What’s MAD?

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Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) is a military doctrine that is based on the principle that if a nuclear-capable country attacks another nuclear-armed nation, the end result will be nuclear annihilation for both nations. Since this outcome is undesirable, the theory holds that by stockpiling nuclear weapons, a nation will protect itself from nuclear attack, as no nation would want to risk annihilation. This doctrine was never officially adopted, but it did lead to an arms race among many major nations.

This concept is based on a game theory principle known as the Nash Equilibrium. The idea is that since all parties involved know what the others are capable of, there is no reason to change strategy or make sudden political decisions. Indeed, in a Nash equilibrium, going out of equilibrium can totally upset the equilibrium, leading to a negative outcome in which nobody wins. In other words, mutual assured destruction is a zero-sum game.

There are several problems with the MAD concept. The first, from a foreign policy perspective, is that it tends to discourage summits, meetings and treaties. The parties involved have no reason to meet to discuss and resolve issues, and in fact tend to prefer to remain aloof. This is not very productive for resolving long-term conflicts.

Another problem is that mutually assured destruction encourages an infinite increase in a nation’s stockpile of nuclear weapons. Think about it this way. If you have a war with your neighbor and your neighbor has a stick, you will also buy a stick. But you might wonder if your neighbor has an axe, in which case you buy an axe, your neighbor sees the ax and buys a gun, you see the gun and buys a cannon, and so on. Nations that adhered to this doctrine were constantly forced to upgrade weapon systems, test weapons, and stockpile ever-growing weapons to indicate they were prepared for nuclear war.

When the Cold War ended in the 1980s, many nations realized that MAD was a silly and potentially very dangerous doctrine. In response, nations like the United States and the Soviet Union began meeting to discuss the arms race and to reach a resolution that would allow both nations to destroy excess stockpiles of nuclear weapons and focus on cooperation instead of an endless stalemate.

When mutually assured destruction had largely been abandoned, it had entered the popular consciousness. The idea of ​​a nuclear winter created through nuclear aggression is a theme in many apocalyptic novels, films, and television shows, and the specter of mutual destruction also hovers in the minds of some foreign policy students, especially as more and more developing countries nuclear capability development.

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