# Cold War Dopers - how scared were you? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 24, 2012, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192 "2012-06-24T23:29:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![VOW](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/vow/32/3043_2.png) [@VOW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VOW)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192/81 "2012-07-01T03:47:33Z")
I was born in 1952. From 1959 to 1963, our family lived at Vandenberg AFB, CA, where my dad was stationed. As a kid attending grade schools on base, we would run outside of the classroom whenever a missile was launched. The ground rumbling would cause a cry from everyone, “MISSILE!” and we’d go see the con trail. Even as little children, we knew from the launch site the type of missile. It was kinda cool when a missile would go off course and they’d blow it up. I remember CONELRAD, the Emergency Broadcast System alerts, Duck and Cover drills, fallout shelters, and the mushroom cloud. There was a pervasive fear that we kids picked up. I remember asking my mother if WE would build a fallout shelter. I didn’t understand that Base Housing meant we were “renting” our home. Instead of explaining the housing situation, my mother said there was no need for fallout shelters where we lived. She said the air force base would be one of the first places bombed, and all that would be left would be a big crater. Yeah, I was scared. ~VOW ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192/82 "2012-07-01T04:08:09Z")
I was 10 or 11 when I saw Red Dawn for the first time in 1985ish. It terrified me. I voted 10. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192/83 "2012-07-01T04:47:33Z")
Dr Strangelove and Fail-Safe both came out in 1964. both films concerned an unintentional, on the part of the government as far as intented war, use of nuclear weapons. Strangelove a black comedy that was hooked onto some reality. Fail-Safe was a drama of a potential sequence of events. Strangelove came out first. Fail-Safe though good maybe was too real and didn’t do well. Fail-Safe was given another go around in the theaters. i saw it as a double feature along with The War Game a 1965 BBC tv drama as a documentary, about just before and after a nuclear attack on Britain. it was pulled from broadcast in Britain because it was too depressing; which it was. it was a double feature that just kind of stuck with you. ---
**Author:** ![GreenElf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de053/32.png) [@GreenElf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenElf)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192/84 "2012-07-01T05:10:35Z")
I was scared “8”, but thought it would likely be started accidentally. It’s probably more likely now, so it hasn’t changed much. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192/85 "2012-07-01T23:28:27Z")
> [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > colonial, you are of course free to apply whatever kind of terminology you like to any argument you wish–you can define a mouse to be an elephant if it pleases you–but Assured Destruction has a specific technical meaning in the venue of deterrence strategy and a set of prerequisite conditions that are generally agreed upon by professional strategists. I have not failed to notice your insistence on using the term “Assured Destruction” rather than the term “Mutual Assured Destruction” (MAD) which I have been using. I think it is time to see if any internet citations contradict anything I have been saying about the term: [MAD per Wiki](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction) (from link): > [@](#): > > Mutually assured destruction (MAD), is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of high-yield weapons of mass destruction by two opposing sides would effectively result in the complete, utter and irrevocable annihilation of both the attacker and the defender, becoming thus a war that has no victory nor any armistice but only effective reciprocal destruction. It is based on the theory of deterrence according to which the deployment, and implicit menace of use, of strong weapons is essential to threaten the enemy in order to prevent the use by said-enemy of the same weapons against oneself. The strategy is effectively a form of Nash equilibrium in which neither side, once armed, has any rational incentive either to initiate a conflict or to disarm (presuming neither side considers self-destruction an acceptable outcome)… Seems I am alright as far as the definition goes. The Wiki article goes on to say that MAD was a component of US strategy even during the Carter administration, when it was the fallback position. It would have been undermined by SDI, but SDI was never implemented, so MAD must have remained in effect, and it must remain in effect today. If Wiki is too hoi polloi for someone of your erudition, then maybe this scholarly tome will be more to your liking: [MAD per Nonproliferation Policy Education Center](http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub585.pdf) (from link): > [@](#): > > Nearly 40 years after the concept of finite deterrence was popularized by the Johnson administration, nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) thinking appears to be in decline… Finally in decline (and not extinguished) in 2004, eh? That was the cite’s introductory preface sentence, published 2004, and here is the first sentence of the second paragraph: > [@](#): > > Still, MAD is influential in a number of ways. First, other countries, like > China, have not abandoned the idea that holding their adversaries’ cities at > risk is necessary to assure their own strategic security. Nor have U.S. and > allied security officials and experts fully abandoned the idea. And here, from page 3 of the introduction: > [@](#): > > Because the doctrine of MAD played a large role in the Cold War (much more on the American than on the Soviet side), it is useful to repeat a succinct definition of it: 1. Don’t attack weapons, aim at people; and, 2. Don’t defend against the adversary’s weapons. Can you agree, Stranger, that this cite considers MAD to have been have been a dominant strategic factor in the past, and that its influence was still in effect in 2004? Now, I can just imagine your gears cranking up preparing to spew accusation to the effect that I am cherry picking from a source I have not read cover to cover. Well, my answer to that is that I got all the information I needed by the middle of page 3 of the introduction, so why rub it in any more? And here is a third and final representative cite explaining what it is to be MAD: [MAD per Schultz, Perry, Kissinger and Nunn](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703300904576178760530169414.html) (from link, emphasis added): > [@](#): > > The advent of the nuclear weapon introduced entirely new factors. It was possible, for the first time, to inflict at the beginning of a war the maximum casualties. The **doctrine of mutual assured destruction represented this reality** … > > U.S. **defense leaders made serious efforts to give the president more flexible options for nuclear use short of global annihilation. They never solved the problem** , and it was always recognized that Washington and Moscow both held the keys to unpredictable and potentially catastrophic escalations… > > From 1945 to 1991, America and the Soviet Union were diligent, professional, but also lucky that nuclear weapons were never used. So, yes, we were lucky, but as I have been saying all along, if we had not been diligent and professional then no amount of luck could have saved us, and diligence and professionalism were the servants of MAD, at least according to two Secretaries of State and two Secretaries of Defense. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > Not only is the strategy you insist upon–which is ambiguously defined as the historical US position–inconsistent with the defined provisions of Assured Destruction, but it is also inconsistent with both the United States and former Soviet Union positions on deterrence strategy as neither have avowed the use of “MAD” as their respective strategic doctrines, Addressed above. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > or that the degree of excess capacity was intended to serve any other function than to ensure counterstrike capability of strategic assets, not complete destruction of national civilian infrastructure. Addressed above. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > Even a cursory review of US doctrine through the decades shows that US deterrence strategy has almost invariably followed rather than guided the development, acquisition, and deployment of strategic nuclear systems which are typically made based upon political and fiscal concerns. Such doctrine is then backfilled into “confirming” that the size, deployment plan, and quantity meets some theoretical deterrent capability. I do not understand this jargon-laden section; I doubt it is important enough to need to be understood. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > “Launch on warning”, however, was a definite provision of the strategic plans of both nations, and is widely regarded, even by advocates of nuclear armament, as problematic, which drove the development of early warning systems which cost as much or more than the launch systems and weapons they supported. Even if this was true in theory it was honored only in the breach, as Petrov and all other examples prove: When Petrov, SAC and others were warned, Petrov, SAC and others did not launch. So “launch on warning” was not followed in practice, regardless of whether it was an official strategic policy mandate. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > It should be noted that many of the former architects and hawks of strategic nuclear systems and their specific implementations, such as the Hans Bethe, the late Robert McNamara, Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, William Perry, and others have since admitted that the deterrence value of the systems is overstated, Referring to deterrence value at all signifies the existence of MAD strategy. And overstated or not, there was no reasonable alternative until the Gorbachev era, when the USSR agreed to flyovers and inspection of its facilities. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > the potential for accidental or unauthorized launch is significant, and that we were as much or more lucky than good that a nuclear exchange did not occur. Cite please, _in their own words_, as I have provided, if anyone has suggested a hierarchy where luck was _most_ decisive. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > McNamara in particular–who championed the original Minuteman ICBM and Polaris SLBM systems as cost-effective strategic deterrent–openly admitted that the proliferation of nuclear weapons during the Cold War did not increase security and resulted in numerous “near miss” incidents. The specifics can be found in Wilson’s Ghost: Reducing The Risk Of Conflict, Killing, And Catastrophe In The 21st Century, and in more abbreviated form in the Errol Morris documentary, The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara. McNamara in particular, and by his own admission, never seems to have made a right move. That makes him the least credible of all authorities. Although the wisdom of commitment to a policy of vast overkill is not part of this debate, I will say that since the USSR was opposed to inspection it was therefore essential to possess assured ability to inflict catastrophic damage on it. Thus even if McNamara changed his mind about the Minuteman and the Polaris, he is only being wrong again, in conformance with the rest of his career as a public figure. Of course there could be no security compared to bygone eras, but ICBM SLBM and manned bombers provided the best security then available, which lay in MAD, to which McNamara signed wholeheartedly on with, in conformance with American policy in effect to this day. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > The argument of “MAD worked, therefore it was effective” is a form of the causal fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc. My argument is inductive, not deductive: Observation: There were no nuclear wars during the Cold War, despite more than one false alarm. Observation: MAD was strategic doctrine for both sides, and MAD was also definitely in effect in the minds of all those whose personal responsibility it was to push the button. Conclusion: Therefore it is reasonable to hypothesize that MAD was a decisive factor in preventing the button from ever being pushed. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > Even if we could line up previously occurring conflicts on some kind of statistical distribution, we cannot make a definitive claim regarding what could not have happened based upon what did happen, especially at the extrema. We can review particular incidents and look at what caused them to not spiral out of control, and what different conditions might not have provided an arresting condition. From that review, it is clear that the potential for catastrophic error certainly exists. Another Straw Man. I never said or implied there was no potential for catastrophic error. There obviously is such a potential, and no need to apply sophisticated mathematics to recognize it. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > The Soviet “Dead Hand” system discussed previously (known in defensive circles as “Perimeter”) does in fact exist. There is extensive documentation about the system in addition to the book listed previously, and in strategic deterrence vernacular this is known as a “fail-deadly” system. It is “semi-automatic” in the sense that it is only activated when it is felt that the potential for a disarming first strike may be possible, but once activated the system does in fact have the capability of issuing launch orders free of human intervention. The Soviet Union did not have extensive satellite surveillance systems in the late 'Seventies and their over-the-horizon (OTH) early warning systems were neither as extensive nor as high fidelity as comparable US systems of the era, and many of their ICBM systems required a warm-up time of several minutes, hence the need for rapid decision making. Today, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and budget problems of the successor Russian state, modern systems are poorly maintained, and their satellite constellation of surveillance systems is incomplete. In some ways, despite START reductions, we are in a worse situation in regard to potential error than we were even in the early 'Eoighties, a fact not widely publicized by either party. Wiki indicates there is considerable confusion and contradictory opinion and statement on this matter. Apparently it is not kept on routinely, all the time, but is only made available during crisis. The key to whether it is semi-automatic is whether a Dead Hand launch order can be countermanded. Hopefully no one could ever be crazy enough to deploy a system segregated from the ultimate, real-time responsibility and control of human beings. ---
**Author:** ![Tapiotar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3be4f8/32.png) [@Tapiotar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapiotar)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192/86 "2012-07-01T23:41:35Z")
Born in the 1950’s. I remember air-raid drills when I was in elementary school. In some, we crawled under desks, others where we sat on the floor in the hallways. They were fun breaks from routine, and never caused me anxiety. The concept of nuclear war never had any reality for me. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2012, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192/87 "2012-07-01T23:47:22Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > …All of this is just to say that I disagree with your statement, “I will say here that It is ludicrous to imagine any _ **former** _ Cold War power launching a no-warning nuclear WMD attack on any other.”… I emphasize the word “former”. I was referring to the _ **post** _-Cold War situation, and I think the absurdity of the idea of an attack must have weighed on Yesltsin’s mind when he decided not to launch on warning. Also, the entire Missile Crisis was by definition a warning in and of itself: warning was in effect from both sides. All you had to do was read the newspapers to know it. I read Rhodes’ books over 15 years ago. I could not pass a test on them now. IR he is good, and trustworthy on the technical history. However, on policy he had on obvious agenda to discredit Western leaders as much as possible. ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2012, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192/88 "2012-07-02T16:07:25Z")
I was born in 1963 and watched the news and kept up with current events during my teenage years probably as much as anyone that age during that time. I gave it your poll a “1”. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192/89 "2012-07-04T00:20:21Z")
**colonial** : Assured Destruction is a well defined startegy with precepts that allow it to be simulated in an analytical environment divorced from the personalities. That strategy can be shown to be, at best, marginally stable provided that the “game” meets the prerequisites. Although Assured Destruction cannot be implemented in a rigorous fashion in a real world environment (as prerequisites such as complete information" and perfect detection can never be perfectly assured) it serves as a useful baseline for assessing the value and reliability of deterrence theory. In reality, no attempt at utilizing deterrence theory in the real world, either in the Cold War era or later, has really come close to meeting the requirements of Assured Destruction, and have fallen short in one or more ways that simulations based upon Assured Deterrence indicate are unstable. What you term “Mutually Assured Destruction” is a collection of very different strategies for which the collective commonality is that they involve large arsenals of nuclear weapons and all are largely dependant upon the personalities involved to make not only informed but rational decisions under great pressure and time constraints. American strategy from the early storable ICBM era (deployment of the LGM-25C ‘Titan II’ in 1963) through the LGM-30A/B/F/G ‘Minuteman’ family of launchers, the MX/LGM-118A ‘Peacekeeper’, and the abortive mobile MGM-134 ‘Midgeman’ Small ICBM has been highly fluid in terms of quantity, deployment, assurance from counterforce attack (e.g. a disarming first strike), et cetera. This was most obvious in the Scowcroft Commission during President Reagan’s first term, which came up with new and increasingly impractical basing concepts on a nearly weekly basis to provide protection for the in-development Peacekeeper and the proposed “Mobile Minuteman” (what would become Midgetman), each with a unique justification in terms of deterrence value and required quantity. Similar post hoc shifts in justification have accompanied accuracy improvements in the Fleet Ballistic Missile program from the A-1/-2/-3 ‘Polaris’ through the C-3 ‘Posieden’ and the C-4 ‘Trident’ and D-5 ‘Trident II’. Although some tenets of Assured Destruction were a part of the various decisions on the development of ballistic missile and nuclear weapon technology (e.g. the emphasis on solid propellant boosters for rapid response, the focus on nuclear powered submarine ballistic missile carriers capable of making “deterrence patrols” of several months duration) the decisions on how and where to deploy these systems were almost exclusively political and financial in nature. The Soviet Union, in their internal planning, never relied upon “MAD” at all, and assumed that their distribution of population, hidden stockpiles of weapons and weapon-production facilities, and failure to advertise ostensibly deterrence-related systems such as the Perimeter system argue that they either didn’t understand the fundamentals of deterrence theory (unlikely, as post-Cold War insight indicates that Soviet knowledge of game theory and strategic modeling was at least as sophisticated as that of the West) or else did not subscribe to the merit of deterrence theory in assuring that NATO would not act unilaterally. Indeed, a misunderstanding of the motivations and bombast of Reagan (who was no advocate of nuclear proliferation and would most certainly have never initiated an unprovoked nuclear strike) led Soviet leaders and some military strategists to believe that a US-led NATO was looking for the opportunity to make a disarming strike, a scenario shockingly similar in retrospect to that which led to the the Cuban Missile Crisis. We cannot either infer or deduce that “MAD” under either an explicit definition of strategic theory or the more open-ended and all-encompassing endorsement of the ad hoc strategic dsystems of the United States and Soviet Union during the Cold War. We can look at the known incidents that did occur and note that many were averted not because of systematic checks and balances but because individuals involved had specific knowledge or insight that allowed them to make a decision that an indicated threat was not valid. That reliance upon individual competence is a fragile hook to hang the safety and security of nations upon. As noted, many authorties who were directly involved in such incidents and were responsible for establishing or promoting such systems have since made the argument that luck played a significant factor in avderting war. You are, of course, free to hold a differing opinion and critique others for admitting to error or changing their positions, but history does not support the notion that leaders always act in the rational self-interest of their nations. I’m sorry if the language I used confused you in any way, but I have attempted to avoid the use of any discipline specific jargon pertaining to either strategic deterrence or nuclear weapons, and where unavoidable I have tried to make the definition and context as explicit as possible. If there is any particular term that you do not understand I can expand on it for clarification. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2012, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192/90 "2012-07-04T18:09:36Z")
I was plenty scared at first, but then I didn’t die when I was eight in October of 1962 so I just got sorta numb over it all. I would still rate the places I lived as primary and secondary targets and try to plan a way out of town, but I knew it was hopeless because I usually lived in the blast radius of a secondary target. The Cold War is what made me the cheerful person I am today. ---
**Author:** ![UncaStuart](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uncastuart/32/404_2.png) [@UncaStuart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncaStuart)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192/91 "2012-07-05T01:47:00Z")
Born in '47. Like others, I would not say “scared” was the word, but more “fatalistic.” With no ability to control events, I lived my life as if nothing would happen, with the knowledge that if something did, well, hard luck. Did duck and cover in the '50s. Was jealous when my girlfriend’s class was selected to be models for posters showing how to crouch against walls, duck under desks, lie flat in open areas. My dad started to dig a bomb shelter, thought about it a little harder, and turned the hole into an extended septic tank. Back when military jets could go supersonic over populated areas, I was in a high school class when a sonic boom bowed the classroom windows in. A classmate sitting next to me went white, and my 15-year-old self comforted her by saying, “Don’t worry, if it had been The Bomb, we would have had The Flash first.” It is nice to have mostly shrugged off that fatalism. ---
**Author:** ![Fuji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a9a28c/32.png) [@Fuji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuji)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2012, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192/92 "2012-07-05T12:40:01Z")
Born in '70, I voted “7”. I lived about 3 miles from a USAF satellite tracking station, so I figured that if there was an actual nuclear exchange, my town (only about 8,000 pop.) would be hit by a small-yield warhead in any first wave of launches. Close enough to have fires and broken windows and possible blindness to worry about, but not near enough to get vaporized. Of course, that would only be the _immediate_ concerns… As I recall, I didn’t think it was inevitable, but I did think it was not unlikely, and it was something that was always in the back of my mind, and occasionally would flare up into my consciousness (during the KAL 007 crisis, the “bombing begins in five minutes” Reagan joke, death of Brezhnez/Andropov/Chernenko, etc.). After we all saw _Red Dawn_, some friends and I played RPG games set in our own towns after the nukes and “inevitable” Warsaw Pact invasion. We never had drills or anything like that, but I’ll never forget one rainy afternoon in early July '84, when my town tested out their Civil Defense warning siren. At that moment, and for a few minutes afterwards (when I realized no one else gave it much concern), I was fascinated and terrified. ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2012, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192/93 "2012-07-06T01:10:06Z")
> [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > Assured Destruction is a well defined startegy with precepts that allow it to be simulated in an analytical environment divorced from the personalities. That strategy can be shown to be, at best, marginally stable provided that the “game” meets the prerequisites. Although Assured Destruction cannot be implemented in a rigorous fashion in a real world environment (as prerequisites such as complete information" and perfect detection can never be perfectly assured) it serves as a useful baseline for assessing the value and reliability of deterrence theory. In reality, no attempt at utilizing deterrence theory in the real world, either in the Cold War era or later, has really come close to meeting the requirements of Assured Destruction, and have fallen short in one or more ways that simulations based upon Assured Deterrence indicate are unstable. Of course the real world is going to fall short of meeting the requirements of a “simulation” “divorced from the personalities”. That is why simulations are of limited and questionable value to policymakers who must provide for national security and manage international relations within the fog of historical events in progress. It is a _historical fact_, documented in my last post, that Western policymakers felt deterrence was the best strategy available for promoting stability and averting calamity. And it is a _historical fact_, documented in my last post, that Western policymakers gave the name “Mutual Assured Destruction” to this strategy. You infer from your “analytical environment” that MAD is so deficient only luck has saved us. I infer from the _historical fact_ of a real-world 63-year nuclear peace that our luck could not have held out for so long despite numerous false alarms, and that there is likely to have been much more than luck at work. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > What you term “Mutually Assured Destruction” is a collection of very different strategies for which the collective commonality is that they involve large arsenals of nuclear weapons and all are largely dependant upon the personalities involved to make not only informed but rational decisions under great pressure and time constraints. No, what me and many others term MAD is not a collection of strategies. It is a singular, simple strategy: Possession of means to destroy an attacker who has the means to destroy us is likely to deter attack. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > American strategy from the early storable ICBM era (deployment of the LGM-25C ‘Titan II’ in 1963) through the LGM-30A/B/F/G ‘Minuteman’ family of launchers, the MX/LGM-118A ‘Peacekeeper’, and the abortive mobile MGM-134 ‘Midgeman’ Small ICBM has been highly fluid in terms of quantity, deployment, assurance from counterforce attack (e.g. a disarming first strike), et cetera. This was most obvious in the Scowcroft Commission during President Reagan’s first term, which came up with new and increasingly impractical basing concepts on a nearly weekly basis to provide protection for the in-development Peacekeeper and the proposed “Mobile Minuteman” (what would become Midgetman), each with a unique justification in terms of deterrence value and required quantity. Similar post hoc shifts in justification have accompanied accuracy improvements in the Fleet Ballistic Missile program from the A-1/-2/-3 ‘Polaris’ through the C-3 ‘Posieden’ and the C-4 ‘Trident’ and D-5 ‘Trident II’. I do not see how any of this addresses or rebuts any argument I have made. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > Although some tenets of Assured Destruction were a part of the various decisions on the development of ballistic missile and nuclear weapon technology (e.g. the emphasis on solid propellant boosters for rapid response, the focus on nuclear powered submarine ballistic missile carriers capable of making “deterrence patrols” of several months duration) the decisions on how and where to deploy these systems were almost exclusively political and financial in nature. Our nuclear submarines were assigned patrol routes bases on politics? I don’t see how, aside from having to keep them out of some ports such as Sasebo, Japan. If you are suggesting the US leadership would have compromised what it perceived as our security needs then I call bullshit, and no documentation is ever going to make that kind of bullshit smell like roses. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > The Soviet Union, in their internal planning, never relied upon “MAD” at all, and assumed that their distribution of population, hidden stockpiles of weapons and weapon-production facilities, and failure to advertise ostensibly deterrence-related systems such as the Perimeter system argue that they either didn’t understand the fundamentals of deterrence theory (unlikely, as post-Cold War insight indicates that Soviet knowledge of game theory and strategic modeling was at least as sophisticated as that of the West) The passage above is incoherently written. Nothing in it establishes beyond mere assertion that the USSR did not rely on MAD, and If it did not rely on MAD what _did_ it rely on? It occurs to me to go so far as to say I do not see how a rational Cold War Soviet leadership could _avoid_ relying on MAD. So they are unneverved by Mr. Reagan’s “bombast”? Well then don’t those those hidden stockpiles have sort a MAD aroma about them? Your wargaming fantasy land obviously does not like (M)AD. What alternative does it prefer, or does it tell us to just put our heads between our knees, etc.? > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > or else did not subscribe to the merit of deterrence theory in assuring that NATO would not act unilaterally. The “assurance” of MAD refers to an attainable assurance that the other side will suffer catastrophic damage in any nuclear exchange, regardless of who starts it. It does not refer an obviously unattainable assurance that the other side will not act unilaterally. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > Indeed, a misunderstanding of the motivations and bombast of Reagan (who was no advocate of nuclear proliferation and would most certainly have never initiated an unprovoked nuclear strike) led Soviet leaders and some military strategists to believe that a US-led NATO was looking for the opportunity to make a disarming strike, a scenario shockingly similar in retrospect to that which led to the the Cuban Missile Crisis. This implies the USSR was vulnerable to a disarming strike. I do not believe it was vulnerable to such, or could be made vulnerable absent SDI. No amount of bombast was going to deliver any SDI before Reagan left office, and the Politburo and their brass knew it. I do not see the similarity of a 1980s US surprise attack with the CMC. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > We cannot either infer or deduce that “MAD” under either an explicit definition of strategic theory or the more open-ended and all-encompassing endorsement of the ad hoc strategic dsystems of the United States and Soviet Union during the Cold War. Addressed. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > We can look at the known incidents that did occur and note that many were averted not because of systematic checks and balances but because individuals involved had specific knowledge or insight that allowed them to make a decision that an indicated threat was not valid. Specific individual knowledge and insight of are part of all check and balance systems. There are 1000s of people whose diligence, professionalism, knowledge and insight were relied on, and are still relied on in the 63 years total since the nuclear WMD era went bipolar. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > That reliance upon individual competence is a fragile hook to hang the safety and security of nations upon. Individual competence has been a preeminent factor in all forms of human endeavor throughout human history. Our lives will always depend as much on it as upon anything. You would prefer a robot? > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > As noted, many authorties who were directly involved in such incidents and were responsible for establishing or promoting such systems have since made the argument that luck played a significant factor in avderting war. I do not contest the existence of luck. I do contest its dominance. And speaking of authority let me suggest you take another look at the this link: [MAD per Schultz, Perry, Kissinger and Nunn](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703300904576178760530169414.html) I prefer the authority cited there to any you have offered. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > You are, of course, free to hold a differing opinion and critique others for admitting to error or changing their positions, I am not critiquing everyone, only the inadequate authorities you are basing your arguments on. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > but history does not support the notion that leaders always act in the rational self-interest of their nations. History supports the notion that the Cold War leaders on both sides tried to act in the rational self-interest of their countries, and considered themselves to be doing so. Of course they may at times have had unsound perceptions of what their self-interest really consisted of. And of course they made mistakes. That does not include MAD, which was unavoidable until the reforms of Glasnost. > [@Stranger On A Train](#): > > I’m sorry if the language I used confused you in any way, but I have attempted to avoid the use of any discipline specific jargon pertaining to either strategic deterrence or nuclear weapons, and where unavoidable I have tried to make the definition and context as explicit as possible. If there is any particular term that you do not understand I can expand on it for clarification. Never mind. I think you made the same point in that section where I said bullshit was never going to smell like roses. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2012, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192/94 "2012-07-06T01:15:37Z")
I’m probably neither the first nor the last to make this gallows-humor observation, but for me it was to the point where I had given up wishing that we weren’t all going to die; instead I was wishing that if we’re going to die, couldn’t it be before the Algebra test? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2012, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192/95 "2012-07-06T02:32:33Z")
Born 1972. I was fairly terrified from about 3rd grade through about 5th grade (1981-1983), but sometime around there, things like girls, sports and boy scouts took center stage. By the time high school rolled around, I’d read enough to realize that the Soviets were in all likelihood, more scared of us than we were of them, due to their WWII experience. I quit worrying at that point and actually started thinking seriously about a military career, since the Cold War seemed like it would drag on indefinitely, but it up and ended right about the middle of my Junior year. I ended up scrapping that idea, on the theory that the military would be reduced to 1920’s levels post Cold War. Had I realized how things would play out, I’d have gone for it full-tilt. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2012, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192/96 "2012-07-06T21:40:21Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > The “assurance” of MAD refers to an attainable assurance that the other side will suffer catastrophic damage in any nuclear exchange, regardless of who starts it. It does not refer an obviously unattainable assurance that the other side will not act unilaterally. In this statement, you seem to misunderstand the entire point of deterrence theory (as opposed to theories of combat tactics and strategy); Assured Deterrence (or MAD, or whatever moniker you prefer to apply) is intended to present to an opponent the scenario that no matter how unexpected, massive, or devastating an attack, the subsequent and unstoppable reprisal will result in the complete annihilation of the attack, and thus, prevent such an attack being rationally conceivable. If missiles start flying for whatever reason, the theory has failed as a deterrent by definion. As both the United States and the Soviet Union employed contingency measures to provide a degree of survivability from a nuclear exchange, and conceived and practiced scenarios of limited exchange, it is clear that neither power uniformly embraced Assured Destruction (or MAD). And until the deployment of the R-36M heavy ICBM with large MIRV capabiltiy (8-10 RVs) in the mid-'Seventies the Soviet Union did not enjoy parity with the United States in terms of delivery systems and responsiveness, a fact well known to US military strategists and administrations prior to that point despite the campaign harping by Kennedy about the mythological “missile gap”. (It was, in fact, that spurred development of the MX/Peacekeeper and Mobile Minuteman/SICBM programs.) Up to that point, US strategists believed a nuclear exchange would be destructive but winnable by the NATO forces, and frankly, they were probably correct (although Europe would have been devestated). It was only at this point that sufficient parity of forces and total destructive capability existed such as destruction of both sides could be “assured”, and at least some Soviet studies (rightly or otherwise) projected survivability of the Soviet Union from even the most blistering US attack. So, while American deterrence theory at that time may be credited with having some elements of Assured Deterrence (but still planning for a post-exchange response or a limited exchange), Soviet strategic theory did not. After the Soviet buildup of ICBMs and readily launchable SLBMs in the mid-'Seventies, the converse was true; American strategic thinking shifted from deterrence to limiting the damage in an exchange and providing for greater capability to respond in a protracted exchange, while Soviet planning focused on systemic disruption to elimination US and NATO response. It may seem to you that “I do not see how a rational Cold War Soviet leadership could _avoid_ relying on MAD,” but this speaks more to your own philosophical prejudices than Soviet doctrine, of which both what was known at that time and later available after the fall of the Soviet Union indicates that their primary objectives were not deterrence but survivability and disruption of the NATO response. As you seem wedded to your opinion and find my statements to be “incoherent” and “bullshit” there seems to be little point in continuing this discussion. But a study of strategic doctrine during the Cold War indicates that the buildup of large arsenals had less to do with pure deterrence that a simplistic application of a “MAD”-type concept would suggest, and certainly the deployment of the nuclear triad in the US arsenal was less aobut having independent and assured response than vying within the military establishment for authority and budget. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2012, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192/97 "2012-07-06T23:47:51Z")
Born in 1950 and raised in Canada. I delivered newspapers with headlines screaming on the Cuban missile crisis. Kennedy and Khrushchev were playing chicken and the Russian’s off the wall shoe banging did not give me confidence that he would back down. I KNEW Kennedy would stand fast. And this was in an era of air raid siren drills and duck and cover. You bet I was scared. But after it was over I felt we were unlikely to repeat with another hostle nuclear crisis. This was just too much. I still believe we all dodged the big bullet there. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192/98 "2012-07-07T00:00:05Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > In this statement, you seem to misunderstand the entire point of deterrence theory (as opposed to theories of combat tactics and strategy); Assured Deterrence (or MAD, or whatever moniker you prefer to apply) is intended to present to an opponent the scenario that no matter how unexpected, massive, or devastating an attack, the subsequent and unstoppable reprisal will result in the complete annihilation of the attack… Maybe I’m misunderstanding your point here. There was no expectation that a reprisal for a first nuclear strike would destroy that first strike. MAD was to assure that there could be no victor in a first strike scenario, that there would a reprisal of sufficient strength to cause unacceptable damage to the first side to launch, even if that launch succeeded in destroying most of its targets. The idea was to take a first strike off the table of rational options, because there would be no advantage to it. There were other scenarios where the US theoretically threatened a first nuclear strike of its own, intended to deter a massive Soviet conventional attack on Western Europe. From the West’s point of view, that was only tangentially related to MAD, as a response if the Soviets then launched a nuclear counter-strike. Of course, the Soviets would think of this scenario in MAD terms (or whatever they called it), because to them, their reprisal strike would be deterring the US’s first strike. The US and NATO were always very closed-mouth about their nuclear option in the case of a conventional Soviet assault. They especially didn’t want it known (and maybe didn’t really know themselves) at what point they would give up on the idea of a conventional defense. And when and if they did, they still had at least two nuclear options, tactical battlefield nukes to use against Soviet military formations, or going Full Monty against the Soviet homeland. ---
**Author:** ![Sleel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/73ab20/32.png) [@Sleel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleel)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192/99 "2012-07-07T01:36:46Z")
Born 1974. It was always a nagging sort of worry when I was a kid. It didn’t seem inevitable, but the possibility was always there that in 20 minutes my world would end. I lived in Stockton from age 9 or 10. Rough and Ready Island is a major Naval communications hub. It was almost certainly a first-strike target, so I and everyone I knew would die right away. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2012, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192/100 "2012-07-07T01:40:19Z")
Forgot to mention: I voted a 3. I wasn’t particularly scared at all until Reagan got into office. His combination of bravado, military adventurism and stupidity scared the Soviets and me too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cold-war-dopers-how-scared-were-you/626192.md?page=6)