"Mutual Assured Destruction" (MAD) is a strategy
based on the concept that neither the United States nor its enemies
will ever start a nuclear war because the other side will retaliate
massively and unacceptably. MAD is a product of the 1950s’ US
doctrine of massive retaliation, and despite attempts to redefine it
in contemporary terms like flexible response and nuclear
deterrence, it has remained the central theme of American defense
planning for well over three decades. (Col.
Alan J. Parrington, USAF)
In San Francisco, on September 18, 1967, Secretary
of Defense Robert McNamara outlined the theory of "Mutual
Deterrence":
The cornerstone of our strategic policy continues to be to deter
nuclear attack upon the United States or its allies. We do this by
maintaining a highly reliable ability to inflict unacceptable damage
upon any single aggressor or combination of aggressors at any time
during the course of a strategic nuclear exchange, even after
absorbing a surprise first strike. This can be defined as our
assured-destruction capability.
It is important to understand that assured destruction is the very
essence of the whole deterrence concept. We must possess an actual
assured-destruction capability, and that capability also must be
credible. The point is that a potential aggressor must believe that
our assured-destruction capability is in fact actual, and that our
will to use it in retaliation to an attack is in fact unwavering. The
conclusion, then, is clear: if the United States is to deter a nuclear
attack in itself or its allies, it must possess an actual and a
credible assured-destruction capability.
In other words, if the Soviet Union attacked the United States with
nuclear weapons, killing millions of innocent American civilians, the
United States would retaliate with equal or greater strength, killing
millions of innocent non-combatant Russian civilians involuntarily
enslaved under communism.
Obviously "MAD" is mad; an insane policy for a
Christian nation to have.
Gen Henry H. “Hap” Arnold reminds us that
modern equipment is but a step in time and that “any Air Force
which does not keep its doctrines ahead of its equipment, and its
vision far into the future, can only delude the nation into a false
sense of security.”3 Furthermore, nuclear weapons did not
keep the peace in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, the Middle East, the
Balkans, Africa, or Latin America, even though one side in those wars
often possessed “the Bomb” and theoretically should have coerced
the other side into submission.4 By one estimate, 125
million people have died in 149 wars since 1945.5 (Parrington)
3. Air Force Manual (AFM) 1-1, Basic
Aerospace Doctrine of the United States Air Force, 1984, 4–7.
4. Robert Frank Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: Basic Thinking
of the United States Air Force , vol. 2, 1961–1984
(Maxwell AFB, Ala.: Air University Press, 1989), 99.
5. This is the estimate of John Otranto, executive director, Global
Care, Munich, Germany.
In order for nuclear deterrence to work, it is likely that there
would have to be periodic and regular use of nuclear weapons, killing
millions of innocent, non-combatant civilians, just to send the message
to potential enemies that "We really mean it."
Obviously "MAD" is mad; an insane policy for a
Christian nation to have.