93 Sentences With "mutual assured destruction"

"For the first time people were starting to question mutual assured destruction," he said.

The core doctrine of nuclear deterrence was Mutual Assured Destruction, aptly known as MAD.

By the ghastly logic of mutual assured destruction (MAD), deterrence must be unconditional to be credible.

Mutual Assured Destruction is an ugly doctrine, but it worked for decades to keep the peace.

Perhaps returning to a former realpolitik is called for: a variant of the Cold War's mutual assured destruction.

That was the point of Mutual Assured Destruction, the delicate balance of terror we still live with today.

Since they were all designed specifically for mutual assured destruction, they're unable to deter many of today's most serious nuclear threats.

If the outcome truly was mutual assured destruction, then it would take an act of self-destructive madness to press the button.

IT'S MUTUAL ASSURED DESTRUCTION IF THERE'S A MASSIVE BREAKDOWN IN TRADE, AND IT WILL BE AN EXTREMELY BAD OUTCOME FOR BOTH COUNTRIES.

"Mutual assured destruction is still keeping the peace," Felgenhauer noted, "but it also may be threatened in the coming years as the Russian rearmament program steams ahead."

In my neighborhood, people had vague apocalyptic notions, though it felt plain crazy to believe that the doctrine known as MAD, or "mutual assured destruction," could actually happen.

In fact, we have avoided another world war thanks in part to mutual assured destruction, and atomic know-how has quietly revolutionized healthcare, energy, robotics, physics and aerospace.

If we cannot protect the American people other than to hold them hostage to a mutual assured destruction doctrine, we have failed in our most basic constitutional duties.

The deterrence of mutual assured destruction that prevents the United States and the USSR from nuking each other won't work on the level of an India-Pakistan nuclear exchange.

The United States and China are on a path of "mutual assured destruction" if there's a massive breakdown in trade relations, Dell CEO Michael Dell told CNBC on Monday.

We can simply carry on as before in the confidence that Mutual Assured Destruction works as well with Pyongyang today as it did with Moscow in the Cold War.

But unlike the Cold War's Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), now it is just AD — North Korea may be able to damage the U.S., but the U.S. can destroy North Korea.

This mutual assured destruction or MAD policy was understood decades ago to be an ineffective strategic deterrent posture and thus was jettisoned in the late 1960's by the U.S. government.

" William S. Cohen, who was a secretary of defense under President Bill Clinton, said the hostile tone suggested that the country was "slouching towards the mutual assured destruction of our political system.

For decades we've lived with a slow-moving nuclear detente powered by mutual assured destruction (MAD), the RAND-coined theory that no nuclear power would ever launch a first nuclear weapon strike.

I'm not writing this to expiate the guilt of doctors or excuse my complicity but as a testimony of the 12-odd months of mutual assured destruction that characterized my first encounter with addiction.

"You can see here that this would be a kind of mutual assured destruction episode that would go on for a long time," McConnell said, adding that his preference would be for no witnesses.

Those who grew up in the era of the "Doomsday Clock" and "duck and cover" might assume that the days of mutual assured destruction and launch under attack were swept away with the Soviet Union.

With this in mind, Congress should, among other steps: Mutual assured destruction (MAD) or massive retaliation should not be the only strategic policy options we have today for dealing with the growing nuclear and missile threat.

One fear about the new weapons is that they could undercut the grim logic of "mutual assured destruction," the Cold War doctrine that any attack would result in massive retaliation and ultimately the annihilation of all combatants.

Experts say that the missiles could upend the grim psychology of Mutual Assured Destruction, the bedrock military doctrine of the nuclear age that argued globe-altering wars would be deterred if the potential combatants always felt certain of their opponents' devastating response.

That weekend performance on Defending the Fatherland Day was just one element in a series of references to nuclear attacks that made it appear on Tuesday that Moscow was dusting off its old MAD playbook — Cold War shorthand for Mutual Assured Destruction.

The logic of the Cold War was that of Mutual Assured Destruction—the idea that the only thing that kept the Soviet Union from nuking America was the knowledge that the moment the U.S. detected the launch, it would unleash its own nuclear arsenal.

The doctrine of mutual assured destruction (otherwise known as the MAD scenario)—whereby two states with a second strike nuclear capability would never engage in nuclear warfare to prevent their mutual demise—prevailed, and the fear of nuclear weapons seems to have waned slightly in the Western hemisphere.

Risky as even surgical conventional strikes against North Korea may be, the dangers of continuing patient diplomacy are far riskier: 1) Buying time for sanctions and diplomacy to peacefully disarm nuclear North Korea means entrusting our lives to a mutual assured destruction (MAD) relationship with the psychopath in Pyongyang.

It will establish a cyber version of the nuclear doctrine of "mutual assured destruction" between the United States and the former Soviet Union, the three U.S. officials said The U.S. is more vulnerable to cyber intrusions than its most capable adversaries, including China, Russia, and North Korea, because its economy is more dependent on the internet, two of the officials said.

Sherlock aims his handgun at the explosive vest, intending mutual assured destruction.

Mutual assured destruction is a doctrine of military strategy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would effectively result in the destruction of both belligerents... Proponents of the policy of mutual assured destruction during the Cold War attributed this to the increase in the lethality of war to the point where it no longer offers the possibility of a net gain for either side, thereby making wars pointless.

The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic offense doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization (SDIO) was set up in 1984 within the United States Department of Defense to oversee the Strategic Defense Initiative.

The strategy is a form of Nash equilibrium in which, once armed, neither side has any incentive to initiate a conflict or to disarm. The term "mutual assured destruction" was coined by Donald Brennan, a strategist working in Herman Kahn's Hudson Institute in 1962.

While conscription of Soviet youth remained in force, exemptions from military service became more and more common, especially for students. Campbell Craig and Sergey Radchenko argue that Khrushchev decided that Mutual assured destruction (MAD) policies that facilitated nuclear war were too dangerous to the Soviet Union.

In 1983, President Reagan gave a speech proposing, at the least, research and development into non-nuclear defense systems against nuclear-armed missiles. The idea of effective Strategic Defense Initiative was a potential disruption to the existing balance of Mutual assured destruction, even with its "warfighting" refinements.

This is the main reason why Moscow > categorically rejects any concept of security based on a balance of 'mutual > assured destruction.' He also advised President Lyndon Johnson's administration on the war in Vietnam. According to Malcolm Gladwell, writing in 2013, Gouré was "brilliant, charismatic, incredibly charming and absolutely ruthless".

In the first 3 Gall Force movies both sides the Solnoid and Paranoid Axis forces have had both their home worlds destroyed in a war of mutual assured destruction. They plan on using the last of their planet destroyers and include the new system destroyers in their final battle plans.

Having discovered the concept of mutual assured destruction ("WINNER: NONE"), the computer tells Falken that it has concluded that nuclear war is "a strange game" in which "the only winning move is not to play." WOPR relinquishes control of NORAD and the missiles and offers to play "a nice game of chess".

Brinkmanship was an effective tactic during the Cold War because neither side of a conflict could contemplate mutual assured destruction in a nuclear war, acting as a nuclear deterrence for both the side threatening to pose damage and the country on the 'receiving end'. Ultimately, it worsened the relationship between the USSR and the US..

From a game-theoretic point of view, "chicken" and "hawk–dove" are identical; the different names stem from parallel development of the basic principles in different research areas.Osborne and Rubenstein (1994) p. 30. The game has also been used to describe the mutual assured destruction of nuclear warfare, especially the sort of brinkmanship involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis.Russell (1959) p. 30.

Since commercials are not sold in these markets, Producers Sales Organization failed to gain revenue to the tune of an undisclosed sum. Years later this international version was released to tape by Embassy Home Entertainment. Commentator Ben Stein, critical of the movie's message (i.e. that the strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction would lead to a war), wrote in the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner what life might be like in an America under Soviet occupation.

The doctrine of mutual assured destruction (MAD) assumes that a nuclear deterrent force must be credible and survivable. That is, each deterrent force must survive a first strike with sufficient capability to effectively destroy the other country in a second strike. Therefore, a first strike would be suicidal for the launching country. In the late 1940s and 1950s as the Cold War developed, the United States and Soviet Union pursued multiple delivery methods and platforms to deliver nuclear weapons.

The saga commences with the narrator's encounter of a fellow traveler ("Well, I came upon a child of God, he was walking along the road") and concludes at their ultimate destination ("by the time we got to Woodstock, we were half a million strong"). There are also references to the horrific "mutual assured destruction" of the Cold War ("bombers riding shotgun in the sky...") contrasted against the peaceful intent of the festival goers ("...turning into butterflies above our nation").

Modern ICBMs tend to be smaller than their ancestors, due to increased accuracy and smaller and lighter warheads, and use solid fuels, making them less useful as orbital launch vehicles. The Western view of the deployment of these systems was governed by the strategic theory of mutual assured destruction. In the 1950s and 1960s, development began on anti-ballistic missile systems by both the US and USSR; these systems were restricted by the 1972 ABM treaty.

This was actually expected as intelligence indicated Soviet divisions outnumbered NATO divisions by far. In this phase NATO forces would switch to a limited use of nuclear weapons, such as recently developed tactical nuclear weapons (like nuclear artillery). General Nuclear Response: This was the last phase or stage which more or less corresponded to the mutual assured destruction scenario, meaning the total nuclear attack on the Communist world likely resulting in a Soviet response in kind, if they had not already done so.

In December 1945, he was stopped from leading an anti-nuclear rally in Hollywood by pressure from the Warner Bros. studio. He would later make nuclear weapons a key point of his presidency when he specifically stated his opposition to mutual assured destruction. Reagan also built on previous efforts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. In the 1948 presidential election, Reagan strongly supported Harry S. Truman and appeared on stage with him during a campaign speech in Los Angeles.

It was an unexpected, new idea, and supporters cheered, as SDI seemed to promise protection from nuclear destruction. To opponents, SDI meant a new arms race and the end of the Mutual Assured Destruction ("MAD") strategy that they believed had so far prevented nuclear war. The Soviets were stunned --they lacked basic computers and were unable to say whether it would work or not. Critics said it would cost a trillion dollars; yes said supporters, and the Soviets will go bankrupt if they try to match it.

Concrete door of a fallout shelter of the civil protection in Switzerland. As of 2006, there were about 300,000 shelters in private and public buildings for a total of 8.6 million places, a level of coverage corresponding to 114% of the Swiss population. Daniele Mariani, "À chacun son bunker", Swissinfo, 23 October 2009 (page visited on 5 August 2015). In Western countries, strong civil defense policies were never properly implemented, because it was fundamentally at odds with the doctrine of "mutual assured destruction" (MAD) by making provisions for survivors.

The historian Spencer R. Weart called nuclear weapons a "symbol for the worst of modernity." During the Cold War, concepts such as mutual assured destruction (MAD) led lawmakers and government officials in both the United States and the Soviet Union to avoid entering a nuclear war that could have had catastrophic consequences for the entire world.Lipschutz, Ronnie D., 2001, Cold War Fantasies: Film, Fiction, and Foreign Policy, Rowman & Littlefield, . Various scientists and authors, such as Carl Sagan, predicted massive, possibly life- ending destruction of the Earth as the result of such a conflict.

In the film WarGames, the supercomputer WOPR simulates all possible games of tic-tac-toe as a metaphor for all possible scenarios of a nuclear war, each of them ending in a nuclear holocaust (mutual assured destruction). The computer then exclaims, "A strange game; the only winning move is not to play." In the Star Trek canon, the Kobayashi Maru simulation is a no-win scenario designed as a character test for command track cadets at Starfleet Academy. It first appears in the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

It must also believe that the defending state is willing to go through with the deterrent threat, which would likely involve the use of nuclear weapons on a massive scale. Massive retaliation works on the same principles as mutual assured destruction (MAD), with the important caveat that even a minor conventional attack on a nuclear state could conceivably result in all-out nuclear retaliation. However at the time when massive retaliation became policy, there was no MAD, because the Soviet Union lacked a second strike capability throughout the 1950s.

Manning warns the Cabinet of the great dangers of the new situation, introducing the concepts of the nuclear arms race, mutual assured destruction, and second strike capability. He convinces the President and Cabinet that the only solution is to use the American nuclear monopoly while it still exists. Any other world power, such as the Eurasian Union, might create such dust and bomb the United States within weeks. Still a congressman, Manning convinces the President that there is no time to get Congressional approval and that the Constitution must be bypassed.

On Thermonuclear War is a book by Herman Kahn, a military strategist at the RAND Corporation, although it was written only a year before he left RAND to form the Hudson Institute. It is a controversial treatise on the nature and theory of war in the thermonuclear weapon age. In it, Kahn addresses the strategic doctrines of nuclear war and its effect on the international balance of power. Kahn introduced the Doomsday Machine as a rhetorical device to show the limits of John von Neumann's strategy of mutual assured destruction or MAD.

Any increase in missile fleet by the enemy could be countered by a similar increase in interceptors. With MIRV, a single new enemy missile meant that multiple interceptors would have to be built, meaning that it was much less expensive to increase the attack than the defense. This cost- exchange ratio was so heavily biased towards the attacker that the concept of mutual assured destruction became the leading concept in strategic planning and ABM systems were severely limited in the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to avoid a massive arms race.

Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi, "The Worlds of Herman Kahn; The Intuitive Science of Thermonuclear War", Harvard University Press, 2005. In following the tone of the book, Kubrick originally intended to film the story as a serious drama. However, as he later explained during interviews, he began to see comedy inherent in the idea of mutual assured destruction as he wrote the first draft. Kubrick said: Among the titles that Kubrick considered for the film were Dr. Doomsday or: How to Start World War III Without Even Trying, Dr. Strangelove's Secret Uses of Uranus, and Wonderful Bomb.

Also in 1983, Armstrong wrote the foreword to Daniel O. Graham's book on Project High Frontier, "We Must Defend America and Put an End to MADness." In the foreword, Armstrong criticizes the U.S. policy of Mutual Assured Destruction and advocates for a new policy, specifically that advocated by Project High Frontier, for defense against the Soviet Union's Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. During his time in office, Senator Armstrong worked on welfare reform. He supported the passage of the Family Support Act 1988, the first change in welfare rules in 50 years.

Ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs or boomers in American slang) carry submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) with nuclear warheads for attacking strategic targets such as cities or missile silos anywhere in the world. They are currently universally nuclear-powered to provide the greatest stealth and endurance. They played an important part in Cold War mutual deterrence, as both the United States and the Soviet Union had the credible ability to conduct a retaliatory strike against the other nation in the event of a first strike. This comprised an important part of the strategy of Mutual Assured Destruction.

Others point to Reagan's visit to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in 1979; there he saw the systems that could almost instantly detect a Soviet launch and then track their warheads with high accuracy. When he asked what they could do in that situation, the answer was "launch our own missiles." Whatever the source, Reagan was convinced that Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) was ridiculous, dismissing it as the international equivalent of a suicide pact. Reagan asked Daniel O. Graham, his military advisor during the 1980 presidential campaign and former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, to look for possible solutions.

Historical Documents: Reagan's 'Star Wars' speech , CNN Cold War The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic offense doctrine of mutual assured destruction (MAD). Though it was never fully developed or deployed, the research and technologies of SDI paved the way for some anti-ballistic missile systems of today. In February 2007, the U.S. started formal negotiations with Poland and Czech Republic concerning construction of missile shield installations in those countries for a Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system (in April 2007, 57% of Poles opposed the plan).U.S. Might Negotiate on Missile Defense, washingtonpost.

The planet of Rathe and Home are locked into a deadly nuclear arms-race, each possessing weapons ready to launch a fiery consummation of the policy of Mutual Assured Destruction. Although satellite images show that Rathe possess only atomic (fission) weapons, less powerful than Home's thermonuclear arsenal, there is still enough megatonnage on each planet to totally destroy the other. In a huge tent, a man almost dances a message out to the assembled masses. He whips up a frenzy of anti-Rathe sentiment, but as the crowd join in, he acts visibly and physically shocked, cowering and shaking.

The Post Attack Command and Control System (PACCS) was a network of communication sites (both ground and airborne) for use before, during and after a nuclear attack on the United States. PACCS was designed to ensure that National Command Authority would retain sole, exclusive, and complete control over US nuclear weapons. Among other components, it included Strategic Air Command assets such as the Looking Glass aircraft and mission, and various hardened command and control facilities. The belief by the Soviet Union in the reliability of PACCS was a crucial component of the US mutual assured destruction doctrine, ensuring a long term stalemate.

The conflict between the two sides leads to an escalating arms race, which results in the threat of mutual assured destruction. The race begins when a Zook named VanItch slingshots the Yook patrolman's (Grandpa in his younger years) "Tough-Tufted Prickly Snick-Berry Switch" (a switch-esque truncheon with prickly burrs). The Yooks then develop a machine with three slingshots interlinked, called a "Triple-Sling Jigger". This works once; but the next day VanItch counterattacks with his own creation: The "Jigger-Rock Snatchem", a machine with three nets to fling the rocks fired by the Triple- Sling Jigger back to the Yooks' side.

A different kind of realist criticism (see for a discussion) stresses the role of nuclear weapons in maintaining peace. In realist terms, this means that, in the case of disputes between nuclear powers, respective evaluation of power might be irrelevant because of Mutual assured destruction preventing both sides from foreseeing what could be reasonably called a "victory". The 1999 Kargil War between India and Pakistan has been cited as a counterexample to this argument , though this was a small, regional conflict and the threat of WMDs being used contributed to its de-escalation . Some supporters of the democratic peace do not deny that realist factors are also important .

A gigantic android that is thousands of years old, Ultimo was constructed by an alien species that has since been destroyed by their own creation, which they called "The doomsday device", apparently a combat instrument and a weapon of mutual assured destruction. Ultimo confirmed that his "masters" have not contacted him in "thousands of years". The first time (chronologically speaking) he is depicted in print, Ultimo is already traveling through space, and has attacked the planet Rajak, ultimately killing all its people. The only survivors, a group of merchants who were off-planet at the time, attempted to destroy him, but had to flee before his might.

Aftermath of the atomic bomb explosion over Hiroshima, August 6, 1945 Mutually assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two or more opposing sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender (see pre-emptive nuclear strike and second strike).Mutual Assured Destruction; Col. Alan J. Parrington, USAF, Mutually Assured Destruction Revisited, Strategic Doctrine in Question , Airpower Journal, Winter 1997. It is based on the theory of deterrence, which holds that the threat of using strong weapons against the enemy prevents the enemy's use of those same weapons.

The film ends with the dying Jim and Hilda getting into paper sacks, crawling back into the shelter, and praying. Jim begins with the Lord's Prayer, but, forgetting the lines, switches to "The Charge of the Light Brigade", whose militaristic and ironic undertones distress the dying Hilda, who weakly asks him not to continue. Finally, Jim's voice mumbles away into silence as he finishes the line, "...rode the Six Hundred..." Outside the shelter, the smoke and ash- filled sky begins to clear, revealing the sun rising through the gloom. At the very end of the credits, a Morse code signal taps out "MAD", which stands for mutual assured destruction.

The latter is demonstrated by the development and exploitation of ice-nine, which is conceived with indifference but is misused to disastrous ends. In his 1969 address to the American Physical Society, Vonnegut describes the inspiration behind ice-nine and its creator as the type of "old-fashioned scientist who isn't interested in people," and draws connections to nuclear weapons. More topically, Cat's Cradle takes the threat of nuclear destruction in the Cold War as a major theme. The Cuban Missile Crisis, in which world powers collided around a small Caribbean island, bringing the world to the brink of mutual assured destruction, occurred in 1962, and much of the novel can be seen as allegorical.

The Government of Canada formally agreed to every major North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) strategic document, including those that implied a US strike-first policy. This may suggest that successive Canadian governments were willing to follow US and NATO doctrine even if said doctrine was counter to the publicly favoured (and politically supported) doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction. Professors J.T. Jockel and J.J. Sokolsky explore this assertion in-depth in their article "Canada's Cold War Nuclear Experience". Furthermore, Canada allowed for forward deployment of US bombers and participated actively and extensively in the NORAD program; as well, Canada cooperated with the US when it came to research, early warning, surveillance and communications.

A Doomsday machine is a hypothetical construction which could destroy all life, either on Earth or beyond, generally as part of a policy of mutual assured destruction. In Fred Saberhagen's 1967 Berserker stories, the Berserkers of the title are giant computerized self-replicating spacecraft, once used as a doomsday device in an interstellar war aeons ago, and, having destroyed both their enemies and their makers, still attempting to fulfil their mission of destroying all life in the universe. The 1967 Star Trek episode "The Doomsday Machine" written by Norman Spinrad, explores a similar theme. Alien doomsday machines are common in science fiction as "Big Dumb Objects", McGuffins around which the plot can be constructed.

To ensure such an attack would fail, at least to the point where the Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) would be maintained, a wide variety of basing options were considered that would guarantee the survival of at least dozens of MX's. One way to improve the survival of the ICBM force would be to actively defend it with an ABM system. However, the 1972 ABM treaty greatly limited the number and geographical deployment of any ABM, with the aim of preventing whole-country protection and thus ensuring MAD. LoADS addressed these limitations by being deployed along with the radars and engagement computers needed to make a successful attack at only very short ranges, or less.

In 1959, the R-7 rocket was used to launch the first escape from Earth's gravity into a solar orbit, the first crash impact onto the surface of the Moon, and the first photography of the never-before-seen far side of the Moon. These were the Luna 1, Luna 2, and Luna 3 spacecraft. Apollo Lunar Excursion Module The U.S. response to these Soviet achievements was to greatly accelerate previously existing military space and missile projects and to create a civilian space agency, NASA. Military efforts were initiated to develop and produce mass quantities of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that would bridge the so-called missile gap and enable a policy of deterrence to nuclear war with the Soviets known as mutual assured destruction or MAD.

This pledge was later abandoned by post- Soviet Russia to compensate the overwhelming conventional weapon superiority enjoyed by NATO. The United States has a partial, qualified no-first-use policy, stating that they will not use nuclear weapons against states that do not possess nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction. Large-scale missile defense systems are not first-strike weapons, but certain critics view them as first-strike enabling weapons. U.S. President Ronald Reagan's proposed Strategic Defense Initiative, if it had ever been deployed (and proven successful), would have undermined the fundamental premise of mutual assured destruction (the inevitable outcome of equal and unacceptable destruction for both sides in the event of nuclear war), removing the incentive for the US not to strike first.

Dead Hand (, , lit. "Perimeter" System, with the GRAU Index 15E601, Cyrillic: 15Э601),Literally, "Perimeter System" also known as Perimeter, is a Cold War- era automatic nuclear weapons-control system that was used by the Soviet Union. General speculation from insiders alleges that the system remains in use in the post-Soviet Russian Federation as well. An example of fail-deadly and mutual assured destruction deterrence, it can automatically trigger the launch of the Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) by sending a pre-entered highest-authority order from the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Strategic Missile Force Management to command posts and individual silos if a nuclear strike is detected by seismic, light, radioactivity, and pressure sensors even with the commanding elements fully destroyed.

By the mid-1960s both the United States and the Soviet Union had enough nuclear power to obliterate the other side. Both sides developed a capability to launch a devastating attack even after sustaining a full assault from the other side (especially by means of submarines), called a second strike. This policy became known as Mutual Assured Destruction: both sides knew that any attack upon the other would be devastating to themselves, thus in theory restraining them from attacking the other. Both Soviet and American experts hoped to use nuclear weapons for extracting concessions from the other, or from other powers such as China, but the risk connected with using these weapons was so grave that they refrained from what John Foster Dulles referred to as brinkmanship.

Dr. Strangelove takes passing shots at numerous contemporary Cold War attitudes, such as the "missile gap", but it primarily focuses its satire on the theory of mutual assured destruction (MAD), in which each side is supposed to be deterred from a nuclear war by the prospect of a universal cataclysmic disaster regardless of who "won". Military strategist and former physicist Herman Kahn, in the book On Thermonuclear War (1960), used the theoretical example of a "doomsday machine" to illustrate the limitations of MAD, which was developed by John von Neumann. The concept of such a machine is consistent with MAD doctrine when it is logically pursued to its conclusion. It thus worried Kahn that the military might like the idea of a doomsday machine and build one.

It had become apparent that if Israel had dropped nuclear weapons on Egypt or Syria, as it prepared to do, then the USSR would have retaliated against Israel, with the US then committed to providing Israeli assistance, possibly escalating to a general nuclear war. By the late 1970s, people in both the United States and the Soviet Union, along with the rest of the world, had been living with the concept of mutual assured destruction (MAD) for about a decade, and it became deeply ingrained into the psyche and popular culture of those countries. On May 18, 1974, India conducted its first nuclear test in the Pokhran test range. The name of the operation was Smiling Buddha, and India termed the test as a "peaceful nuclear explosion".

On 26 September 1983, Stanislav Petrov, a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air Defense Forces, was the officer on duty at the Serpukhov-15 bunker near Moscow which housed the command center of the Soviet early warning satellites, code-named Oko.Дайджест : Тот, который не нажал Petrov's responsibilities included observing the satellite early warning network and notifying his superiors of any impending nuclear missile attack against the Soviet Union. If notification was received from the early warning systems that inbound missiles had been detected, the Soviet Union's strategy was an immediate and compulsory nuclear counter-attack against the United States (launch on warning), specified in the doctrine of mutual assured destruction. Shortly after midnight, the bunker's computers reported that one intercontinental ballistic missile was heading toward the Soviet Union from the United States.

SS-20 and Pershing II missiles, National Air and Space Museum The decision was prompted by the continuing military build-up of Warsaw Pact countries, particularly the Warsaw Pact's growing capability in nuclear systems threatening Western Europe. Of special concern was the growth of long-range theatre nuclear forces, with the SS-20 missile and the 'Backfire' bomber singled out for particular concern. The European NATO members saw in the mobile launching platform-mounted SS-20 missiles no less a threat than the strategic intercontinental missiles, and on December 12, 1979, took on the so- called NATO Double-Track Decision. This decision intended the deployment of 572 equally mobile American middle-range missiles (Pershing II and Gryphon BGM-109G Ground Launched Cruise Missile) to rebuild the state of Mutual Assured Destruction.

They come up with the idea of launching them to hit Earth at half-light speed, causing horrendous damage dwarfing that of nuclear weapons and possibly destroying Earth altogether or rendering it uninhabitable. The threat of so retaliating for a nuclear strike at Home effectively establishes an interstellar version of mutual assured destruction. Still, the situation remains fragile and precarious at the end, with not only The Race throwing their resources into the effort to achieve FTL flight but also the other human powers on Earth engaged on a similar effort. Members of The Race are especially worried about Germany, which had managed to recover from the terrible blows its war with The Race during the 1960s and, still ruled by the Nazis, would like to get revenge for that destruction.

In March 1969, newly elected President Richard Nixon announced to the public that he was authorizing the implementation of an anti-ballistic missile system, called Safeguard, to counter a potentially devastating Soviet threat. At that time, there was a balance between the United States and the Soviet Union based on Mutual Assured Destruction; this assumed that a first strike could not eliminate the capability for retaliation. Some studies had shown that Soviet ICBMs carrying multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) – several nuclear warheads aimed at different targets – could destroy a large part of U.S. ICBMs then emplaced in silos. In the fall of 1968, tests of SS-9 Mod 4 ICBMs had been monitored in which three warheads were dispensed, each supposedly capable of carrying up to five megaton-size nuclear bombs.

Paul considers it a "boondoggle" for the U.S. to spend much money policing other countries' borders (such as the Iraq–Syria border) while leaving its own borders porous and unpatrolled; he argues the U.S.–Mexico border can be crossed by anyone, including potential terrorists. During the Cold War, he supported Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative, intended to replace the "strategic offense" doctrine of mutual assured destruction with strategic defense. Paul favors legal immigration to the United States—today, approximately 1 million people per year— and opposes illegal immigration. Paul believes illegal aliens take a toll on welfare and Social Security and would end such benefits, concerned that uncontrolled immigration makes the U.S. a magnet for illegal aliens, increases welfare payments, and exacerbates the strain on an already highly unbalanced federal budget.

In the North of Peru was the Wari Empire and in the South of Peru and Bolivia there was the Tiwanaku empire both of whom were inspired by the earlier Moche People. While the extent of their relationship to each other is unknown, it is believed that they were in a Cold-War with one another, competing but avoiding direct conflict to avoid mutual assured destruction. Without war there was prosperity and around the year 700 Tiwanaku city hosted a population of 1.4. million.Kolata, Alan L. Valley of the Spirits: A Journey into the Lost Realm of the Aymara, Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, 1996 After the 8th century both states declined due to changing environmental conditions, laying the ground work for the Incas to emerge as a distinct culture centuries later.

It predicted a nuclear arms race, forcing the United States to develop nuclear armaments at such a pace that no other nation would think of attacking first from fear of overwhelming retaliation. This prediction turned out to be accurate, as the nuclear arms race and the concept of mutual assured destruction became a major factor in the Cold War. The report recommended that the nuclear bomb not be used, and proposed that either a demonstration of the "new weapon" be made before the eyes of representatives of all of the United Nations, on a barren island or desert, or to try to keep the existence of the nuclear bomb secret for as long as possible. In the first case, the international community would be warned of the dangers and encouraged to develop an effective international control on such weapons.

Jones v. Harris Associates L.P., 559 U.S. 335 (2010), is a case decided by the United States Supreme Court in which investors claimed that the fees they paid to an investment advisor were too steep, violating the Investment Company Act of 1940..Justices Scrutinize Adviser Pay (NYT)Mutual Assured Destruction: A big financial compensation case hits the Supreme Court. (WSJ) The case held that the court has the jurisdiction to regulate fees of investment advisers in the mutual fund industry under the Investment Company Act of 1940, when those fees are excessive, and in breach of fiduciary duty. It is notable from a law and economics perspective for the vigorous opinion in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeal of Judge Frank Easterbrook and the powerful dissent of Richard Posner, regarding the necessity and market failure in respect of adviser fee regulation.

The concept of switching small blocks of data was first explored independently by Paul Baran at the RAND Corporation in the early 1960s in the US and Donald Davies at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in the UK in 1965.; In the late 1950s, the US Air Force established a wide area network for the Semi- Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) radar defense system. They sought a system that might survive a nuclear attack to enable a response, thus diminishing the attractiveness of the first strike advantage by enemies (see Mutual assured destruction). Baran developed the concept of distributed adaptive message block switching in support of the Air Force initiative. The concept was first presented to the Air Force in the summer of 1961 as briefing B-265, later published as RAND report P-2626 in 1962, and finally in report RM 3420 in 1964.

A well- known example is the "Cold War mindset" prevalent in both the U.S. and USSR, which included absolute trust in two-player game theory, in the integrity of command chain, in control of nuclear materials, and in the mutual assured destruction of both in the case of war. Although most consider that this mindset usefully served to prevent an attack by either country, the assumptions underlying deterrence theory have made assessments of the efficacy of the Cold War mindset a matter of some controversy. Most theorists consider that the key responsibility of an embedded power group is to challenge the assumptions that comprise the group's own mindset. According to these commentators, power groups that fail to review or revise their mindsets with sufficient regularity cannot hold power indefinitely, as a single mindset is unlikely to possess the flexibility and adaptability needed to address all future events.

A variety of treaties and agreements have been enacted to regulate the use, development and possession of various types of weapons of mass destruction. Treaties may regulate weapons use under the customs of war (Hague Conventions, Geneva Protocol), ban specific types of weapons (Chemical Weapons Convention, Biological Weapons Convention), limit weapons research (Partial Test Ban Treaty, Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty), limit allowable weapons stockpiles and delivery systems (START I, SORT) or regulate civilian use of weapon precursors (Chemical Weapons Convention, Biological Weapons Convention). The history of weapons control has also included treaties to limit effective defense against weapons of mass destruction in order to preserve the deterrent doctrine of mutual assured destruction (Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty) as well as treaties to limit the spread of nuclear technologies geographically (African Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty, Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty). The following list includes in parentheses the year the respective treaties entered into force.

With the U.S. drawdown from Vietnam, the normalization of U.S. relations with China, and the Sino-Soviet Split, the policy of Containment was abandoned and a new policy of détente was established, whereby peaceful coexistence was sought between the United States and the Soviet Union. Although all factors listed above contributed to this shift, the most important factor was probably the rough parity achieved in stockpiling nuclear weapons with the clear capability of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). Therefore, the period of détente was characterized by a general reduction in the tension between the Soviet Union and the United States and a thawing of the Cold War, lasting from the late 1960s until the start of the 1980s. The doctrine of mutual nuclear deterrence characterized relations between the United States and the Soviet Union during this period, and relations with Russia until the onset of the New Cold War in the early 2010s.

International concerns increased when Pakistani foreign secretary Shamshad Ahmad made a statement on 31 May warning that an escalation of the limited conflict could lead Pakistan to use "any weapon" in its arsenal.Quoted in News Desk, "Pakistan May Use Any Weapon", The News, 31 May 1999. This was immediately interpreted as a threat of nuclear retaliation by Pakistan in the event of an extended war, and the belief was reinforced when the leader of Pakistan's senate noted, "The purpose of developing weapons becomes meaningless if they are not used when they are needed".Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons Program Many such ambiguous statements from officials of both countries were viewed as warnings of an impending nuclear crisis where the combatants would consider use of their limited nuclear arsenals in "tactical" nuclear warfare in the belief that it would not have ended in mutual assured destruction, as could have occurred in a nuclear conflict between the United States and the USSR.

Thus, the USA was completely safe from nuclear threat, ending the era of Mutual Assured Destruction. This creates a great deal of political turmoil - the USSR is especially upset at the nuclear balance of power being shifted - and while the rest of the world realigns in various ways (through alliances and treaties as well as conventional military conflict) the United States, complacent in its technical superiority, becomes isolationist in nature. The game opens with the world divided into three major world powers outside of the US: 1) The Asian Peoples Alliance (yellow player) 2) The Central American Federation (blue player) 3) The Euro-Socialist Pact (red player) These three powers have launched a surprise invasion of the now-conventionally-weak United States: Asian invaders on the Pacific coast, Central American invaders along the Southwestern border with Mexico, and the Euro-Soviet invaders along the Eastern Seaboard. The United States Navy is brushed aside.