Mutual assured destruction
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 result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender.It is based on the theory of
deterrence according to which the deployment of strong weapons is essential to threaten the enemy in order to prevent the use of the very same weapons. The strategy is effectively a form of
Nash Equilibrium, in which both sides are attempting to avoid their worst possible outcome —
Nuclear Annihilation.
The doctrine assumes that each side has enough weaponry to destroy the other side and that either side, if attacked for any reason by the other, would retaliate with equal or greater force. The expected result is an immediate escalation resulting in both combatants' total and
assured destruction. It is now generally assumed that the
nuclear fallout or
nuclear winter would bring about
worldwide devastation, though this was not a critical assumption to the theory of MAD.
The doctrine further assumes that neither side will dare to launch a
first strike because the other side will
launch on warning (also called
fail-deadly) or with secondary forces (
second strike) resulting in the destruction of both parties. The payoff of this doctrine is expected to be a tense but stable peace.
The primary application of this doctrine started during the
Cold War (
1950s to
1990s) in which MAD was seen as helping to prevent any direct full-scale conflicts between the two power blocs while they engaged in smaller
proxy wars around the world. It was also responsible for the
arms race, as both nations struggled to keep nuclear parity, or at least retain second-strike capability. Although the Cold War ended in the early 1990's and today (2006) the US and Russia (former USSR) are on relatively friendly terms, the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction certainly continues to be in force although it has receded from public discourse.
Proponents of MAD as part of U.S. and USSR strategic doctrine believed that
nuclear war could best be prevented if neither side could expect to survive (as a functioning state) a full scale nuclear exchange. Since the credibility of the threat is critical to such assurance, each side had to invest substantial
capital in their nuclear arsenals even if they were not intended for use. In addition, neither side could be expected or allowed to adequately defend itself against the other's nuclear missiles. This led both to the hardening and diversification of nuclear delivery systems (such as nuclear missile
bunkers,
ballistic missile submarines and nuclear
bombers kept at
fail-safe points) and to the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
This MAD scenario is often known by the
euphemism nuclear deterrence. The term deterrence was first used in this context after World War II; prior to that time, its use was limited to legal terminology.
Critics of the MAD doctrine noted that the acronym MAD fits the word
mad (in this context, meaning
insane), and depends on several challengeable assumptions:
*
Second-strike capability** A
first strike must be rendered impossible, or else states would all strive to pre-empt the deterrent capability of opponents by striking first.
* Perfect detection
** No false positives in the equipment and/or procedures that must identify a launch by the other side. The implication of this is that an accident could possibly end the world (by
escalation). During the Cold War there were several cases of false positives, such as that of
Stanislav Petrov.
** No possibility of camouflaging a launch
** No alternate means of delivery other than a missile (no hiding warheads in an ice cream truck for example)
** The weaker version of MAD also depends on perfect attribution of the launch. (If you see a launch from the Sino-Russian border, whom 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. In fact, the development of effective missile defense would render the MAD scenario obsolete, because destruction would no longer be assured.
* Mutualness
** Any large-scale use of nuclear weapons would produce sufficient
nuclear fallout to catastrophically damage the world's ability to sustain
any human life.
Pre-1945
Echoes of the doctrine can be found in the first document which outlined how the atomic bomb was a practical proposition. In March 1940, the
Frisch-Peierls memorandum anticipated deterrence as the principal means of combatting an enemy with
nuclear weapons.
In August, 1945, the
United States ended
World War II with the
nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in
Japan. Four years later, on
August 9,
1949, the
Soviet Union developed its own nuclear weapons. At the time, 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 more ability to deliver nuclear weapons into the interior of the opposing country. The official nuclear policy of the United States was one of "
massive retaliation", as coined by President
Eisenhower's Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles, which called for massive nuclear attack against the Soviet Union if they were to invade Europe, regardless of whether it was a conventional or a nuclear attack.
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. For the remainder of the Cold War, although official positions on MAD changed in the United States, the consequences of the second strike from ballistic missile submarines was never in doubt.
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
LG-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.
In the event of a Soviet conventional attack on Western Europe, NATO planned to use tactical nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union countered this threat by issuing a statement that any use of nuclear weapons against Soviet forces, tactical or otherwise, was grounds for a full-scale Soviet retaliatory strike. In effect, if the Soviet Union invaded Europe, the United States would stop the offensive with tactical nuclear weapons. Then, the Soviet Union would respond with a full-scale nuclear strike on the United States. The United States would respond with a full scale nuclear strike on the Soviet Union. As such, it was generally assumed that any combat in Europe would end with
apocalyptic conclusions.
Second strike capability
It was only with the advent of ballistic missile submarines, starting with the
George Washington class submarine in
1959, that a
survivable nuclear force became possible and second strike capability credible. This was not fully understood until the
1960s when the strategy of mutually assured destruction was first fully described, largely by United States Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara.
In McNamara's formulation, MAD meant that nuclear nations either had
first strike or
second strike capability. A nation with first strike capability would be able to destroy the entire nuclear arsenal of another nation and thus prevent any nuclear retaliation. Second strike capability indicated that a nation could uphold a promise to respond to a nuclear attack with enough force to make such a first attack highly undesirable. According to McNamara, the arms race was in part an attempt to make sure that no nation gained first strike capability.
An early form of second strike capability had already been provided by the use of continual patrols of nuclear-equipped bombers, with a fixed number of planes always in the air (and therefore untouchable by a first strike) at any given time. The use of this tactic was reduced however, by the high logistic difficulty of keeping enough planes active at all times, and the increasing priority given to
ICBMs over bombers (which might be shot down by air defenses before reaching their targets).
Ballistic missile submarines established a second strike capability through their stealth and by the number fielded by each Cold War adversary - it was highly unlikely that all of them could be targeted and preemptively destroyed (in contrast to, for example, a missile bunker with a fixed location that could be targeted during a first strike). 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.
Late Cold War
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 USA). This modified version of MAD was seen as a winnable nuclear war, while still maintaining the possibility of assured destruction for at least one party. This policy was further developed by the
Reagan Administration with the announcement of the
Strategic Defense Initiative (known derisively as "
Star Wars"), the goal of which was to develop space-based technology to destroy Russian missiles before they reached the USA.
SDI was criticized by both the Soviets and many of America's allies (including
Margaret Thatcher) because, were it ever operational and effective, it would have undermined the "assured destruction" required for MAD. If America had a guarantee against Soviet nuclear attacks, its critics argued, it would have first strike capability which would have been a politically and militarily destabilizing position. Critics further argued that it could trigger a new arms race, this time to develop countermeasures for SDI. Despite its promise of nuclear safety, SDI was described by many of its critics (including Soviet nuclear physicist and later peace activist
Andrei Sakharov) as being even more dangerous than MAD because of these political implications.
Post Cold War
The fall of the
Soviet Union has reduced tensions between Russia and the United States and between the United States and China. Although the administration of
George W. Bush withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in June 2002, they claim that the limited national missile defense system which they propose to build is designed only to prevent
nuclear blackmail by a state with limited nuclear capability and is not planned to alter the nuclear posture between Russia and the United States.
While relations have warmed and a nuclear exchange is increasingly unlikely, the decay in Russian nuclear capability in the post Cold War era has had an effect on the continued viability of the MAD doctrine. Theoretical work by Keir Lieber and Daryl Press has revealed that the United States could successfully carry out a nuclear first strike on Russia and would "have a good chance of destroying every Russian bomber base, submarine, and ICBM." This situation is due to reductions in Russian nuclear stockpiles and the increasing inefficiency and age of that which remains. Lieber and Press argue that the MAD era is coming to an end and that U.S. is on the cusp of global nuclear primacy
[Keir A. Leber and Daryl G. Press The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy, Foreign Affairs, March-April 2006, pp 42-55.].
Whether or not MAD was ever the officially accepted doctrine of the United States military during the
Cold War is largely a matter of interpretation. The term MAD was not coined by the military but was, however, based on the policy of "Assured Destruction" advocated by U.S.
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara during the
1960s. The U.S. Air Force, for example, has retrospectively contended that it never advocated MAD and that this form of deterrence was seen as one of a
number of options in U.S. nuclear policy. Former officers have emphasized that they never felt as limited by the logic of MAD (and were prepared to use nuclear weapons in smaller scale situations than "Assured Destruction" allowed), and didn't deliberately target civilian cities (though they acknowledge that the result of a "purely military" attack would certainly devastate the cities as well). MAD was implied in a number of U.S. policies and used in the political rhetoric of leaders in both the USA and the USSR during many periods of the Cold War.
In the more recent history, India and Pakistan are in a situation of mutually assured destruction. Both the countries possess powerful nuclear weapons which can cause large scale destruction; this did not, however, prevent the
Kargil war in 1999. Whether MAD has been responsible for current peace in the region is debatable.
The concept of MAD has been explored in numerous novels, television programmes and motion pictures. The idea is central to the plot of the Stanley Kubrick film
Dr. Strangelove, which deals with the notion of a "rogue commander" attacking on his own accord, as well as the concept of a "doomsday device" which will destroy the entire planet if attacked. The doomsday device was not an effective MAD device because the Soviets had not yet announced its existence to the Americans; they were "waiting for the premier's birthday."
The graphic novel
Watchmen, written by
Alan Moore between 1986 and 1987, holds MAD as one of its main themes, as the novel takes place in an alternate 1985 where the United States and Russia are on the brink of a nuclear war presumed to result in the end of the world.
In Westwood's Studios 1996 hit computer game
Command & Conquer: Red Alert, the Soviet side has a M.A.D. Tank, that charges up on deployment. Upon releasing a seismic wave, it deals damage to all vehicles and buildings within range, both friend and foe, and destroys itself in the process.
*
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists*
Balance of terror*
Cold War*
counterforce*
Doomsday clock*
Doomsday device*
fail-deadly*
first strike*
Force de frappe*
game theory*
Herman Kahn*
Launch on warning*
Massive retaliation*
moral equivalence*
nuclear disarmament*
Nuclear missile defense*
Nuclear utilization target selection (NUTS)*
nuclear strategy*
second strike*
Suicide weapon*
Stanislav Petrov, Soviet colonel who may have averted World War III
*
Strategic Defense Initiative*
Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP)*
RAND Corporation*
weapon of mass destruction*
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, a famous
1964 Stanley Kubrick film that satirizes the
MAD situation.
*
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.
*
Red Alert, the
Peter George book upon which
Dr. Strangelove is based.
*
WarGames, presented
MAD by juxtaposing human fear with computed game theory
*
In the Shadow of MAD, an article critical of the idea of MAD as US policy.
*
Herman Kahn's Doomsday Machine*
Excerpts of Gorbachev-Reagan Reykjavik Talks, 1986 (regards SDI as a threat to MAD)
*
Robert McNamara's "Mutural Deterrence" speech from 1967*
Nuclear Files.org Mutual Assured Destruction
