So, the situation in Ukraine has caused fears of nuclear war, because Putin is losing the war and making veiled threats of using nuclear weapons. Some people argue Putin won’t dare use nuclear weapons. They point to Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD, a central tenet of US and Soviet nuclear policy for many decades. MAD is easy to understand. You blow us up, we blow you up. That goes for both sides. According to proponents of MAD, it’s kept us from getting in a nuclear war for many years.
I’m not so sure MAD works, perfectly at least, which is what we need. But more importantly I wonder, is MAD even doctrine any more?
First, let’s look at how effective MAD is. It’s like two gunfighters staring each other down. Look! They’re not firing! But peace like that doesn’t always hold. No matter how much peace is in the interest of the gunfighters, one might decide to fire. People make suicidal decisions, they make bad decisions, and that goes not only for gunfighters, but also for leaders of nations. The survival of humankind is a long game. In recent years, the leaders of China, North Korea, India, Pakistan, Israel, England, the US, Russia and France have had their finger on the button. None of those people can make a bad decision? Other leaders, indefinitely into the future, will always make good decisions, as the globe heats up, food supplies and water disappear, and conflict increases?
And in all likelihood, MAD doesn’t guide nuclear policy for the superpowers anymore, or at least, MAD doesn’t guide nuclear policy exclusively. Side by side with MAD exist doctrines about how to fight a nuclear war, or how to use nuclear weapons in a limited way to gain some advantage. So-called tactical nuclear weapons prove that.
Because, why have tactical nuclear weapons at all if you don’t plan to fight a war? If you believe that nuclear war can’t be won, you want both sides to have the biggest, baddest nuclear weapons they can get. But both the United States and Russia have slimmed down their arsenals. Both countries have fewer nuclear weapons than they did 30 years ago, and smaller ones. That might sound good, but it undercuts MAD, because it makes first use more palatable. Both sides still have enough nuclear weapons to blow up the world several times over. Tactical nuclear weapons make an unwinnable nuclear war more likely.
I don’t see how tactical nuclear weapons make it off the drawing board unless war planners are thinking of fighting a nuclear war. They don’t believe in MAD, not completely. Some part of national leadership in both the US and Russia agrees with the war planners, because tactical nuclear weapons are now part of the US and Soviet arsenals.
Neither the US or Russia wants nuclear war. But neither country completely believes in MAD. Tactical nuclear weapons betray the thoughts of the war planners. They think nuclear weapons can be used.