MAD does it still work?

[uk 75]

Many threads here get bogged down in modern politics rather than addressing the technical issue at their heart.
By the 1980s the near parity of nuclear deterrence between the Soviet Union and USA had made MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) seemed well understood on both sides. Yet by the Cold War's end President Reagan had offered Gorbachev to get rid of nuclear weapons and share the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI). The scare of 1983 when a NATO exercise persuaded the Soviets that they were the victims of a NATO preemptive war is reflected in the story in "Hunt for Red October" of a Soviet ballistic missile designed to hit the US without warning.
As comments on this site show, the US and China, as well as Russia and North Korea, are returning to this frightening 80s stage of the Cold War when fear of MAD drove both sides to find ways round it.
Both sides havea problem again. Choosing the right weapons to build and deploy, and the political doctrines they serve, need to remember how bl**dy difficult it is and MAD lies waiting.

 

[In_A_Dream]

Many threads here get bogged down in modern politics rather than addressing the technical issue at their heart.
By the 1980s the near parity of nuclear deterrence between the Soviet Union and USA had made MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) seemed well understood on both sides. Yet by the Cold War's end President Reagan had offered Gorbachev to get rid of nuclear weapons and share the Strategic Defence Initiative (SDI). The scare of 1983 when a NATO exercise persuaded the Soviets that they were the victims of a NATO preemptive war is reflected in the story in "Hunt for Red October" of a Soviet ballistic missile designed to hit the US without warning.
As comments on this site show, the US and China, as well as Russia and North Korea, are returning to this frightening 80s stage of the Cold War when fear of MAD drove both sides to find ways round it.
Both sides havea problem again. Choosing the right weapons to build and deploy, and the political doctrines they serve, need to remember how bl**dy difficult it is and MAD lies waiting.

Unfortunately too, with the passage of time, is the eventuality of having to re-learn lessons from the past. Some the easy way, some the hard way.

 

[Foo Fighter]

Apparently so, we seem to keep going back to the same point in time. A very bad edition of "Time tunnel" or similar genre program. You would think we could avoid this particular "Groundhog day" event by now, we are supposed to be intelligent are we not.

Daft as it may seem my first reaction to the title was that it referred to a Magnetic Anomaly Detector issue, so back to Red October then.

You would also think I could smell but ,y disloxic fingers still mess ip op.....

 

[riggerrob]

History never repeats itself, but it often rhymes.

 

[Dynoman]

MAD worked in the Cold War because there were only a handful of players that could be identified, their movements tracked, and technology checked. Today, the proliferation of WMD, third-world despot leaders eager to leverage the technology, and terrorists who are working hard at developing the technology to exploit as soon as feasible, makes MAD a foreign policy instrument only applicable to those responsible states who hold WMD that are concerned with the repercussions of using WMD. New technologies (i.e. hypersonic weapons, stealth, bio-weapons, cyber, etc.) in the hands of more players results in greater vulnerability and the need for increased vigilance. This corresponds to increased surveillance, stronger alliances, and tougher actions against those who brandish WMD in order to blackmail other nations to bend at their will. The new MAD for these rouge nations and terrorist groups is Unilateral Assured Destruction (UAD). The message should be that if you engage in these types of behaviors then the retribution will be direct, fast, and complete as allies and their armies move to eradicate bad actors. Reality is stickier than the theory.

Unilaterally Assured Destruction

If it's possible to deter terrorist attacks, why hasn't the United States adopted this strategy as a core principle of the war on terror?

foreignpolicy.com

 

[edwest4]

The major players, the US, China and Russia, know what's at stake. The hypersonic threat from China and Russia has been countered by the US. A "space fence" has been deployed. Debris in near earth orbit needs to be cleared and more satellites will go up. Refining uranium and handling plutonium means getting your hands on these materials, followed by knowing how to build a bomb. I am sure those in charge in the US have had a few talks with North Korea's friend China. Its military can be wiped off the map quickly with conventional weapons if it does not show reasonable restraint. I doubt China will care much if 'leadership insanity' leads to such a loss. Teenagers will still be shoveling coal into trucks and life will go on.

Reality is quite simple. If you do X, Y will happen, quickly. The end. That's the only message that needs to be sent. And the reality is that nuclear weapons, stealth and most other weapon systems are expensive. That followed by rogue states not having sophisticated tracking and monitoring systems. And where will terrorists get such technology? Who will sell it to them? Wealth, not any sort of policy, will keep those elements in check.

 

[uk 75]

MAD assumes that both or all sides have as much to lose if they set off a conflict. Unequal risk does undermine the doctrine.
Even in the Cold War there was doubt in Europe that the USA would risk attacks on its own cities to respond to a Soviet attack on Europe. This was why UK and France maintained there own ability to strike Moscow. Germany denied such weapons pressed the US to deploy Pershing 2 (it is unclear whether Germany ever hoped to upgrade its US armed Pershings-see the Paul Erdman Novel 'Last Days of America'). Pershing 2 arguably worried the Soviets enough to bring them to negotiate the INF Treaty because of its short flight time.
North Korea is trapped in its own form of MAD. It can destroy South Korea even by a conventional attack on Seoul with its massed artillery. This would in turn lead to a massive conventional air strike by the US which could probably make it impossible for the NK regime to survive. Its nuclear weapons seek to remove this threat (as the USSR had done by deploying SS20s in Europe) but only make a Trident strike on Pyongyang inevitable. If NK gets the ability to strike the US it will not alter this reality, it simply makes it more certain that the US will destroy it.
Non State actors (this includes Iran's proxies who might get access to Iranian WMD) seem at first sight to be unequal targets. There is noone to nuke if they destroy Tel Aviv or New York. However, Afghanistan and Iraq, and even Syria, demonstrate that the West will throw considerable resources into wiping them out in their nests. Or, if they have State support, making that State pay. Iran has been brought to its knees by sanctions. Even the Mullahs know that gaining nuclear weapons (assuming they can as the West has various means of stopping this which China hindered in North Korea) will doom it to pariah status.

 

[kaiserd]

MAD works if both sides have a similar rationale; i.e. continued survival is paramount to me and to you my opponent, and we will deter each other and be careful not to push each other to the point where that deterrence breaks down.

If an opponent values your destruction above their own continued survival (either through some ideology or in a specific scenario) than mutually assured destruction will not necessarily deter them. A doomsday cult and/or regime about to fall that initiates a “scorched earth” policy may not be deterred (and can’t necessarily be defended against by missile-defences etc - the best defence is intelligence activity and international cooperation, and that may not work in each and every instance).

MAD also breaks down if one side fears they can’t deliver on their side of the mutual assured destruction, leading to alternative deliver methods that may make attribution murkier and/or create further instability (bomb in the back of a truck without warning, or relatively short range launch from a SSBN to defeat a missile defence by limiting flight time/ warning, versus an ICBM whose preparation for launch and launch/flight can be identified and tracked, etc.).

Hence it is everyone’s interests of the parameters of their shared MAD are understood and codified and limited by international treaty (the STARTs etc.).

And there are exponents of theories that evolved out of and are in some sense a counter to MAD around “winning” a nuclear war and who reject treaty limitations (these exponents include contributors on this site).
That is a recipe for unparalleled waste and inevitable doom.

 

[uk 75]

Demonizing one's opponent and seeking ways round the limitations of MAD were constants of the Cold War right up to its conclusion. The various agreements from Test Ban through SALT to INF were markers rather than limits. Both the US and USSR found means to ignore or interpret them their way.
The accusations of wanting to "win" a nuclear war or limited nuclear war were made by both sides about the other. The USSR we now know, intended to use nuclear weapons against Denmark despite claiming that only NATO believed in first use. Today there are those who seem to prefer to believe dictatorships' accounts rather than those of democratically elected politicians whose views they dislike.
Similarly, the rhetoric and actions of terrorist groups tend to hide the reality that even the most messianic have rather grubby realworld aims like enriching themselves and their families.

 

[edwest4]

Only the intelligence community has the information lacking here. All enemies are watched and I do use the term loosely. How did Iran get the technology it has now? And assuming the truly insane put a 'bomb on a truck,' some type of response is still possible. Those without the means to effectively identify and track, and who would be difficult to identify and track, just need to be watched closely. The military literature, which is generally of no interest to the public, contained numerous scenarios and responses.

 

[Dynoman]

One of the largest holes in the MAD theory was the notion of the first strike capability (aka the pre-emptive strike). Whether it was parking nuclear missiles off the coast of an adversary in a submarine, portable (suitcase Mk-54, RA-115, etc) tactical nukes smuggled into cities, or ICBMs conveniently located next to your adversary's border, the goal was to wield a surprising and decisive blow that would leave your enemy wondering 'what the (add you own explicative) just happened.' These maneuvers, designed to side-step the MAD doctrine, was repeatedly thwarted with strategic defense initiatives designed to protect the country's ability to launch a reprisal attack (e.g. one of the most notorious being the USSR's Dead Hand program), to signal to the aggressor that 'a nuclear war can not be won.' MAD is still at work and effective today. However, its those small groups (particularly terrorist in nature), who have no country, that think that the use of these weapons, possibly delivered in an unconventional way, would be effective in winning a war against the so-called 'evil' of the world.

 

[kaiserd]

I’d like the comment above if it wasn’t so worrying... “like” seems somehow inappropriate.

 

[edwest4]

I have no doubt that every inch of "enemy" territory is covered in real time. Yes, there are situations where more detailed coverage can be added but no one outside of the 'need to know' community has that information. If the US can track an object the size of a marble in space, and read a license plate from space, then monitoring sources of fissile material, weapons dealers and other relevant persons/geographic areas needs to remain ongoing. Not much else after that. Diplomacy should always be the first step, along with inspection in certain situations, but if some group of terrorists decides to act, then responses need to be in place. Those who believe they are being oppressed in some way should be engaged in a constructive way. If their words are not reasonable in a pragmatic way then they should be on the 'watch list' as a potential problem.

 

[Trident]

One of the largest holes in the MAD theory was the notion of the first strike capability (aka the pre-emptive strike). Whether it was parking nuclear missiles off the coast of an adversary in a submarine, portable (suitcase Mk-54, RA-115, etc) tactical nukes smuggled into cities, or ICBMs conveniently located next to your adversary's border, the goal was to wield a surprising and decisive blow that would leave your enemy wondering 'what the (add you own explicative) just happened.' These maneuvers, designed to side-step the MAD doctrine, was repeatedly thwarted with strategic defense initiatives designed to protect the country's ability to launch a reprisal attack (e.g. one of the most notorious being the USSR's Dead Hand program), to signal to the aggressor that 'a nuclear war can not be won.' MAD is still at work and effective today. However, its those small groups (particularly terrorist in nature), who have no country, that think that the use of these weapons, possibly delivered in an unconventional way, would be effective in winning a war against the so-called 'evil' of the world.

Full agreement with 95% of what you say, but is the bolded part ever genuinely true (especially when it comes to threats with such high entry barriers as nukes and intercontinental-range missiles)? I always thought that on a doctrinal level, the US intervention in Afghanistan as a response to 9/11 was the right sort of idea, even if it was very poorly executed on a number of counts. Perhaps the good news in all of it is that among the manifold wrong messages it sent, the correct one was also broadcast pretty clearly, and extrapolated to a nuclear context it should serve to concentrate the relevant minds.

Taken all together, I would conclude that MAD still works, full stop - no need to buttress it with ambitious and expensive hedges (which besides generally end up destabilizing MAD, rather than abetting it).