Mutually Assured Destruction

 For approximately 50 years a nuclear exchange between the two nuclear superpowers was prevented by the doctrine of mutually assured destruction, or M.A.D.  The concept was based on the idea that if one side launched a nuclear attack, the other side would still have enough weaponry left to annihilate the the attacker.  A nuclear attack, therefore, would be suicide.

The doctrine had its flaws.  It did not prevent conventional warfare among non-nuclear powers (Israel vs. the Arab states).  It did not prevent civil wars (Rwanda).  It didn’t prevent the superpowers from waging proxy wars.  (U.S. in Vietnam; USSR in Afghanistan).  The M.A.D. doctrine also was strained as more and more countries acquired nuclear weapons.  (India, Pakistan, China, Israel).  Nonetheless, the last nuclear bomb in war was the one dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. 

As long as both sides–or all sides– were run by rational leaders, stability was achieved.  Two big problems remained.  First, what if an accident triggered a counterstrike for a non-existent attack?  The “hotline” was put in place to allow the U.S. and U.S.S.R. to off-set this problem.  The other major issue was what would happen if a madman somehow was put in charge.  

That is the worry with Putin.  How rational is he?  How rational are the people around him?  And if Trump is elected in 2024, a possibility, and Putin is still in power, then we would have the two largest nuclear powers headed by men who are unstable.  Unstable is a euphemism.