Mutual Assured Destruction
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In the earliest part of the cold war the United States enjoyed a clearly superior nuclear force to the Soviet Union but eventually nuclear parity was achieved and a new phase of the cold war had started. Realizing their vulnerability each side began producing nuclear weapons at a furious rate in an attempt to stay ahead of the other. The United States adopted a policy called Mutual Assured Destruction, a.k.a. MAD where protection for the population was achieved by ensuring the capability to utterly destroy the attacker if attacked. (Wilde)
This policy continued well in to the early 1980s until President Ronald Regan understanding the insanity of MAD proposed the implementation of a new policy called
Mutual Assured Security (MAS) in which the United States would develop and deploy a space based anti-ballistic system that could destroy intercontinental missiles before they could deploy their payloads. (Wilde)
The Soviet Union realized that if such a system were ever deployed by the United States the size of their arsenal would no longer assure their survival and objected. The United States began pouring billions of dollars into the systems development. The Soviet Union responded by trying to develop their own system but the façade of financial and technological strength the Soviet Union had developed over the years crumbled under the pressure of trying to keep up. (Wilde)
Work Cited
Wilde, Robert. "What is Mutually Assured Destruction?" ThoughtCo. December 16, 2016. Accessed May 05, 2017. https://www.thoughtco.com/mutually-assured-destruction-1221190
In the earliest part of the cold war the United States enjoyed a clearly superior nuclear force to the Soviet Union but eventually nuclear parity was achieved and a new phase of the cold war had started. Realizing their vulnerability each side began producing nuclear weapons at a furious rate in an attempt to stay ahead of the other. The United States adopted a policy called Mutual Assured Destruction, a.k.a. MAD where protection for the population was achieved by ensuring the capability to utterly destroy the attacker if attacked. (Wilde)
This policy continued well in to the early 1980s until President Ronald Regan understanding the insanity of MAD proposed the implementation of a new policy called
Mutual Assured Security (MAS) in which the United States would develop and deploy a space based anti-ballistic system that could destroy intercontinental missiles before they could deploy their payloads. (Wilde)
The Soviet Union realized that if such a system were ever deployed by the United States the size of their arsenal would no longer assure their survival and objected. The United States began pouring billions of dollars into the systems development. The Soviet Union responded by trying to develop their own system but the façade of financial and technological strength the Soviet Union had developed over the years crumbled under the pressure of trying to keep up. (Wilde)
Work Cited
Wilde, Robert. "What is Mutually Assured Destruction?" ThoughtCo. December 16, 2016. Accessed May 05, 2017. https://www.thoughtco.com/mutually-assured-destruction-1221190