Quote:
Originally posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
I'm not sure how much life MAD has in it, but nuclear strategy has not been a big focus of mine (conventional warfare is so much more fun!).
But it strikes me that Russia's dilapidated, rotting carcasses of ICBMs probably aren't a sufficient deterent to, on their own, keep the US from launching a strike against them if we decided they were the evil empire and had to go. The fact that Russia doesn't have much we want, has little remaining influence in the world, and is a nice tourist destination probably has more to do with us letting them live. That and, of course, the fact that we're a democracy not given to pushing buttons for the sake of building large, frozen, radioactive empires.
Yes, MAD may have some meaning to a North Korea, or within a regional theatre, like the Middle East, but I don't think it has that much meaning to the US per se.
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Ah, yes, I agree. MAD means little to the U.S. right now, given that there isn't anyone out there that is a credible threat to our existence. But the threat of American reprisals is still, and always will be, the only real constraint on the behavior of N.K, Pakistan and Iran.
