Mutually assured destruction (MAD) is a Cold War doctrine of nuclear strategy holding that a full-scale nuclear strike by one power against a nuclear-armed adversary with a survivable second-strike force would guarantee the total annihilation of both attacker and defender, and that this mutual guarantee is itself what deters either side from ever striking first. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
Facts
Core ClaimA nuclear-armed adversary that launches a full-scale strike will suffer national annihilation in the guaranteed retaliatory strike that follows, so neither side can rationally attack without being destroyed in turn. 1 Origin YearMarks Donald Brennan's coining of the term 'mutually assured destruction' at the Hudson Institute; the underlying deterrence logic took shape gradually through the late 1950s as both superpowers built survivable retaliatory forces, and is not attached to a single earlier founding date. Connections
Associated With
Source Wikipedia: First Strike (Nuclear Strategy)
Source Wikipedia: Mutual Assured Destruction
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Mutual Assured Destruction
Wikipedialead paragraph
MAD is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy which posits that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would result in the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender.
etymology/history section
The term 'mutually assured destruction', commonly abbreviated 'MAD', was coined by Donald Brennan, a strategist working in Herman Kahn's Hudson Institute in 1962.
View the Source Wikipedia: First Strike (Nuclear Strategy)
WikipediaAssociated With: First Strike Doctrine, Anti-first-strike countermeasures sectionQuote, Associated With: First Strike Doctrine, Anti-first-strike countermeasures section
According to the theories of nuclear deterrence and mutual assured destruction, full countervalue retaliation would be the likely fate for any state that unleashed a first strike.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does "mutually assured destruction" mean in practice?
Neither side can attack first without guaranteeing its own destruction in the retaliatory strike, which is what deters either from attacking at all.
It means that if either nuclear-armed side in a conflict launches a full-scale first strike, the other side retains enough surviving ("second-strike") nuclear force to retaliate and destroy the attacker in turn. Because both sides know a full attack guarantees their own destruction as well as the enemy's, the doctrine holds that neither side can rationally strike first, which is what is meant to deter either from ever doing so.
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