Lending superficial credence to this idea is the
fact the world has not yet been incinerated in a nuclear conflagration. This
fact has been cited as vindication of the U.S. government's decision to amass a
huge stockpile of nuclear weapons during the Cold War, and it is still used
today to justify retention of that arsenal.
Mutually assured destruction, or MAD, is a military
doctrine based on the strategy of deterrence. This doctrine states that a
full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would effectively
result in the complete destruction of both the attacker and the defender. The
theory here is that neither side, once armed, has any incentive either to
initiate a conflict or disarm.
