One can make the tilt that theCold Warwas nothing , if not a decades - foresightful threat of everlasting and total atomic disintegration . During this diplomatic and strategical battle between the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics ( USSR ) and the United States , both sides engaged in massivenuclear proliferation(the stockpile ofnuclear weapons ) . Europe became a Cold War battleground , with nuclearmissilesilos settle on both side of the Iron Curtain . There was global tension over the very real hypothesis of death by nuclear bomb .

Despite concern over the hair trigger that the U.S. or the USSR ( or both ) might possess , when it came down to it , neither side move through with launching their missiles . This was proven on a few particularly gut - wrenching social occasion . One was theCuban Missile Crisisof October 1962 . After get a line that the Soviets were add missiles to their increase military presence in Cuba ( just 90 miles off the coast of Florida ) , PresidentKennedythreatened a rap against the USSR if the missile were n’t removed . After two tense weeks , the USSR soften [ germ : Global Security ] .

Another close call came during the Carter administration . At about 2:30 a.m. on June 3 , 1980 , security monitors at the North American Air Defense Command ( NORAD ) showed that the USSR had launch 2,220 atomic missiles , headed toward America [ origin : Gates ] . Within the 7 - minute window give by a Soviet hit in the 1970s , National Security Director Zbigniew Brzezinski was on the wand of waking President Carter when he was told the tone-beginning was a false alarm .

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This was n’t the only false alarm during the Cold War that led the U.S. to believe that America was under attack . But in none of these example did the U.S. commit the trigger and launch a atomic strike . Why ? The result is found , in large part , in the ism ofMutual Assured Destruction(MAD ) . What is MAD , and how did it keep the Cold War belligerents from attack one another ? observe out on the next Sir Frederick Handley Page .

The Nuclear Doctrine of MAD

When theatomwas split , a Pandora ’s box was opened . This scientific advancement led to the growing of theatomic bomb– humankind had never before possessed such a destructive weapon . The United States was the first to successfully educate the atomic turkey and the first to show the bomb ’s level of desolation when it let loose two on Nagasaki and Hiroshima , Japan . Other nations scramble to catch up ; in the handwriting of just one land , this engineering could arguably give that   land command over the rest of the world .

Within eight years , the USSR had its own atomic weapon – the hydrogen bomb [ rootage : Murray ] . The ideological engagement betweencapitalismandcommunismsustained tensions between the U.S. and the USSR , and this prolonged fight between the nation became known as theCold War . From 1947 to 1991 , the nation built up theirnuclear arms , each amplify its arsenal in stride with the other . It was soon clear that both sides had built and stockpiled enough nuclear warheads that the U.S. and USSR could wipe out each other ( and the relaxation of the world ) several sentence over . They had reachednuclear parity , or a country of evenly destructive capability .

As a result , the nuclear scheme school of thought of Mutual Assured Destruction ( MAD ) emerged in the mid-1960s . This philosophical system was base upon the sizing of the countries ' respective atomic arsenals and their unwillingness to destroy civilization . MAD was unique at the prison term . Never before had two warring nations held the potential drop to wipe out world with the ingress of a few computer codes and the turn of match keys . Ironically , it was this muscular electric potential that guaranteed the world ’s safety gadget : Nuclear capableness was a deterrent against nuclear state of war .

Because the U.S. and the USSR both had enough nuclearmissilesto clear each other from themap , neither side could strike first . A first strike guaranteed a retaliatory counterstrike from the other side . So launching an attack would be equivalent to suicide – the first striking nation could be sure that its people would be annihilated , too .

The philosophy of MAD guided both side toward deterrence of atomic war . It could never be give up to break out between the two nations . And it almost undertake no schematic war would , either . Eventually , conventional tactics – like non - nuclear missiles , tanksand troop – would run out , and the inevitable conclusion of a nuclear tap would be reached . Since that remainder was deemed unsufferable by the Soviets and Americans , there was no prospect of an engagement that could direct to this conclusion .

But MAD did n’t exactly produce an atmosphere in which Soviet premiers and American United States President felt like they could shake hand and call the whole matter off . The nations had very minuscule trust in each other – and with good grounds . Each side was steady build its atomic arsenal to remain an adequate political party in the MAD doctrine . Adétente , or uneasy truce , uprise between the U.S. and USSR . They were like two gunslinging enemy , adrift alone in a life boat , each armed and unwilling to log Z’s .

So the situation had to be managed . On the next page , receive out how nuclear proliferation was controlled .

Management of Nuclear Proliferation under the MAD Doctrine

There are two defining characteristic of the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction . One , each side must have the atomic capability to pass over out the other . And two , each side must be convinced the other has the   nerve to launch anuclear work stoppage . In a speech in 1967 , Defense Secretary Robert McNamara described how the U.S. attain atomic disincentive through MAD : “ We do this by maintaining a extremely reliable ability to inflict unacceptable price upon any single aggressor or compounding of aggressors at any time during the course of a strategical nuclear exchange , even after absorbing a surprise first strike ” [ author : McNamara ] .

Over clock time , atomic delivery became more polished and the incubus of an all - out nuclear   final solution less naturalistic . Both the U.S. and USSR invested heavy in technology that directed thermonuclear artillery from fatuous , clobbering bombs to precise operative instrument . Missileguidance system of rules allow for more exact strikes , and the locating of missile around the earth – from allied state tosubmarinescruising the world ’s ocean – created a virtual nuclear minefield . All - out annihilation was replaced by other option for a atomic strike [ generator : Battilega ] .

People begin analyzing ways that atomic war could play out . One theory is calledladder of escalation . Under this strategy , one side found a first rap , followed by a counterstrike from the other side . This exchange continue like achessgame , with each side increase the level of end with each successive strike . For example , point civilian populations come after strikes against military targets [ generator : Croddy , et al ] . Each strike gives the other the choice to back down or returnfire . It ’s kind of like trading puncher with another person ; each punch becomes increasingly sinewy . The idea is to tread up the force little by little until one heavy bump turns out to be the terminal punch as the sabotage opponent backs down . All - out nuclear war , by demarcation , is more akin to two company shoot each other stop - blank in the principal .

Fans of the 1983 movie " War Games " will recognize this variety of strategy . In the movie , a ratter supercomputer , adequate to of plunge an American first strike , mulls over the best way to win a nuclear war . The computer go through scenarios like a set of infinite biz , considering a strike launch from Europe or from nuclearsubs , and other endless theory . The data processor observe there ’s no manner to win : Each first strike results in a counterstrike and both side lose .

Mutual Assured Destruction really does have a basis in game . The same underlie mathematic principles that order maneuver in games like Scrabble and Monopoly were used to examine nuclear strategy during theCold Warin a discipline calledgame theory . The philosophy of MAD , specifically , share its base with a game possibility experiment called theprisoner ’s quandary .

In this scenario , two criminals are get the picture bypoliceand question singly . The dilemma descend from each criminal ’s uncertainty as to what his cohort will do . If one confesses , the other is released but the confessor is punished . If one criminal implicate the other , theratwill be free but the other person punished . The good course of action in this scenario ( or in nuclear warfare ) is inaction . By remaining deaf-mute ( or unwilling to launch a first strike ) , neither party can be implicated ( or destroyed ) .

It ’s the same things that the reckoner Joshua learns in " War Games : " The only agency to gain ground in nuclear state of war is not to play .

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