Mutually Assured Destruction and the Cold War

Estefania Velez

GVPT200 FC

October 24, 2013

Mutually Assured Destruction

            When hearing terms such as nuclear weapons or weapons of mass destruction, most usually think of war and instability but it can be argued that during the Cold War the Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine and the possession of nuclear weapons by both the United States and the Soviet Union is what caused both countries not to launch them and potentially blow the world up. It is rational to say that nuclear weapons are unstable in the hands of states that want to use them for the wrong reasons; however, Thomas Shelling asserts that if all nuclear weapons are taken away there is a possibility that one country will have just one weapon of mass destruction and cause the world to be highly unstable. This comes across as a realist claim but in reality, it is better for countries that are going to use them rationally to have weapons of mass destruction than to have one country secretly make them and use them irrationally. In other words, we know that these weapons exist; they will continue to exist, so instead of working towards an unrealistic movement of having them banned, why not try to keep the world stable and have them, but not use them?

            The Mutually Assured Destruction doctrine created in the mid-1960s is what caused both the USSR and the United States to refrain from launching any weapons of mass destruction during the cold war. Not only did having the power to blow the world up prevent either of them from making the first move, but the second strike capability theory also influenced their decisions because both states knew that whichever attacked first should expect a nuclear bomb to automatically be launched in their direction. The MAD also created deterrence during the Cold War because it prevented both parties from undertaking any action due to the threat that each state was to the other. For example, during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, President Kennedy was prepared to take action by forming a blockade around Cuba and using military force to stop the Soviet Union from placing missiles in Cuba that could serve as a potential threat to the United States. They came to the agreement that Soviet Union would remove its missiles from Cuba if the United States would remove its missiles from Turkey because the United States threatened the Soviet Union with military action if it continued.

The existence of nuclear weapons has been around for quite some time now and although the world would be a much better place without them, in today’s world it is impossible to live without the knowledge of the mutually assured destruction doctrine or weapons of mass destruction. As proven above, there are some instances where having nuclear weapons is not unstable for the world because it forces countries to stop and think before they act. This is not just firing a machine gun or a tank, nuclear weapons can blow up the world and they can be used as a method of deterrence to prevent other countries from causing threats and starting wars. There are those who claim that in order to be one step closer to world peace, the world must rid itself of nuclear weapons and the idea of MAD as a whole. While this claim is true, it is not realistic because knowing that these weapons exist and knowing the power that they hold is too tempting for every single nation in the world to just give them up therefore it is best to deal with them with intelligence and rationalism instead of trying to have them gone for good a risk an unstable world of international relations.