Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)
상호확증파괴(MAD)
Mutually Assured Destruction is a Cold War strategic doctrine holding that if either of two nuclear-armed adversaries launched a full-scale attack, the other's surviving second-strike capability would inflict unacceptable destruction on both. Mutual vulnerability therefore deters a first strike and can prevent direct total war, although it rests on fragile assumptions about survivability, warning, rational decision-making, and limited defenses.
In depth
Structure and strategic implications
The doctrine depends on dispersing and hardening nuclear forces so that they cannot be eliminated in a first strike. Second-strike systems, including submarine-launched ballistic missiles, make retaliation credible and undermine the idea that a nuclear war can be won. This logic also informed concern that extensive ballistic-missile defenses could weaken an opponent's retaliatory capacity, providing strategic context for the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty.
Limits and debate
MAD assumes reliable warning, controlled command systems, and leaders who rationally place national survival above other objectives. False alarms, miscalculation, third-party intervention, and imperfect defenses can weaken its stability, making the doctrine both a mechanism intended to prevent nuclear war and a system that institutionalized permanent risk.
Sources
- Wikipedia (EN) Defines MAD as a nuclear strategy in which each side's second-strike capability makes a full-scale attack result in both sides' destruction, and connects it to Cold War nuclear parity and the ABM Treaty.
- Wikipedia (RU) Describes the Cold War doctrine, nuclear parity, guaranteed retaliation, and the destabilizing logic attributed to strategic missile defense.
- history.state.gov A 1986 U.S. State Department document explicitly describes mutual assured destruction as the deterrence doctrine and discusses how early ABM deployment could preserve or undermine it.