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We avoided having them see the light of day because MAD is the single most effective peacekeeping tool ever developed. The fact that both sides had doomsday dev
by OkayPhysicist 3y ago
We avoided having them see the light of day because MAD is the single most effective peacekeeping tool ever developed. The fact that both sides had doomsday devices all but guaranteed that they would never be used. People can be evil, but they're selfishly evil.
- jacquesm 3y agoThat works as long as you don't end up with death cults in the possession of those weapons. Long term it is almost guaranteed that you'll lose some control over the weapons or that some country will effectively end up being ruled by such a cult. Then all bets are off because your previous balance (a prime requirement of MAD) is disturbed.
- TeMPOraL 3y agoMAD alone doesn't stop the race. The arsenal the US and USSR had in the 60s was already enough for MAD to work. Despite that, they spent the next 20-30 years developing even more powerful and ever more insane WMD ideas. Each step forward made the balance more fragile. Each step forward was also another roll of a dice, whether or not it'll be a leap too far, forcing the other side into preemptive first strike.