Posted by
Tom L. on Friday, May 29, 2009 6:00:00 AM
Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a defense strategy that suggests that two rational nations, each of which possess the nuclear capability to totally destroy the other, would not start a nuclear war because each is certain it would end with the total destruction of both (and the rest of the world). MAD may have been well named, the United States and the Soviet Union never did engage in a nuclear war.
In the 21st century nuclear weapons age, two of the underlying assumptions of MAD are clearly called into question.
First, are those who possess nuclear weapons rational? Is North Korea’s Kim Jong Il rational? Is Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rational? If Pakistan should fall to the Taliban, will Pakistan’s Taliban leader be rational?
Second, if North Korea, Iran, or some other country sells or gives a nuclear bomb to a terrorist group and that group uses it to attack the United States (or Great Britain, or Israel, etc.) what targets are destroyed in the mutual retaliation? We may suspect North Korea or Iran as providing the bomb, but they would claim innocence and the world would condemn the United States if it launched a nuclear attack on either country without overwhelming public proof. Unlike the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, terrorists do not live in nice near targets (cities).
To paraphrase Klaatu:
So long as you were limited to fighting among yourselves -- with your primitive tanks and planes -- we were unconcerned. But with nuclear weapons you become a threat to the peace and security of other nations. That, of course, we cannot tolerate…Your choice is simple. Join us and live in peace. Or pursue your present course -- and face obliteration.