"Mutual assured destruction (MAD)
is a doctrine of military strategy in which a full-scale
use of nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would effectively result
in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender.
It is based on the theory of deterrence according to which the deployment
of strong weapons is essential to threaten the enemy in order to prevent
the use of the very same weapons. ...both sides are attempting to avoid
their worst possible outcome —nuclear annihilation."
"MAD is a Poison Pill
strategy. The doctrine assumes that each side has enough nuclear weaponry
to destroy the other side and that either side, if attacked for any
reason by the other, would retaliate with equal or greater force. The
expected result is an immediate escalation resulting
in both combatants' total and assured destruction. It is now generally
hypothesized that the nuclear fallout or nuclear
winter resulting from a large scale nuclear war would bring
about worldwide devastation, though this was not a critical assumption
to the theory of MAD.
The doctrine further assumes that neither side
will dare to launch a first strike because the other side will
launch on warning (also called fail-deadly) or with secondary forces
(second strike) resulting in the destruction of both parties. The payoff
of this doctrine is expected to be a tense but stable peace.
The primary application of this doctrine started during
the Cold War (1940s to 1990s) in which MAD was seen
as helping to prevent any direct full-scale conflicts between the United
States and the Soviet Union while they engaged in smaller proxy
wars around the world. It was also responsible for the arms
race, as both nations struggled to keep nuclear parity, or
at least retain second-strike capability. Although the Cold War ended
in the early 1990s, the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction
certainly continues to be in force."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction
