MAD- Cold War

MUTUALLY ASSURED DESTRUCTION

Daniel Ruhland

Mutually assured destruction (MAD), is a doctrine

of military strategy in which the use of high-yield weapons of mass destruction by two opposing sides would effectively result in the complete and irrevocable annihilation of both the attacker and

the defender

SDI was criticized by both enemies and allies of the USA. The point of MAD was to make sure nobody attacked anyone because there would be no winner. If this idea of SDI was implemented and succeeded, there would be no "assured destruction" from Soviet attacks. They further argued it could start a new arms race, this time to develop a defense from SDI.

Early Cold War

In August 1945, Japan surrendered to the United States of America after the dropping of nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Four years later on the 29th of August 1949, the USSR detonated its own nuclear explosive. At this time, however, neither of the countries had the technology to effectively use the nuclear bombs against each other.

Post Cold War

The fall of the Soviet Union led to the sovereignty of the Russian Federation. This caused tensions between this new power and the Unites States to be much lower. America's tensions with China were also decreased.

Mid Cold War

Development of bomb carrying aircrafts, like the USA's Convair B-36, started enabling the ability to deploy nuclear weapons into the opposing country.

The Cuban Missile Crisis gave the Soviet Union a much greater understanding of the US ballistic missile submarine forces, giving the Soviets a boost to their own development of ballistic missile submarines.

In the 1980's, USA was rumored to have a "Doomsday Device", a technology that would literally end the entire world. It was activated through control, therefore keeping its threat at relatively the same level as nuclear bombs. Responding to this rumor, the Soviets built a machine they named The Dead Hand, a self-activated nuclear warhead that would be activated if any threats of ICBMs were detected nearing the USSR. This device was considered to be one of the biggest threats of the Cold War, and it is not known if it is still armed.

However, in 2002, President George W. Bush withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, an action that Russia took as a threat to their nation's well-being.

First and Second Strike Capabilities

The United States' secretary of defense Robert McNamara stated that nuclear nations can have either first, second, or both strike capabilities. Countries with first strike capability can simply attack without warning, meaning most countries have first strike capabilities. To prevent these attacks from happening, countries would have a fixed number of planes in the air at all times, allowing them to shoot down any possible threats whenever needed. This tactic gave these countries second strike capabilities. Second strike capability occurs when a nation has the ability to respond to an attack, which is what MAD is based upon.

Relations have improved between the United States and Russia, and intentional nuclear warfare is highly unlikely. However, the decay in Russia's nuclear capabilities may negatively affect them should the USA decide to initiate a nuclear war. An article by Keir Lieber and Daryl Press stated that the United States could carry out a nuclear first strike on Russia and would "have a good chance of destroying every Russian bomber base, submarine, and ICBM."

MIRVs

Multiple Independently targetable Re-entry Vehicles. These weapons were created by the United States to help aid in their first strike capabilities. With a MIRV payload, an ICBM (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile) could hold many separate warheads. This means that one ICBM could release many bombs with one launch, making defense against them very difficult. Since each defensive missile could only counter one offensive missile, MIRVs caused the cost of defense to greatly rise, for the Soviets would need many defensive missiles to remove the threat of one MIRV payload.

As with most theories and viewpoints, there are many critics who disagree. Many experts still say that neither of the countries are safe when dealing with the issue of nuclear war.

Late Cold War

Bibliography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction#Late_Cold_War

http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/key-issues/nuclear-weapons/history/cold-war/strategy/strategy-mutual-assured-destruction.htm

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj97/win97/parrin.html

The USA's MAD doctrine was modified on July 25, 1980 because President Jimmy Carter adopted "countervailing strategy", which planned to kill the Soviet leaders instead of bombing their cities and population. This would hopefully lead to a surrender from the USSR instead of its destruction along with the USA's. This policy was developed further with the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, was also nicknamed "Star Wars"). The goal was to develop space-based technologies to remove Soviet missiles before reaching the United States.