Pre-1945 The concept of MAD had been discussed in the literature for nearly a century before the invention of nuclear weapons. One of the earliest references comes from the English author
Wilkie Collins, writing at the time of the
Franco-Prussian War in 1870: "I begin to believe in only one civilizing influence—the discovery one of these days of a destructive agent so terrible that War shall mean annihilation and men's fears will force them to keep the peace." The concept was also described in 1863 by
Jules Verne in his novel
Paris in the Twentieth Century, though it was not published until 1994. The book is set in 1960 and describes "the engines of war", which have become so efficient that war is inconceivable and all countries are at a perpetual stalemate. MAD has been invoked by more than one weapons inventor. For example,
Richard Jordan Gatling patented his namesake
Gatling gun in 1862 with the partial intention of illustrating the futility of war. Likewise, after his 1867 invention of
dynamite,
Alfred Nobel stated that "the day when two army corps can annihilate each other in one second, all civilized nations, it is to be hoped, will recoil from war and discharge their troops." In 1937,
Nikola Tesla published
The Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-dispersive Energy through the Natural Media, a treatise concerning
charged particle beam weapons. Tesla described his device as a "superweapon that would put an end to all war." The March 1940
Frisch–Peierls memorandum, the earliest technical exposition of a practical nuclear weapon, anticipated deterrence as the principal means of combating an enemy with nuclear weapons.
Early Cold War (August 6, 1945), to date one of the only two times a nuclear strike has been performed as an act of war In August 1945, the United States became the first nuclear power after the
nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Four years later, on August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union
detonated its own nuclear device. At the time, both sides lacked the means to effectively use nuclear devices against each other. However, with the development of aircraft like the American
Convair B-36 and the Soviet
Tupolev Tu-95, both sides were gaining a greater ability to deliver nuclear weapons into the interior of the opposing country. The official policy of the United States became one of "Instant Retaliation", as coined by Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles, which called for massive atomic attack against the Soviet Union if they were to invade Europe, regardless of whether it was a conventional or a nuclear attack. By the time of the 1962
Cuban Missile Crisis, both the United States and the Soviet Union had developed the capability of launching a nuclear-tipped missile from a submerged submarine, which completed the "third leg" of the
nuclear triad weapons strategy necessary to fully implement the MAD doctrine. Having a three-branched nuclear capability eliminated the possibility that an enemy could destroy all of a nation's nuclear forces in a
first-strike attack; this, in turn, ensured the credible threat of a devastating
retaliatory strike against the aggressor, increasing a nation's
nuclear deterrence. Campbell Craig and
Sergey Radchenko argue that
Nikita Khrushchev (Soviet leader 1953 to 1964) decided that policies that facilitated nuclear war were too dangerous to the Soviet Union. His approach did not greatly change his foreign policy or military doctrine but is apparent in his determination to choose options that minimized the risk of war.
Strategic Air Command Beginning in 1955, the United States
Strategic Air Command (SAC) kept one-third of its bombers on alert, with crews ready to take off within fifteen minutes and fly to designated targets inside the
Soviet Union and destroy them with nuclear bombs in the event of a Soviet first-strike attack on the United States. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy increased funding for this program and raised the commitment to 50 percent of SAC aircraft. During periods of increased tension in the early 1960s, SAC kept part of its B-52 fleet airborne at all times, to allow an extremely fast retaliatory strike against the Soviet Union in the event of a surprise attack on the United States. This program continued until 1969. Between 1954 and 1992, bomber wings had approximately one-third to one-half of their assigned aircraft on quick reaction ground alert and were able to take off within a few minutes. SAC also maintained the National Emergency Airborne Command Post (NEACP, pronounced "kneecap"), also known as "Looking Glass", which consisted of several EC-135s, one of which was airborne at all times from 1961 through 1990. During the
Cuban Missile Crisis the bombers were dispersed to several different airfields, and sixty-five B-52s were airborne at all times. During the height of the tensions between the US and the USSR in the 1960s, two popular films were made dealing with what could go terribly wrong with the policy of keeping nuclear-bomb-carrying airplanes at the ready:
Dr. Strangelove (1964) and
Fail Safe (1964).
Retaliation capability (second strike) The strategy of MAD was fully declared in the early 1960s, primarily by
United States Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. In McNamara's formulation, there was the very real danger that a nation with nuclear weapons could attempt to eliminate another nation's retaliatory forces with a surprise, devastating first strike and theoretically "win" a nuclear war relatively unharmed. The true second-strike capability could be achieved only when a nation had a
guaranteed ability to fully retaliate after a first-strike attack. This deterrence strategy and the program have continued into the 21st century, with nuclear submarines carrying
Trident II ballistic missiles as one leg of the US
strategic nuclear deterrent and as the sole deterrent of the United Kingdom. The other elements of the US deterrent are intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) on alert in the continental United States, and nuclear-capable bombers. Ballistic missile submarines are also operated by the navies of China, France, India, and Russia. The
US Department of Defense anticipates a continued need for a
sea-based strategic nuclear force. The first of the current
Ohio-class SSBNs are expected to be retired by 2029, meaning that a replacement platform must already be seaworthy by that time. A replacement may cost over $4 billion per unit compared to the USS
Ohios $2 billion. The USN's follow-on class of SSBN will be the
Columbia class, which began construction in 2021 and enter service in 2031.
ABMs threaten MAD In the 1960s both the Soviet Union (
A-35 anti-ballistic missile system) and the United States (
LIM-49 Nike Zeus) developed anti-ballistic missile systems. Had such systems been able to effectively defend against a retaliatory
second strike, MAD would have been undermined. However, multiple scientific studies showed technological and logistical problems in these systems, including the inability to distinguish between real and decoy weapons.
MIRVs from
Peacekeeper missile passing through clouds
MIRVs as counter against ABM The
multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle (MIRV) was another weapons system designed specifically to aid with the MAD nuclear deterrence doctrine. With a MIRV payload, one
ICBM could hold many separate warheads. MIRVs were first created by the United States in order to counterbalance the Soviet
A-35 anti-ballistic missile systems around Moscow. Since each defensive missile could be counted on to destroy only one offensive missile, making each offensive missile have, for example, three warheads (as with early MIRV systems) meant that three times as many defensive missiles were needed for each offensive missile. This made defending against missile attacks more costly and difficult. One of the largest US MIRVed missiles, the
LGM-118A Peacekeeper, could hold up to 10 warheads, each with a yield of around —all together, an explosive payload equivalent to 230
Hiroshima-type bombs. The multiple warheads made defense untenable with the available technology, leaving the threat of retaliatory attack as the only viable defensive option. MIRVed land-based ICBMs tend to put a premium on striking first. The
START II agreement was proposed to ban this type of weapon, but never entered into force. In the event of a Soviet conventional attack on
Western Europe,
NATO planned to use
tactical nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union countered this threat by issuing a statement that any use of nuclear weapons (tactical or otherwise) against Soviet forces would be grounds for a full-scale Soviet retaliatory strike (
massive retaliation). Thus it was generally assumed that any combat in Europe would end with
apocalyptic conclusions.
Land-based MIRVed ICBMs threaten MAD MIRVed land-based ICBMs are generally considered suitable for a first strike (inherently
counterforce) or a counterforce
second strike, due to: • Their high accuracy (low
circular error probable), compared to submarine-launched ballistic missiles which used to be less accurate, and more prone to defects; • Their fast response time, compared to bombers which are considered too slow; • Their ability to carry multiple MIRV warheads at once, useful for destroying a whole missile field or several cities with one missile. Unlike a
decapitation strike or a
countervalue strike, a
counterforce strike might result in a potentially more constrained retaliation. Though the Minuteman III of the mid-1960s was MIRVed with three warheads, heavily MIRVed vehicles threatened to upset the balance; these included the
SS-18 Satan which was deployed in 1976, and was considered to threaten
Minuteman III silos, which led
some neoconservatives to conclude a
Soviet first strike was being prepared for. This led to the development of the aforementioned
Pershing II, the
Trident I and
Trident II, as well as the
MX missile, and the
B-1 Lancer. MIRVed land-based
ICBMs are considered destabilizing because they tend to put a premium on striking first. When a missile is MIRVed, it is able to carry many
warheads (up to eight in existing US missiles, limited by
New START, though Trident II is capable of carrying up to 12) and deliver them to separate targets. If it is assumed that each side has 100 missiles, with five warheads each, and further that each side has a 95 percent chance of neutralizing the opponent's missiles in their silos by firing two warheads at each silo, then the attacking side can reduce the enemy ICBM force from 100 missiles to about five by firing 40 missiles with 200 warheads, and keeping the rest of 60 missiles in reserve. As such, this type of weapon was intended to be banned under the
START II agreement; however, the START II agreement was never brought into force, and neither Russia nor the United States ratified the agreement.
Late Cold War The original US MAD doctrine was modified on July 25, 1980, with US President
Jimmy Carter's adoption of
countervailing strategy with
Presidential Directive 59. According to its architect, Secretary of Defense
Harold Brown, "countervailing strategy" stressed that the planned response to a Soviet attack was no longer to bomb Soviet population centers and cities primarily, but first to kill the Soviet leadership, then attack military targets, in the hope of a Soviet surrender before total destruction of the Soviet Union (and the United States). This modified version of MAD was seen as a winnable nuclear war, while still maintaining the possibility of assured destruction for at least one party. This policy was further developed by the
Reagan administration with the announcement of the
Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, nicknamed "Star Wars"), the goal of which was to develop space-based technology to destroy Soviet missiles before they reached the United States. SDI was criticized by both the Soviets and many of America's allies (including Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Margaret Thatcher) because, were it ever operational and effective, it would have undermined the "assured destruction" required for MAD. If the United States had a guarantee against Soviet nuclear attacks, its critics argued, it would have first-strike capability, which would have been a politically and militarily destabilizing position. Critics further argued that it could trigger a new arms race, this time to develop countermeasures for SDI. Despite its promise of nuclear safety, SDI was described by many of its critics (including Soviet nuclear physicist and later peace activist
Andrei Sakharov) as being even more dangerous than MAD because of these political implications. Supporters also argued that SDI could trigger a new arms race, forcing the USSR to spend an increasing proportion of GDP on defense—something which has been claimed to have been an indirect cause of the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev himself in 1983 announced that “the continuation of the S.D.I. program will sweep the world into a new stage of the arms race and would destabilize the strategic situation.” Proponents of
ballistic missile defense (BMD) argue that MAD is exceptionally dangerous in that it essentially offers a single course of action in the event of a nuclear attack: full retaliatory response. The fact that
nuclear proliferation has led to an increase in the number of nations in the "
nuclear club", including nations of questionable stability (e.g.
North Korea), and that a nuclear nation might be hijacked by a
despot or other person or persons who might use nuclear weapons without a sane regard for the consequences, presents a strong case for proponents of BMD who seek a policy which both protect against attack, but also does not require an escalation into what might become
global nuclear war. Russia continues to have a strong public distaste for Western BMD initiatives, presumably because proprietary operative BMD systems could exceed their technical and financial resources and therefore degrade their larger military standing and sense of security in a post-MAD environment. Russian refusal to accept invitations to participate in NATO BMD may be indicative of the lack of an alternative to MAD in current Russian war-fighting strategy due to the dilapidation of conventional forces after the breakup of the
Soviet Union.
Proud Prophet Proud Prophet was a series of war games played out by various American military officials. The simulation revealed MAD made the use of nuclear weapons virtually impossible without total nuclear annihilation, regardless of how nuclear weapons were implemented in war plans. These results essentially ruled out the possibility of a limited nuclear strike, as every time this was attempted, it resulted in a complete expenditure of nuclear weapons by both the United States and USSR. Proud Prophet marked a shift in American strategy; following Proud Prophet, American rhetoric of strategies that involved the use of nuclear weapons dissipated and American war plans were changed to emphasize the use of conventional forces.
TTAPS Study In 1983, a group of researchers including
Carl Sagan released the TTAPS study (named for the respective initials of the authors), which predicted that the large scale use of nuclear weapons would cause a “
nuclear winter”. The study predicted that the debris burned in nuclear bombings would be lifted into the atmosphere and diminish sunlight worldwide, thus reducing world temperatures by “-15° to -25°C”. These findings led to theory that MAD would still occur with many fewer weapons than were possessed by either the United States or USSR at the height of the Cold War. As such, nuclear winter was used as an argument for significant reduction of nuclear weapons since MAD would occur anyway.
Post-Cold War is launched from
Meck Island at the
Kwajalein Missile Range on December 3, 2001, for an intercept of a ballistic missile target over the central Pacific Ocean. After the
fall of the Soviet Union, the
Russian Federation emerged as a sovereign entity encompassing most of the territory of the former USSR. Relations between the United States and Russia were, at least for a time, less tense than they had been with the Soviet Union. While MAD has become less applicable for the US and Russia, it has been argued as a factor behind
Israel's acquisition of nuclear weapons. Similarly, diplomats have warned that Japan may be pressured to nuclearize by the presence of North Korean nuclear weapons. The ability to launch a nuclear attack against an enemy city is a relevant deterrent strategy for these powers. The administration of US President
George W. Bush withdrew from the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in June 2002, claiming that the limited national missile defense system which they proposed to build was designed only to prevent
nuclear blackmail by a state with limited nuclear capability and was not planned to alter the nuclear posture between Russia and the United States. While relations have improved and an intentional nuclear exchange is less likely, the decay in Russian nuclear capability in the
post–Cold War era may have had an effect on the continued viability of the MAD doctrine. A 2006 article by Keir Lieber and Daryl Press stated that the United States could carry out a nuclear first strike on Russia and would "have a good chance of destroying every Russian bomber base, submarine, and ICBM." This was attributed to reductions in Russian nuclear stockpiles and the increasing inefficiency and age of that which remains. Lieber and Press argued that the MAD era is coming to an end and that the United States is on the cusp of global nuclear primacy. However, in a follow-up article in the same publication, others criticized the analysis, including
Peter Flory, the US Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, who began by writing "The essay by Keir Lieber and Daryl Press contains so many errors, on a topic of such gravity, that a Department of Defense response is required to correct the record." Regarding reductions in Russian stockpiles, another response stated that "a similarly one-sided examination of [reductions in] U.S. forces would have painted a similarly dire portrait". A situation in which the United States might actually be expected to carry out a "successful" attack is perceived as a disadvantage for both countries. The strategic balance between the United States and Russia is becoming less stable, and the technical possibility of a first strike by the United States is increasing. At a time of crisis, this instability could lead to an accidental nuclear war. For example, if Russia feared a US nuclear attack, Moscow might make rash moves (such as putting its forces on alert) that would provoke a US preemptive strike.
India and Pakistan MAD does not apply to all nuclear-armed rivals.
India and Pakistan are an example of this; because of the superiority of conventional Indian armed forces to their Pakistani counterparts, Pakistan may be forced to use their nuclear weapons on invading Indian forces out of desperation regardless of an Indian retaliatory strike. As such, any large-scale attack on Pakistan by India could precipitate the use of nuclear weapons by Pakistan, thus rendering MAD inapplicable. However, MAD is applicable in that it may deter Pakistan from making a “suicidal” nuclear attack rather than a defensive nuclear strike. MAD may not apply to the situation in North Korea because the theory relies on rational consideration of the use and consequences of nuclear weapons, which may not be the case for potential North Korean deployment.
China Since 2020, China has undertaken an ambitious expansion and modernization of its nuclear arsenal. As of March 2025, it is estimated to possess approximately 600 nuclear warheads. It has developed new variants of intercontinental ballistic missiles and is capable of delivering nuclear warheads via land-based ballistic missiles, sea-based ballistic missiles, and bombers. China's intense development of its nuclear program complicates mutual assured destruction with other countries, including the United States. As its nuclear program expands, the prospect of a credible MAD relationship with the US is likely to increase. China seeks to develop second-strike capabilities to counter other nations, following years of adhering to a declared no-first-use policy. Several analysts have cited China's nuclear developments as a means of leveraging power to bolster China's demands due to an increased threat. However, others have claimed that China is simply seeking to boost its deterrence to fortify its own security in a rapidly developing world. China's nuclear arsenal is currently smaller than the arsenals of Russia and the United States. Historically, the United States has possessed a strong nuclear advantage over China. Despite differing analyses by defense experts and academics of China's nuclear buildup, its exact intentions remain largely up to speculation. There does not exist an official consensus on whether or not the United States and China have full mutual assured destruction. However, China's ambitious nuclear policy signals that the country is potentially seeking to establish a MAD relationship with the United States. China's nuclear buildup also plays a role in regional nuclear dynamics. In a conflict involving Taiwan, for example, the presence of nuclear forces could lead to a rapid escalation in the situation. When the stakes of a conflict become existential, urgency on all sides increases rapidly and intensely. This similarly complicates security guarantees and other forms of alliances with countries across the world, potentially involving allies and strategic partners across the world. ==Official policy==