“Time has passed, and we still haven’t blown up our world, despite a close call or two.”
Not at all a non sequitur. It is exactly what Nash would predict, isn’t it? The entire crazy logic of the Cold War game-theory—as satirized by Kubrick in Dr. Strangelove—was that arms reduction and war prevention weren’t even possible rationally until MAD. Once the weapons are invented, we need the balance of terror—only when MAD is basically proven can we reveal the exact numbers and agree to reduce.
Since MAD was achieved with the USSR, nuclear war then became suicide, basically impossible. Rational behavior was forced upon us. Even the “close calls” are needed; if the Soviets weren’t convinced that the USA was willing to use, they had no reason to respond by building up, since basically spending all your GDP on second strike capabilities doesn’t appear at first to be a good idea. But without clear second strike, we don’t have MAD.
As repulsive as it seems, we were lucky to have real grown-ups in charge at the time who were capable of doing this crazy logic—we have after all prevented what could have been true horror, a real nuclear war.
MAD worked for our Cold War and it will also work for other problem areas, like India and Pakistan. I might argue that rather than wring our hands about Iran, its possible capabilities, the Shahab-6 missile and what do about it, we may in fact be better off encouraging Israel to reach MAD with Tehran ASAP. . .
@Steve
“Time has passed, and we still haven’t blown up our world, despite a close call or two.”
Not at all a non sequitur. It is exactly what Nash would predict, isn’t it? The entire crazy logic of the Cold War game-theory—as satirized by Kubrick in Dr. Strangelove—was that arms reduction and war prevention weren’t even possible rationally until MAD. Once the weapons are invented, we need the balance of terror—only when MAD is basically proven can we reveal the exact numbers and agree to reduce.
Since MAD was achieved with the USSR, nuclear war then became suicide, basically impossible. Rational behavior was forced upon us. Even the “close calls” are needed; if the Soviets weren’t convinced that the USA was willing to use, they had no reason to respond by building up, since basically spending all your GDP on second strike capabilities doesn’t appear at first to be a good idea. But without clear second strike, we don’t have MAD.
As repulsive as it seems, we were lucky to have real grown-ups in charge at the time who were capable of doing this crazy logic—we have after all prevented what could have been true horror, a real nuclear war.
MAD worked for our Cold War and it will also work for other problem areas, like India and Pakistan. I might argue that rather than wring our hands about Iran, its possible capabilities, the Shahab-6 missile and what do about it, we may in fact be better off encouraging Israel to reach MAD with Tehran ASAP. . .