M.A.D a good doctrine…
July 16, 1945. On this day the first ever detonation of a nuclear weapon took place. The test, code named “Trinity”, was the result of the effort at Los Alamos which was led by J. Robert Oppenheimer.
Upon witnessing the explosion from the test, Oppenheimer thought of a verse from Bhagavad Gita which was…
If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the mighty one…
Bhagavad Gita: Chapter 11, Verse 12
Just under 22 days after the Trinity test, United States of America, under the leadership of Harry S. Truman decided to use the Weapon of Mass Destruction on Japan. On 6th August 1945, the “Little Boy”, a uranium based bomb was detonated above Hiroshima and on 9th August, the “Fat Man”, a plutonium based bomb was detonated on Nagasaki. This made the Japanese surrender the war on 15 August 1945.
The incident paints a cruel and barbaric picture in the minds of people about nuclear bombs, and rightfully so. Nuclear weapons, when used , cause wide spread casualties, fatalities and suffering. However, Nuclear weapons, when NOT used, provide the important support to deter conventional war.
Like it or not, war has been an integral part of human history. Different political interests, economic gain, nationalism, religion, territorial gain etc. have played a part in initiating war between two or more parties & heavy casualties have been inflicted on human race.
Though there are many reasons why wars are initiated but everyone can agree that participants in war take actions because they believe the actions will put them in a better position. In other words, at least one participant thinks that it can gain something by getting involved in war.
BUT, when participants cannot gain anything by getting involved in war, then is it rational to wage a war ? Some might say yes, as we might not gain anything but at least we can hurt our enemy and squeeze out some gain or the other indirectly. Therefore, to take it up a notch, we ask “IS it rational to wage a war if not only we do not gain anything but we lose more than we can spare ?”. Basically from this scenario, wars will not provide any winners but rather will provide only losers. Hence, the rational step in such a scene will be to prevent war at all costs and thus avoiding the tragedy which comes with it.
This is what the MAD doctrine stands for. “MAD”, the acronym for Mutual Assured Destruction is a policy which ensures that whenever parties who possess Weapon of Mass Destruction get involved in wars, no winners come out of it.
Whenever one party is on the verge of losing, it will deploy its nuclear weapons. Obviously in retaliation, the other party will also deploy its own, causing wide scale destruction on both side.
We see that this causes a deadlock situation and the rational step is to avoid war and take up other measures which are diplomatic in nature.
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
Albert Einstein
These powerful weapons do indeed prevent countries from waging war, especially between countries which are “nuclear capable” but once a nuclear missile is launched, there is absolutely no turning back.
Although it is not possible to know the exact number of warheads present in the world, but as of now, most reports show around 13800 warheads are present, out of which 9000 are in military stockpiles. These numbers are high enough to wipe human existence from the face of earth.
Under the MAD doctrine, another policy which acts as a preventive measure for nuclear warfare is the “No First Use” policy which states that “I will not use my nuclear weapons unless someone else uses theirs on me first”. Currently China and India are the 2 countries that have pledged NFU. Russia, UK, USA, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea and France have pledged to use nuclear weapons only in a defensive manner but they do not adhere by the NFU policy.
This does make sense because if all the nuclear power countries adopt the NFU policy then the basic purpose of nukes to deter wars would be eliminated as no country will be able to launch its weapons unless their adversary launches first. This again creates an unwanted deadlock situation.
It should be noted however, that the countries that adhere to NFU, do have a massive retaliation policy and are capable of delivering massive second strike as both India & China are countries which have nuclear triad, meaning they can launch nuclear warheads from land, air and from under the sea.
Therefore, it is of paramount importance that those in-charge of nukes know the consequence of deployment. Luckily for human race, Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain the only cities where nuclear bombs were used in combat.
I am writing this article in 2019, 74 years since the “Trinity” test. So far humans have done quite well in preventing nuclear winter. There have been some close calls where due to accidents or malfunctions, situations were created which could have led to unintended launching of nuclear weapons but luckily they were avoided. I firmly believe that steps were and are being taken so that these systems become foolproof as “luckily” avoiding nuclear war is not something to be proud off.
To summarize, we can say that the weapon that can make humans go extinct acts as a peacekeeper. The philosophy which provides this peace is the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction where there can be no winners of war. “You destroy me, I destroy you” policy deters war but it can work if and only if all the parties have second strike capabilities. Lastly and perhaps the most important condition when nukes are involved is that “rationality must prevail”. If these conditions are fulfilled, then indeed the world post nuclear weapons is a better world where countries have to think a 1000 times before declaring war.