Aby The Liberal

Aby May 24th, 2007

These days there is a lot of hype about the nuclearisation of North Korea and Iran. People are left wondering why the race of acquiring nuclear weapons have become such a craze among the Asian countries who are militarily unfriendly US (and its few remaining allies). After the serial nuclear tests of 1998 by India and and the failure of economic sanctions against it, the US government changed the their stance with the country to that of friendly nation. There is a lot of hype going on about joint military exercises and nuclear agreements with the largest democracy.

China and USSR were both diehard anti-US countries, on the brink of wars but there was no actual full scale war which took place. Why were these communist enemies not attacked by US like Iraq or Korea? Is it that US was generous and concerned about the loss of human life after World War 2? History tells us that would not be the case as Vietnam and Cambodia suffered casualties of more than 5 million due to US aggression. In short US does not care if massive human loss occurs if its own interests are served. Then what changed US stance against China and Russia? What caused the sudden change in US relationship with India? Why didn’t these countries become another Iraq or Korea? It was the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction which prevented such a massive destruction of human life from happening. MAD, a perfect acronym if there ever was one.

MAD - Historical and Political Background
In the 1950s, the Cold War was at a tension filled high. Both the Soviet and US has nuclear capabilities with power to wipe out the other country in case of a full scale war. With the development of nuclear capable Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs), it became possible to launch attacks on enemy targets even after their ground based missile launch systems (viz SILOs) were destroyed. The SLBMs removed the security which could be achieved by destroying the enemy’s weapons facilities, as practically nuclear capable long range ballistic missiles could be launched from anywhere.

During the Taiwan and Hong Kong crisis both US and UK issued nuclear threats and blackmail against China. The disinterest of Soviet Union to respond to any of these blackmails caused Mao Zedong to nuclearise China so that a balance of power against Anglo-US opponents could be achieved. During the Korean War, General Douglas McArthur of US backed up the use of nuclear weapons against North Korea which was subsequently struck down as China or Russia would have felt threatened and a full scale nuclear war would have resulted.

In both the above cases - US, China and USSR knew that an attack on the other would be a suicide and thus refrained from doing so. This came to be known a Mutually Assured Destruction where an attack on a nuclear power would result in a retaliatory attack causing destruction of both the attacker and the defender. While Chinese nuclear policy was based on No First Use policy, neither the USA or USSR had any standing promise of not attacking each other. Despite the absence of such an agreement, it was the concept of MAD coupled with no first use policy which kept these nuclear powers at an edge. This prevented another nuclear holocaust as any war by US on China or Soviet Union would be result in a massive destruction of USA itself which makes the idea of victory irrelevant.

Effects of MAD theory at maintaining world peace
In effect Mutually Assured Destruction system of deterrance is effective to propagate peace by preventing the culmination of a war - conventional or nuclear due to the fear of other’s capabilities. If nuclear power gets into the hands of a unipolar few like NATO, it could cause a despotic and imbalanced world system where the world would have to bow down to Anglo-US demands and their petty interests rather than a global harmony. Nuclear weapons have become the weapons of peace in today’s world which could be understood thus, if Vietnam had nuclear bombs with capability to strike US targets at least 4 million civilian lives would have been saved. In today’s world, strengthening of nuclear powers like China, India, France and Russia is needed to prevent a unipolar nuclear primacy of US. A civilised country which has a weak nuclear weapons infrastructure cannot stand to retaliate against a despotic and strong nuclear power.

More Information for Reference -
Robert McNamara’s Speech On MAD as State Policy

Possibly Related posts:

1. Is America The Angel of Death and Destruction?
2. Effectiveness of Diplomacy In Real World Politics
3. The Moral Question of the Nuclear Bomb
4. China vs United States: Nuclear Arms Race
5. China’s MAD Nuclear Deterrance Against USA

• Internationalism , World Politics
• Comments(4)