forms are used in common practice. Neither form has an undisputed edge in grammatical correctness. In the end, we sort of decided to leave the title where it was and to work on the content. Someday, a semantic historian can come back and make a final call about which version of the term was really the more common. Rossami (talk) 02:00, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

India and Pakistan

I was suprised not to see anything in this article about the recent developments in South Asia. Isn't this another case of MAD? SB Johnny 13:37, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. I think the current page bleeds the definition of MAD and other forms of nuclear deterrence together a little too much. I'm not sure that Pakistan and India have the capability to do true MAD with one another, but they certainly have the capability for a form of limited deterrence (i.e. they cannot wipe each other off the map, but they can realistically threaten enough harm to make a nuclear attack unfavorable for the other). --Fastfission 14:35, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Game Theory and so on

The strategy is effectively a form of Nash Equilibrium, in which both sides are attempting to avoid their worst possible outcome — Nuclear Annihilation.

I am not sure whether this sentence is correct. I guess it does not make sense to say you avoid destruction if you play a strategy that leads to your destruction. --132.230.151.128 11:32, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

It is- neither want to launch, but both have to be ready to, in order to prevent the other from gaining an advantage from attacking. Larklight (talk) 22:09, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

more movies for MAD in culture

"threads", a bbc analog for the US's "the day after" http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/ —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.92.68.224 (talk) 14:11, 25 December 2006 (UTC).

Testament is another movie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086429/ Chris-marsh-usa (talk) 01:51, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Why does "finite deterrence" redirect here?

Why does "finite deterrence" redirect here? The article makes no mention of the term. Patiwat 05:04, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I suppose because finite deterrence is the "how" to MAD's "why," or, if you prefer, the "means" to the "end." I guess it's better to have it direct here than nowhere - I'll try and get an article on finite deterrence itself up as soon as I can find the time. PaladinWhite 12:36, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Alfred Nobel

According to the Nobel Prize site, Noble conceived a type of MAD in the mid 1800s. Do you think this should be added in, or does this deal more with nuclear weapons? http://nobelprize.org/alfred_nobel/biographical/articles/tagil/index.html --Oshin 14:04, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Throughout history, many people thought that some technological innovation would make war "too terrible to wage". Nobel was one in that long line. I don't think his quote is particularly unique. Rossami (talk) 16:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Also on the subject of Nobel quotes, the quote that is currently included in the text beginning "My dynamite", that is marked "citation needed"...I googled as I was curious, and a little searching only turned up that this quote is presented verbatim in The Military Quotation Book (2002) by James Charlton, p. 114 (as cited on wikiquote). Google Books has a preview of The Military Quotation Book, but not of page 114.. The book does not appear to contain any references to a more original source, such as a book by Nobel or a speech transcript, for this quote. I will try to poke around more if I have time. MoCellMan (talk • contribs) 21:46, 14 September 2012 (UTC)

Post Cold War

Guys, why do you think there's a crucial reduction in Russia's nuclear potential? The liquid-fuel missiles like UR-100M are still on the duty (and regular tests approve their capability of normal working), there are also solid-fuel missiles (Topol), and improved version of it (Topol-M) is now bought by Russia's Armed Forces. However, the article implies there's a reduction which makes Russia's SR forces uncapable of a strike. This is misinforming. This should be very thouroughly checked. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 193.233.36.12 (talk) 16:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC).

It's because that's the only view theres a document for as no more well informed ones have been published. Russia's nuclear capability is greater relative to the USA's now than in 2005/06 due to modernisation of Russia's arsenal and vast cuts in the US arsenal. When a better, less biased document analysing the MAD reality in a more modern context is released I'm sure this article will change but until then we're stuck with the current one. 81.132.142.2 (talk) 16:50, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

"Mutual" not a requirement to achieve destruction of life as we know it

Are there any notable sources pointing out that life as we know it would probably be destroyed by the secondary effects of a widespread use of nuclear weapons, even if the attack itself were not reciprocated? Surely the combined effects of nuclear winter/summer, nuclear contamination of food sources, and the ensuing collapse of all other systems supporting human life, would bring about a possibility of extinction of human race? -- Matthew, Aug 9, 2007

MAD and response time

Will MAD help, if response time for counter attack requires is in milliseconds, and, there is no way to detect the attact that quick? V4vijayakumar 12:24, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Not that this is necessary for the artical, but it would, for two reasons. 1), the window from detection to impact is more like half an hour, and there are also response weapons that can't be taken out so easily, like silos and subs. Larklight (talk) 22:08, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Milliseconds? What is this guy talking about. I don't know what weapon would be that fast. Who can respond in milliseconds anyway? I can't swerve to avoid a cat when I'm driving that fast, let alone decide to launch a military strike. 24.72.113.212 (talk) 09:36, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

First Sentence Definition Corrected

The previous unsourced first sentence is wrong: "Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by one of two opposing sides would effectively result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender." The theory section makes it more clear we are referring ONLY to deterrence through nuclear weapons.

MAD refers ONLY to use of nuclear weapons by both sides where both sides can destroy each other with them. (Would it refer to Pakistan shooting its couple dozen nukes at Russia?? I don't know. Couldn't find more updated discussion.)

Also, I took out "cordial relations" given that both Bush and Putin have been talking nuke war lately! As I put in Russia-United_States_relation last night: "On October 16, 2007, Vladimir Putin visited Iran to discuss Russia's aid to Iran's nuclear power program and "insisted that the use of force was unacceptable."[3] On October 17, Bush stated "if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon," understood as a message to Putin.[4] A week later Putin compared U.S. plans to put up a missile defense system near Russia's border as analogous to when the Soviet Union deployed missiles in Cuba, prompting the Cuban Missile Crisis.[5]"

However, I left in improved relations under Cold War and put "intentional" in sentence: "While relations have improved and an intentional nuclear exchange..." Carol Moore 14:35, 12 November 2007 (UTC)User:Carolmooredc User talk:Carolmooredc

Historical / Factual problems with this page

"At the time [1949], both sides lacked the means to effectively use nuclear devices against each other. However, with the development of aircraft like the Convair B-36, both sides were gaining a greater ability to deliver nuclear weapons into the interior of the opposing country."

At the time the United States had the capability to deliver a nuclear attack against the Soviets using bombers. The US had bases around the periphery of the Soviet Union, particularly in Europe.

It was suspected that the Soviets could deliver nuclear weapons against parts of the United States using bombers on one-way suicide missions.

"The official nuclear policy of the United States was one of "massive retaliation", as coined by President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, which called for massive attack against the Soviet Union if they were to invade Europe, regardless of whether it was a conventional or a nuclear attack."

The notion that the United States would launch a nuclear first-strike against the Soviet Union was not developed under Eisenhower with his massive retaliation doctrine. "Massive retaliation" was an attempt to prevent future "Korea-style" conventional wars by threatening that the United States might use nuclear weapons in such an instance.

From the conclusion of WWII the United States was committed to protecting Europe from Soviet invasion. The Soviets maintained a large standing army on the border of Western Europe, while the Allies initated a large demilitarization. As a result, Western Europe as well as the United States relied on the nuclear capabilities of the US to counteract the superior Soviet conventional force. This doctrine was formalized in 1949 with the creation of NATO, specifically Article 5 of the treaty which states that "an attack against one was an attack against all." Thus, the policy to launch a nuclear first-strike against the Soviets if they invaded Western Europe, did not mysteriously arise under Eisenhower, but rather was present from the conclusion of the Second World War under Truman.

"During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet Union truly developed an understanding of the effectiveness of the U.S. ballistic missile submarine forces, and work on Soviet ballistic missile submarines began in earnest."

How did the Soviets get an "understanding of the US submarine force" during the Cuban Missile Crisis? What did submarines have to do with the Cuban Missile Crisis?

How did Soviet efforts to develop missile firing submarines effect mutually assured destruction?

"The multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle (MIRV) was another weapons system designed specifically to aid with the MAD nuclear deterrence doctrine. With a MIRV payload, one ICBM could hold many separate warheads. MIRVs were first created by the United States in order to counterbalance Soviet anti-ballistic missile systems around Moscow. Since each defensive missile could only be counted on to destroy one offensive missile, making each offensive missile have, for example, three warheads (as with early MIRV systems) meant that three times as many defensive missiles were needed for each offensive missile. This made defending against missile attacks more costly and difficult. One of the largest U.S. MIRVed missiles, the LGM-118A Peacekeeper, could hold up to 10 warheads, each with a yield of around 300 kilotons—all together, an explosive payload equivalent to 230 Hiroshima-type bombs. The multiple warheads made defense untenable with the technology available, leaving only the threat of retaliatory attack as a viable defensive option. MIRVed land-based ICBMs are considered destabilizing because they tend to put a premium on striking first. It is because of this that this type of weapon was banned under the START II agreement."

Though MIRVs certainly help to make ABMs ineffective, they are not the only means. Before MIRVs the United States and the Soviets could have easily circumvented ABMs. They could have used bombers, or fired up a plethora of decoy weapons along with actual nuclear weapons. To talk about MIRVs as the reason that nuclear defense is untenable is just wrong.

I also do not see the point of discussing one random technology in the Cold War that affected Mutually Assured Destruction. There are a host of other technologies that are more worthy of such a discussion, particularly the development of thermonuclear weapons, the development of ICBMs, nuclear warhead miniaturization, the hardening of silos, etc. It just seems like this paragraph is out of place.

"In the event of a Soviet conventional attack on Western Europe, NATO planned to use tactical nuclear weapons."

The United States did not just plan to use tactical nuclear weapons, but strategic nuclear weapons as well. NATO's plan to launch a nuclear first-strike against the Soviet Union if they invaded Europe was the reason a war in Europe would have been apocalyptic, not the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

"It was only with the advent of ballistic missile submarines, starting with the George Washington class in 1959, that a survivable nuclear force became possible and second strike capability credible."

That is just completely wrong. The United States maintained bomber bases very close to the Soviet Union. At times of heightened tension, 1/3 of the bomber force was flying at all times, so that it could deliver a second-strike, given a first-strike against a bomber base.

Though the Soviet ability to deploy a second-strike was doubted up until they developed reliable ICBMs, it was suspected that parts of the United States were vulnerable if the Soviets flew a one-way suicide mission. It was also doubted that the United States could destroy all of the Soviet bomber force in a first-strike. Thus, it was believed that the Soviets had at least a small capacity to strike second before ICBMs.

The discussion of the importance of second-strike capabilities should be greatly expanded. Second-strike capabilities are the basis for MAD. In addition, Macnamara emphasized mutual vulnerability. With secure second-strike forces both sides would be mutually vulnerable to a second-strike, thus peace would be preserved.

"Given their long range, high survivability and ability to carry many medium- and long-range nuclear missiles, submarines were a credible means for retaliation even after a massive first strike."

There should be some mention of possible communication problems with submarines. There was a fear that in the event of a first-strike communications with submarines would be knocked out, and the victim of the nuclear attack would be unable to tell its submarines to launch a second strike. Communicating with early submarines in peace time was difficult enough, and involved using radio waves transmitted through an antenna on a plane close to the submarine.

In addition, the Soviet submarines were very loud, and as such were easy to attack. There are reports that during parts of the Cold War the United States had several attack submarines trailing each Soviet nuclear submarine.

"The original doctrine of U.S. MAD was modified on July 25, 1980, with U.S. President Jimmy Carter's adoption of countervailing strategy with Presidential Directive 59. According to its architect, Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, "countervailing strategy" stressed that the planned response to a Soviet attack was no longer to bomb Russian population centers and cities primarily, but first to kill the Soviet leadership, then attack military targets, in the hope of a Russian surrender before total destruction of the USSR (and the United States)."

The United States discussed how a nuclear war would be fought long before the Carter administration. American leaders long considered using such counterforce techniques to induce a Soviet surrender without the large-scale destruction of cities. For example, Macnamara discussed implementable nuclear options and damage limitation, as possible ways to win a nuclear war. All Carter did was enumerate the possiblity of such a strategy. These sentences make it seem like there was a large shift in American policy when no such shift occured.

The list of bullet points should be listed first in the article because they give an accurate assessment of the theoretical basis of mutually assured destruction. -----bosoxrock88 4-25-08

This is utterly stupid and misleading

"No means of delivery that does not have the characteristics of a long range missile delivery, i.e. detectable far ahead of detonation. Again this assumption is challengable with for instance stealth aircraft but also with other means, such as smuggling weapons to the target undetected. A close range missile attack from a submarine would also negate this assumption, as would positioning the weapons close to the intended target (exemplified in the Cuban Missile Crisis)." Really? Whoever wrote this has a major misunderstanding of the Cuban Missle Crisis. Sure, the missiles were there, but the United States had missiles placed just as closely (in Turkey) years before. This is no more exemplified in the Cuban Missile Crisis than it is exemplified in our placement of nukes in Turkey. I'm removing this side comment right now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.33.4.69 (talk) 20:10, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

And to add to that "No person possessing nuclear weapons capability will have a belief system that offers him peace and reward in an afterlife if he dies in a nuclear war of his own volition or will have any other moral or religious belief that makes mutual annihilation an acceptable or even preferable outcome." This is both inapplicable and badly worded. We're talking about MAD here, not religion. This should be removed, and it will, starting from now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.33.4.69 (talk) 20:15, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

challengable assumptions

Ok.,

"Current nuclear strategy, however, continues upon the basis of mutual assured destruction, with most modern American politicians considering a rogue nuclear attack upon the United States as one deserving of a complete nuclear destruction of any country that assisted in said rogue attack."

uncited, false generalisation,s and doesn't reflect the consenscious even during the Cold war.

losing the link to decapitation stike was an accident, sorry.

"(exemplified in the Cuban Missile Crisis). "

a good example surely?

"* No person possessing nuclear weapons capability will have a belief system that offers him peace and reward in an afterlife if he dies in a nuclear war of his own volition or will have any other moral or religious belief that makes mutual annihilation an acceptable or even preferable outcome. "

This is surely one of the largest problems with MAD today!

Larklight (talk) 20:49, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

• The question on the last point is whether it can be independently cited or is just a good idea. The other bullets in that section are all paraphrases of arguments that I heard or read in reputable journals (mostly during the 1980s). I do not remember anyone ever raising the point about religious beliefs in those articles, though. And I've not seen anyone actively discuss the criticisms of MAD in over a decade. Rossami (talk) 22:02, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

It's also covered by "All leaders with launch capability care about the survival of their subjects.", and to some degree by "No rogue commanders will have the ability to corrupt the launch decision process." So the important part is already in there, the additional stuff is filling in unneeded specificity. Cretog8 (talk) 22:14, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Ok, fair does. Might be good to make it a bit more obvous in the other sections, I didn't think of that.Larklight (talk) 17:40, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Time to revisit "mutually"

A Google News search for the past 10 years gives 3,080 hits for "mutually assured destruction" and only 1,410 hits for "mutual assured destruction". Google web search gives 300,000 for "mutually" vs. 100,000 for "mutual". I'm not sure we need to wait for "semantic historians" before we can rename the article, as Rossami has suggested. Regardless of which is more grammatically correct, "mutually" seems to be the more common form, which would put it in line with our naming conventions.--Father Goose (talk) 00:21, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Media

Mutual Assured Destruction was the main point of episode 6 season 1 of the tv show eureka, i only have like 5 seconds on so I figured I would put it here so some one can add it. --71.79.131.218 (talk) 00:57, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Page Title

Since MAD is an acronym, shouldn't the title of the page be Mutual Assured Destruction? --Simpsons fan 66 00:42, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Is so.  17387349L8764 (talk) 09:13, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

NPOV section

To describe both sides of the issue fairly, reasoning in favor of SDI should be included along with reasoning opposing it. If the consensus is that pro-SDI views should also be described, I will describe them. But if NPOV and undue weight require us to omit pro-SDI views, I'll keep quiet.

I don't want to rock the boat. I'm only going to describe viewpoints which Wikipedia policy allows me to describe. If it's not "neutral" in this project to add information about a viewpoint which opposes the mainstream, then I won't do it. --Uncle Ed (talk) 14:52, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

More badly worded/unnecessary and possibly offensive words

Myself, I have noticed some very interesting violations of the policy of neutrality. One of the most obvious (at least to me,)being in the Theory section, where they make a reference to Communist China. This is, in my opinion, a very biased viewpoint, as they could have simply listed the country as China, or The People's Republic of China. The word communist is unnecessary, and helps in no way whatsoever the main focus of this article. The name, Communist China, is entirely unimportant regarding the reason this article is here, and does not provide any other information about MAD. It is very unnecessary, as it points out the economic system in another country, where it is entriely irrelevent, and not an issue related to MAD.

The same is in section 2.4, where North Korea is referred to as communist, which is entirely unneeded.

I'm sure there are more, but, i'm outta time!

I will make these changes, but if anbody else feels like doing it, that's fine. I do want some opportunity for a counter-point, it doesn't seem right just editing. So, any problems?

Thanks for listening, Saebjorn (talk) 01:17, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I finally decided I'm waiting 'till Friday, so if anybody has any other opinions....03:42, 28 January 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Saebjorn (talk • contribs)

China

"Significant nuclear powers, such as the United States, the Russian Federation, and the People's Republic of China (PRC)" I have edited PRC from this sentence, as the US and Russia possess nuclear arms on a completely different scale to China. See http://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/List_of_countries_with_nuclear_weapons#Statistics_and_policies. USA: 2,623, Russia: 4,718, China: ~180. This is fewer than France and roughly equal to that of the UK. Thus it is inaccurate to include PRC in the same list as the USA and Russia. 79.78.136.150 (talk) 14:49, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

D'accord Kr 17387349L8764 (talk) 09:15, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Even more questionable material

Okay, after reading this article, I'm having some pretty serious issues with the last paragraph of the "Theory" section, and I'm tempted to cut everything except the first sentence of it. Quoting from that paragraph:

Today, all lesser nations are believed to be keenly aware that any use of nuclear weapons, in any context, is the recipe for their annihilation.

Any use in any context? Even testing? Because I believe that the DPRK has proven this to be inaccurate.

The U.S., as possessor of the largest and most deployable stockpile of nuclear weapons,

Either this is wrong or every book that I've seen on the subject is. My understanding was that the US ceased to produce ICBMs in 1967, with 1054, while the Soviets continued to manufacture them into the 1970s, with a peak of 1599 in 1975. Granted, that only describes ICBM arsenals, but I don't feel like going into the other room to get the book that describes total stockpiles. Still, I am fairly certain that this is the first time that I've seen the US stockpile as being larger. (Even our own page on the subject has the US stockpile being smaller--see List of countries with nuclear weapons#Statistics and policies.) I am also extremely curious about how "deployability" is being defined here, and how it was arrived at that the US stockpile is more "deployable" than any other. (I could be totally misremembering what I've read, but it seems like I recall the SS-18 and SS-20 as being better suited to a first strike.)

foreign policy with regard to rogue states and communist nations that currently or may soon possess nuclear weapons technology.

Rogue states and communist nations? I am guessing that the latter was intended to describe China, with the problem that the PRC itself does not describe itself as "communist" (they claim to be socialist on the road to communism, whereas nearly everyone else describes them as paying only lip service to Marxist dogma). I am guessing that the DPRK was counted among the "rogue states"; I do not believe that they describe themselves as "communist", either. What "communist nations that currently or may soon possess nuclear weapons technology" are there?

U.S., or her critical allies (United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, Germany, Israel, Australia, and South Korea)

Are Israel, Australia, and South Korea really critical allies of the US? I will admit to being unfamiliar with the term "critical ally", but somehow see the US as surviving the loss of any among those three.

Anyhow, those are my problems with the last paragraph of the "Theory" section (again, essentially the entire paragraph save the first sentence). Are there any objections to it being excised, or at least heavily rewritten? Heather (talk) 23:42, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

• Our article on Nuclear warfare also gives numbers indicating the Russian stockpile as being larger. As there have been no objections, I'm cutting the section. Heather (talk) 17:22, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Doomsday: On The Brink strongly suggested

The person interested in MAD should try to view Doomsday: On The Brink, two hours of close calls between the USA and USSR/Russia. Concludes with a chilling message about proliferation (power) without (wisdom) understanding the risks inherent in mutually assured destruction. Very pessimistic about the odds of eventual nuclear war someplace.Chris-marsh-usa (talk) 23:59, 19 April 2010 (UTC)

I've moved your text here for the time being. The text read as follows:

"As indicated by The Learning Channel documentary of close calls to WW III Doomsday: On The Brink, however, the greater danger than whether "an elected leader or a renegade general" has control of Russian nukes is "sheer neglect." Russia does not inventory its fissile material closely enough to know how much has been stolen, and it has been established that gangsters and terrorists have tried to smuggle material out of Russia. Terrorists and leaders of rogue nations covet the plutonium or uranium cores of Russian nukes to make their own nukes. Human nature seems to covet the ultimate weapon but does not seem to understand that even America and Russia could barely prevent nuclear war (command and control errors, false alarms, etc.). Two truisms are suggested for consideration: (1) every other weapon has proliferated worldwide in 30,000 years of human evolution, nuclear proliferation may be inhibited but is inevitable, and (2) if there is a chance of nuclear war or any outcome, as time goes on, inevitably it will be certain to occur."

I think we need to either trim this way down, and/or source it to something more authoratative. TLC's docs can be interesting, but they appear to skew toward general information with dramatized elements rather than a more formal treatment of the subject. Thoughts? --Ckatz^chat_spy 00:47, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

True, interesting!!! Chris-marsh-usa (talk) 01:40, 20 April 2010 (UTC) Dramatized, well, you will never forget what the experts banter at the end. And the comparison of the surprise attack on Hiroshima with a surprise attack in the present day is--- how can it NOT be dramatic?Chris-marsh-usa (talk) 01:40, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Factual Errors

This article is rife with factual errors - leaving the technical ones aside, the most glaring one is the very sentence the article begins with: "Mutual assured destruction (M.A.D.) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would effectively result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender." MAD is not a doctrine, it is a description of the consequences of a nuclear war (Military forces would hardly advocate a doctrine in which they were also destroyed along with the adversary). One will note nowhere is MAD referred to as doctrine in the cited Airpower Journal article.173.66.0.205 (talk) 07:07, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

It was a doctrine and if you lived during that era, you know that. Sorry, no sale. ----moreno oso (talk) 11:20, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

The term itself was coined by a critic of nuclear policy and was never adopted by the military as doctrine. As the journal article itself notes: "MAD is a product of the 1950s’ US doctrine of massive retaliation, and despite attempts to redefine it in contemporary terms like flexible response and nuclear deterrence, it has remained the central theme of American defense planning for well over three decades." Further examination of McNamara's speech in which he outlined US nuclear policy (http://www.atomicarchive.com/Docs/Deterrence/Deterrence.shtml) reveals there is no reference to mutual destruction and that he speaks only of the US' ability to assure the destruction of the Soviet Union. 173.66.0.205 (talk) 23:16, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the criticism: MAD was a term invented to describe the state of affairs in the Cold War. Deterrence in its various flavors was a doctrine. MAD was a term used either as a description or a criticism (depending on your perspective) of the resulting state of affairs. NPguy (talk)

Wikipedia is not a concordance

This page has had the annoying tendency to accumulate trivial listings of every media or pop-culture reference to the concept of mutually assured destruction. A few relevant examples which are explained in context can help our readers understand the scope and influence of an encyclopedic concept like MAD. Undifferentiated laundry lists, however, do not aid our readers and are a distraction to the encyclopedia.

I have moved the "Media" list to this discussion page in case anyone can find useful content that should be integrated back into the article but I feel strongly that we need to discourage the proliferation of these indiscriminate lists. Rossami (talk) 19:12, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

extracted from the article at 19:12, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

• Doomsday: On The Brink, a 1997 Learning Channel two-part documentary of numerous close calls to World War III.
• Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, a film where a paranoid US general activates first strike bomber planes. One target is attacked despite all efforts at recall, triggering a recently activated Soviet device that destroys the Earth's surface.
• Essence of Decision, a book which disputes the MAD doctrine
• Fail-Safe, a second film that takes a more serious view of the MAD situation.
• On Thermonuclear War Herman Kahn's book on thermonuclear deterrence.
• Red Alert, the Peter George book upon which Dr. Strangelove is based.
• WarGames, presented MAD by juxtaposing human fear with computed game theory
• Defcon, a video game where the player is on the cusp of MAD and must be careful not to provoke the enemy lest they achieve MAD
• Wild Fire (book) Nelson DeMille's fictional book. Plot relates to a Mutually Assured Destruction scenario known in the book as Operation Wild Fire.
• The term is mentioned in Megadeth's single Sweating Bullets
• Sigue Sigue Sputnik song M.A.D. - from their second album Dress For Excess, it is an anti-war song typical of the 1980s. In true Sputnik fashion, the song includes samples from many mutual-assured-destruction movies such as Dr. Strangelove, WarGames and The Living Daylights.
• British Band "Hadouken!" released a song in 2009 known as M.A.D, the term standing for Mutually Assured Destruction.
• In the 1960s TV Series Star Trek, we see a device (known as the Planet Killer) that serves as an example of MAD.
• In the video game Command & Conquer: Red Alert, there is a Soviet weapon called the MAD Tank.
• The band Gillan, led by Ian Gillan singer of Deep Purple, released a song called Mutually Assured Destruction in 1981.
• The 2009 Flash game Oiligarchy by la Molleindustria has multiple endings, one which involves M.A.D.
• A video game series, Fallout, depicts a post apocalypse world where nearly all life had been wiped out as US and China launched all means to destroy each other.
• The flash game M.A.D., in which ungodly amounts of missiles must be driven away from the player's own missile silos.
• In the show Veronica Mars, the title of season 1, episode 20 is M.A.D., mutually assured destruction.
• The Day After

References

Consequences of SDI for the USSR

Supporters also argued that SDI could trigger a new arms race, forcing the USSR to spend an increasing proportion of GDP on defense - something which has been claimed to have been an indirect cause of the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.

In fact, what seems to have happened is that the Soviets -could not- match SDI - they were socio-economically-technologically incapable. The communist economy could more or less match the capitalist economy, when it came to producing good which were not used by the mass of people (tanks, artillery, etc) - but when it came to high-techology, computers, software, which were in the West primarily driven by the civil economy, the Soviet Union literally had nothing. They -could not- meet this. So SDI didn't trigger an arms race, because the USSR couldn't enter the race; what it actually did was become a force for political-economic change, because the USSR could see it was falling behind and SDI reinforced that fact. The USSR was loosing, and something had to give. Toby Douglass (talk) 13:35, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't buy either claim - that SDI could have triggered an arms race the Soviet Union would lose that it did trigger political-economic change. The Soviet Union collapsed because of internal contradictions. Once Gorbachev opened the door with glasnost and perestroika, the system could no longer survive those contradictions. SDI had little if any influence on this process. From a deterrence perspective, the most logical response to SDI was not to try to match it through an arms race but to develop countermeasures. NPguy (talk) 04:19, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

You're reasoning like a Westerner, not a Communist. Communism at its heart knew it was forcing itself upon a resentful population; as a consequence, it had to prove to itself that it was best, to justify itself to itself. This meant that if the USA did or had something, the USSR had to have it or do it, too. Admitting the Soviet system *couldn't match the USA* was psychogically impossible. Toby Douglass (talk) 18:31, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Source of "MAD" Terminology

I don't know where to put this, so I'll put it here; there's a 'citation need' comment in the article for who coined the term. I found this:

"Donald Brennan, an arms controller at Herman Kahn's Hudson Institute, who first coined the phrase "mutual assured destruction" in the mid-to-late 1960s. Brennan meant MAD as a tongue-in-cheek way of mocking arms controllers who had advocated escalatory threats of massive nuclear retaliation as a means not only of deterring a wide range of nuclear and non-nuclear aggression, but also of achieving deep cuts in nuclear arms." Craig234 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.7.1.175 (talk) 02:46, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Where did you find this? Can you fill in the needed citation? NPguy (talk) 02:16, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

MIRVs

The section on MIRVs says that multiple-warhead missiles were intended to enhance deterrence. In a sense this is accurate, since they arose as a countermeasure to anti-ballistic missile systems that threatened deterrence. But in a larger sense they had the opposite effect, as they made a disarming counterforce strike more plausible. If all missiles have multiple warheads, a fraction of the missiles on one side could destroy all the missiles on the other.

The section is also lacking in sources. I will flag it as such. NPguy (talk) 04:01, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Post Cold War Doctrine

If the following could be properly sourced and attributed it could make an interesting addition to the article:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/CEN-01-211114.html "What is certain is that MAD [mutually assured destruction] is not a deterrent today when both sides believe the other will use nuclear weapons once they have the advantage, and that the side that gains a decisive advantage will use them. MAD is now over." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.79.146.104 (talk) 19:24, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

The sentence "Although the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, the MAD doctrine continues to be applied." does not match with "MAD is now over". Both require evidences and sources (limited original research). Kr 17387349L8764 (talk) 09:24, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Article is dated

by 15-20 years and does not correspond to the current state of affairs — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.167.58.217 (talk) 10:18, 20 August 2016 (UTC)

Applies to all Wikipedia, so be bold. Kr 17387349L8764 (talk) 09:20, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Authorship

The term is attributed to John von Neumann but the reference goes to a paper which says nothing about MAD. Wolfgang Panofsky, writing in 1973 in Foreign Affairs (October: p 109) says Donald Brennan was the first to coin the term MAD. Brennan's main publications were in the 1960s. Encyclopedia.com says the term was first used in 1964, seven years after Neumann's death. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Maxaxax (talk • contribs)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on Mutual assured destruction. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090426041620/http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-local_subs_0424apr24,0,5810806.story to http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-local_subs_0424apr24,0,5810806.story
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070405120649/http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85204-p0/keir-a-lieber-daryl-g-press/the-rise-of-u-s-nuclear-primacy.html to http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85204-p0/keir-a-lieber-daryl-g-press/the-rise-of-u-s-nuclear-primacy.html
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20040902085658/http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/frame2/articles/borg/kahn.html to http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/frame2/articles/borg/kahn.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 08:31, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (February 2018)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 4 external links on Mutual assured destruction. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20150620055606/http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj97/win97/parrin.html to http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj97/win97/parrin.html
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20100510015329/http://www.acq.osd.mil/ncbdp/nm/USNuclearDeterrence.html to http://www.acq.osd.mil/ncbdp/nm/USNuclearDeterrence.html
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20131214024826/http://people.reed.edu/~ahm/Courses/Reed-POL-422-2012-S1_NP/Syllabus/EReadings/05.2/05.2.Pipes1977Why-the-Soviet-Union.pdf to http://people.reed.edu/~ahm/Courses/Reed-POL-422-2012-S1_NP/Syllabus/EReadings/05.2/05.2.Pipes1977Why-the-Soviet-Union.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130515020745/http://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/552552 to http://repository.library.georgetown.edu/handle/10822/552552

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 14:53, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Entire "Criticism" Section Original Research

There is so much deterrence theology in the open literature. It should not be hard to improve this section with a wealth of citations. NPguy (talk) 15:31, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Mutual vs Mutually

time to revisit. Personally I never heard the word mutual used until I reached this page. google ngram shows a clear preference for Mutual until it was recently overtaken by mutually. Mutual might be the correct term for the US policy, but Mutually seems to be the theoretical doctrine's name. thoughts? Hydromania (talk) 05:46, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Keep it simple. Suggestion. Add "...or Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)" in the first sentence. There are hundreds of articles in Wikipedia where such "second naming" is the case, and adding some information is helpful. It will never be resolved in 2/3 of the cases. Kr 17387349L8764 (talk) 09:18, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Video

Is there any way to stop the animated GIF playing? — GhostInTheMachine ^{talk to me} 18:28, 7 January 2023 (UTC)

MAD vs Mattis

In 2018, US Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, contradicted the MAD theory: "The surest way to prevent war is to be prepared to win one." The same document states in Introduction: "Should deterrence fail, the Joint Force is prepared to win. Reinforcing America's traditional tools of diplomacy, the Department [of Defense] provides military options to ensure the President and our diplomats negotiate from a position of strength."

This was reverted because "it's not clear what the purported contradiction is."

Is there another person on earth to whom the contradiction is not clear?--Maxaxa (talk) 05:23, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Again, you assert a contradiction, and now say it's obvious, without saying what it is. If you believe the idea of winning is incompatible with MAD, it's a mistake to attribute this to Mattis. Each of the last three nuclear U.S. Nuclear Posture Reviews (e.g. [10] lists among the roles of nuclear weapons "Achieve U.S. objectives if deterrence fails." NPguy (talk) 05:13, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

References

Proposed merge - Nuclear Peace

Hi all, I've proposed merging nuclear peace into this article. I'm doing it because it's basically the exact same idea, and that article is quite basic, with a reasonable amount of opinionated or original research. I would only want to merge in objective and well-sourced information. Let me know if you have thoughts. 20WattSphere (talk) 13:39, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Support: They are not terribly distinct ideas and don't warrant separate articles. Furthermore, the concept of nuclear peace is an offshoot of mutually assured destruction.Chariotsacha (talk) 01:53, 11 December 2023 (UTC)

  Y Merger complete. Klbrain (talk) 12:46, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

We should mention AJP Taylor

AJP Taylors 1969 book "war by timetable" claims the pre ww1 powers of europe demonstrated a certain form of mutually assured destruction and corresponding arms race, where each nation tried to be quickest to mobilise, therefore meaning no one else would try to attack it for fear of how quickly it could put up a destructive force in retaliation. This is MAD, is it not? we should add this to the "Pre-1945" section DParkinson1 (talk) 18:17, 31 August 2024 (UTC)

Seems like a form of mutual deterrence, but not necessarily by assured destruction. NPguy (talk) 21:07, 1 September 2024 (UTC)