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March 9, 2006
Get as MAD as you want, it won't stop US
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara is largely credited with forming the US policy on mutually assured destruction (MAD). Essentially, potentially hostile counties retain sufficient nuclear arms to destroy their enemies even AFTER suffering a nuclear attack. As such, any country that destroyed them would also be assured total destruction. This held up for a long time, essentially from the Cuban Missie crisis onward.
Longtime readers know I don't think much (morally or practically) of the mass killing of a fascist dictatorship's serfs in the name of retaliation. That said, our enemies seem to have bought it, as there hasn't been another nuclear weapon used as such since WW II, and there haven't been any wars between great powers either. On the other hand, it has also forced the US to make some serious strategic compromises with some of the worlds worst countries, so it hasn't been without cost.
Good or bad, the age of MAD is coming to an end. For the foreseeable future, the US will have the first strike ability to destroy the nuclear weapons of Russia, China, and all other lesser nuclear powers. If winning a nuclear war. Our weapons have become so powerful, accurate, and hidden, that the US could start and win a nuclear war with any country and win. That is, if winning means destroying your enemy without yourselves experiencing a nuclear holocaust and not simply avoiding one in the first place.
Will this make the world a calmer place? Will the US use its nuclear superiority to take a harder line with Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran? Will hubris push her into raining hellfire in the innocent? I don't know, but I'm hopeful about America. I expect she'll stand up well to Clio's withering review.
When Reagan said,
"Whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty’s lamp guiding your steps and opportunity’s arm steadying your way." he was talking about himself, but I hope it will also be said about about America.
Posted by OneEyedMan at March 9, 2006 1:10 PM
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