Is MAD inevitable?

[mtg999]

I would say no, MAD is not inevitable. It is highly probable, but not inevitable.

To be more precise, we need to distinguish between MAD as a doctrine and MAD as a fact. MAD as a doctrine is certainly avoidable; it was never entirely accepted IOTL.

I admit I don't know much about Cold War nuclear strategy (particularly Soviet), but wasn't MAD as a doctrine in itself, always a primarily American policy and the Soviets but much more emphasis on the concept of a 'winnable' nuclear war (including much more extensive civil defence measures, etc).

My own observation is (and someone who knows more about this can explain) is that wouldn't given that given their long-held fears about the strength of Soviet conventional forces in Europe, be more the US that would have been expected to develop a doctrine of small-scale nuclear warfare?

 

[asnys]

I admit I don't know much about Cold War nuclear strategy (particularly Soviet), but wasn't MAD as a doctrine in itself, always a primarily American policy and the Soviets but much more emphasis on the concept of a 'winnable' nuclear war (including much more extensive civil defence measures, etc).

To be honest, I've never looked into Soviet nuclear doctrine in detail. My impression is that, like the US, their views changed over time; they were initially attracted to winnable-war concepts, but in the late '70s they started to accept MAD as a fact, even if an undesirable one. But, like I said, I've never looked into it very much.

My own observation is (and someone who knows more about this can explain) is that wouldn't given that given their long-held fears about the strength of Soviet conventional forces in Europe, be more the US that would have been expected to develop a doctrine of small-scale nuclear warfare?

Definitely. As far as I can recall, I've never seen any suggestions the Soviets seriously considered a "limited" nuclear war. I have a vague memory of reading they thought about strictly-conventional wars at some point, but never a limited war with nukes.

 

[Gunnarnz]

A defense doesn't have to be 100% effective to ruin the overall concept of MAD. The overall assumption with nuclear weapons is that any defense has to be 100% effective, it doesn't.

In other words, suffering a certain number of nuclear strikes is acceptable. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I think this is an idea that will encounter some 'consumer resistance' when you try to sell it.
There are people who would agree with that proposition - Herman Kahn comes to mind, and the Soviets at times acted as if they thought along the same lines. But it would be very difficult to convince a western population to accept the general premise, I think.

To me, this sounds like the age-old battle of warhead vs armour. And historically, warhead always wins: if someone wants to badly enough, they can always overload whatever defences are in place. The thing with nukes is that the consequences of letting even a small number through are still going to be very serious. How do you convince the US population that losing "only" their ten biggest cities would be a worthwhile outcome?

 

[asnys]

In other words, suffering a certain number of nuclear strikes is acceptable. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I think this is an idea that will encounter some 'consumer resistance' when you try to sell it.
There are people who would agree with that proposition - Herman Kahn comes to mind, and the Soviets at times acted as if they thought along the same lines. But it would be very difficult to convince a western population to accept the general premise, I think.

To me, this sounds like the age-old battle of warhead vs armour. And historically, warhead always wins: if someone wants to badly enough, they can always overload whatever defences are in place. The thing with nukes is that the consequences of letting even a small number through are still going to be very serious. How do you convince the US population that losing "only" their ten biggest cities would be a worthwhile outcome?

You convince them that it's a choice between losing ten cities and losing all of them.

Alternatively, you just don't ask their opinion.

Losing ten cities doesn't qualify as MAD. It's a deterrent, certainly, and an effective one; few if any American presidents would be willing to trade New York for Moscow, even if we won the war. But it's not MAD.

 

[brovane]

In other words, suffering a certain number of nuclear strikes is acceptable. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I think this is an idea that will encounter some 'consumer resistance' when you try to sell it.
There are people who would agree with that proposition - Herman Kahn comes to mind, and the Soviets at times acted as if they thought along the same lines. But it would be very difficult to convince a western population to accept the general premise, I think.

To me, this sounds like the age-old battle of warhead vs armour. And historically, warhead always wins: if someone wants to badly enough, they can always overload whatever defences are in place. The thing with nukes is that the consequences of letting even a small number through are still going to be very serious. How do you convince the US population that losing "only" their ten biggest cities would be a worthwhile outcome?

Survival of the Western population is better insured by having ABM than not having ABM. If the choice is suffering complete destruction or partial destruction I will choose partial destruction. It has always been a false choice to say that ABM has to be 100% effective and unless you can achieve 100% effectiveness(which is impossible with any system) you might as well not even invest in the defensive system. The choice realistically is remaining defenseless. Especially if along with this choice of ABM you maintain a strong civil defense infrastructure in the country.

 

[brovane]

The problem is that while you can limit the damage of ICBMs via ABM, you can't entirely eliminate it, and at the VERY least no Western government would accept knowingly placing large population centers at risk as a matter of policy (which would have been an inevitable outcome of ABM development, because)

No weapon developed has had a 100% effective defensive counter, and ABM likely never would have become that.

So the choice is loosing all your cities or some of your cities? If you cannot save all of them you are not going to save any?

 

[jmc247]

MAD did take place before nukes ever came around. In WW2 the U.S., the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and Germany all had chemical and biological weapons, but no one used them out of fear the other side would use their stockpile... which they would.

 

[Legofan4]

Is the government going to fit the bill for a trillion dollar system that might not even work for every single city in the country. It would bankrupt them. And an abm system is like hitting a bullet with another bullet from a continent away at hypersonic speeds twenty miles in the air. If the radar or the computers have even a microsecond delay they will be of by a mile and pretty much be useless. The early american systems were just basically throwing a nuke at it and hoping the blast radius and emp is enough to disable the incoming soviet warheads. This system might do more harm then good. And if it is amodern icbm it will be mirved and have counter measures to prevent interception. Each missle launched could have up to twelve warheads that seperated and deploy countermeasures in space. To hit it before this stage requires exoatmospheric interception which is very hard to do. Both the us and russians have hundreds of missles with many more warheads an abm would need to have a interception missle for each one which would be doable but to expensive and they are unsure if it would even intercept the missles.

 

[brovane]

MAD did take place before nukes ever came around. In WW2 the U.S., the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and Germany all had chemical and biological weapons, but no one used them out of fear the other side would use their stockpile... which they would.

The definition of MAD =

a U.S. doctrine of reciprocal deterrence resting on the U.S. and Soviet Union each being able to inflict unacceptable damage on the other in retaliation for a nuclear attack.

 

[brovane]

Is the government going to fit the bill for a trillion dollar system that might not even work for every single city in the country. It would bankrupt them. And an abm system is like hitting a bullet with another bullet from a continent away at hypersonic speeds twenty miles in the air. If the radar or the computers have even a microsecond delay they will be of by a mile and pretty much be useless. The early american systems were just basically throwing a nuke at it and hoping the blast radius and emp is enough to disable the incoming soviet warheads. This system might do more harm then good. And if it is amodern icbm it will be mirved and have counter measures to prevent interception. Each missle launched could have up to twelve warheads that seperated and deploy countermeasures in space. To hit it before this stage requires exoatmospheric interception which is very hard to do. Both the us and russians have hundreds of missles with many more warheads an abm would need to have a interception missle for each one which would be doable but to expensive and they are unsure if it would even intercept the missles.

You have no idea how much a ABM system would cost so it is just pure conjecture on your point. ABM is basically a math problem. The course of the incoming ICBM is plotted out (since a ICBM because of it's speed isn't going to change course) and it is just a matter of getting the interceptor at a point along the plotted course at the same time the warhead is there. Difficult but not impossible and it just a matter of research and development. Remember the US just spent a Trillion dollars invading Iraqi.

 

[Delta Force]

The ABM has to cost at least as much (preferably less) than the cost of whatever it is destroying, because otherwise the economic balance favors building more offensive weapons. If the ABM uses nuclear warheads, it shouldn't use more fizzle material per interception than the offensive warheads it is destroying, because otherwise the resource balance favors building more offensive weapons.

It's unlikely the economics are going to favor an ABM, at least when it comes to defending against a full scale nuclear attack. The West Coast ABM system doesn't really make any sense either though, because even if we didn't have a system, why would the DPRK or PRC launch twenty nuclear missiles at the United States when we can launch hundreds of warheads in retaliation?

For the situations where you need it, ABMs make no economic sense. For the situations where it makes economic sense, the you don't need it to deter that situation. ABMs make sense under no realistic circumstances.

 

[Mikestone8]

he Germans used gas in WW1 & the Allies retaliated
There was even some use in the 20s

By 1940 the Nazis had much more effective gas agents and means to deliver them
however decided not to use them because they feared a response

And probably because HE and incendiary were more effective.

Gas warfare got started in a rather specialised situation. As WW1 was largely fought in trenches, the war gases, which were heavier than air, naturally tended to collect in them, ie helpfully concentrating right where the user wanted. In later wars, this situation arose far more rarely, and the conventional shells and bombs were usually more effective. £1000 worth of HE or incendiary bought you more enemy dead than £1000 worth of gas.

 

[brovane]

The ABM has to cost at least as much (preferably less) than the cost of whatever it is destroying, because otherwise the economic balance favors building more offensive weapons. If the ABM uses nuclear warheads, it shouldn't use more fizzle material per interception than the offensive warheads it is destroying, because otherwise the resource balance favors building more offensive weapons.

It's unlikely the economics are going to favor an ABM, at least when it comes to defending against a full scale nuclear attack. The West Coast ABM system doesn't really make any sense either though, because even if we didn't have a system, why would the DPRK or PRC launch twenty nuclear missiles at the United States when we can launch hundreds of warheads in retaliation?

For the situations where you need it, ABMs make no economic sense. For the situations where it makes economic sense, the you don't need it to deter that situation. ABMs make sense under no realistic circumstances.

A ABM interceptor will cost much less than a ICBM with a nuclear warhead. The missile is much smaller and doesn't even have to have a nuclear warhead and even if it does have a nuclear warhead it will be smaller.

Even if a ABM system cost 1 Trillion dollars the system is protecting tens of trillion dollars of US economy. So you argument that a ABM system makes no economic sense is false logic. ABM system make perfect sense under any situation.

 

[Jbenuniv]

A ABM interceptor will cost much less than a ICBM with a nuclear warhead. The missile is much smaller and doesn't even have to have a nuclear warhead and even if it does have a nuclear warhead it will be smaller.

Even if a ABM system cost 1 Trillion dollars the system is protecting tens of trillion dollars of US economy. So you argument that a ABM system makes no economic sense is false logic. ABM system make perfect sense under any situation.

A single ABM cannot destroy the entire payload of a MIRVed ICBM, you could need up to 15 ABMs to stop a single incoming missile, assuming you have perfect accuracy and can tell decoys from warheads. And then there are maneuverable reentry vehicles, cruise missiles, SLBMs just off your coast, and those new hypersonic glide vehicles.

A possible way to get around this is with nuclear ABMs. But that drives the cost up hugely, and it's likely to blind your own radar after the first hit. Oh, and don't forget that the enemy might blind your radar with nuclear explosions. And your satellites.

So, in short, ABMs are only cost effective against an enemy with an insubstantial arsenal (e.g. North Korea) or an enemy who is willing to launch and die in the process. Against another power which has no wish to be destroyed, they are, at current technological levels, ineffective. MAD is far more effective with these rational opponents.

 

[RazeByFire]

The ABM has to cost at least as much (preferably less) than the cost of whatever it is destroying, because otherwise the economic balance favors building more offensive weapons. If the ABM uses nuclear warheads, it shouldn't use more fizzle material per interception than the offensive warheads it is destroying, because otherwise the resource balance favors building more offensive weapons.

It's unlikely the economics are going to favor an ABM, at least when it comes to defending against a full scale nuclear attack. The West Coast ABM system doesn't really make any sense either though, because even if we didn't have a system, why would the DPRK or PRC launch twenty nuclear missiles at the United States when we can launch hundreds of warheads in retaliation?

For the situations where you need it, ABMs make no economic sense. For the situations where it makes economic sense, the you don't need it to deter that situation. ABMs make sense under no realistic circumstances.

Maybe so we don't HAVE to wipe out all of N. Korea if the Best Dictator has a bad day. If we shoot them all down we can invade conventionally with a few well placed tac nukes against military targets, if he blasts LA he gets city killers.

That's rationalizing though.

I think it's more for protection against up and comers. Not only do they now have to get a bomb, they still have to build a delivery system. And it offers some assurance to allies that we do have a deploy-able system that can protect them so they don't have to do a preemptive strike.

 

[Delta Force]

A ABM interceptor will cost much less than a ICBM with a nuclear warhead.

The missile about the only place where an ABM is cheaper.

The missile is much smaller and doesn't even have to have a nuclear warhead and even if it does have a nuclear warhead it will be smaller.

Without a nuclear warhead, you need very precise guidance to ensure the conventional warhead gets close enough, or the kinetic warhead achieves a direct hit. Modern ICBM warheads come in much faster than SRBMs, cruise missiles, or even long range missiles from the 1950s and 1960s. Sure electronics have improved, but you are still trying to hit a very small and very fast missile with another very small and very fast missile.

Even if a ABM system cost 1 Trillion dollars the system is protecting tens of trillion dollars of US economy. So you argument that a ABM system makes no economic sense is false logic. ABM system make perfect sense under any situation.

Except the issue is that each interception is another attempt at protecting that asset, and the system is likely to degrade over time. It also gets back to how defensive systems work on probabilities, not certitude. A low probability of total destruction is pretty good for the attacker, not so good for the defender.

Suppose you have a system that is 80% effective. If it's defending a target of moderate importance, twenty or so warheads will come in. That's four probable failures. It doesn't matter how much value was saved by the first sixteen successes if it's all lost on the last four. Then you consider that all they have to do to increase the probability of destruction is throw more warheads at the target (possibly as simple as one more than ABMs available), and you can see why in a MAD scenario ABMs don't work.

If you aren't in a MAD scenario, you can build ABMs because you already have nuclear supremacy, and can afford to take away from your offensive forces (this is why the United States and Canada looked into ABMs in the 1950s and 1960s). Once MAD becomes reality, and you don't have an ABM, deploying an ABM system that actually works threatens to break the MAD system, lead one side to have an advantage, and create a window for a (more) successful first strike. Knowing this, why would the other side wait for the ABM system to be deployed? They would strike first.

Game theory isn't nice, but there are logical and economic reasons why things went they did on the nuclear strategy front during the Cold War.

 

[ObssesedNuker]

A ABM interceptor will cost much less than a ICBM with a nuclear warhead. The missile is much smaller and doesn't even have to have a nuclear warhead and even if it does have a nuclear warhead it will be smaller.

The current cost of a single GBI is 71 million dollars and the best success rate thus far achieved is 50% under ideal conditions. The cost of a Minuteman III missile is ~7 million dollars. Given that you'll need something like 2-3 GBI's (at minimum) to intercept each warhead and the Minuteman-III carries three warheads, you are looking at needing 6-9 GBI's to defeat a single missile. That is 426 million to 639 million dollars to defeat 7 million. Probably even more.

The cost is completely unworkable. The defender building nothing but ABMs will go bankrupt long before the attacker building nothing but ICBMs.

And that is before we get into stuff like decoys, jamming, and warheads capable of evasive maneuvers during the mid-course and terminal phases.

 

[Delta Force]

Also, any small nation that would launch a first strike is highly irrational. In which case, why are you building ABMs and allowing them to build more weapons instead of striking first to eliminate the threat before it grows out of control?

Outside of a specific scenario of nuclear supremacy (in which case it's not MAD), building ABM systems is irrational. Building ABMs to defend against an irrational country with a small arsenal is even more irrational, because it's best to strike first before they do something irrational.

 

[Workable Goblin]

Also, any small nation that would launch a first strike is highly irrational. In which case, why are you building ABMs and allowing them to build more weapons instead of striking first to eliminate the threat before it grows out of control?

Possibly because of the interplay with other countries? There might be third parties that are either allied with the irrational country for some reason or another (maybe they're reliably irrational towards them), or which would be adversely affected by a strike on the small nation. The obvious North Korea examples you are all tap-dancing around are China, in the former case, and South Korea and Japan, in the latter. China would obviously not take a nuclear strike on its semi-puppet well, nor the threat of American forces directly bordering it, while the latter would suffer from a full-scale nuclear strike despite not being hit. Additionally, most countries would be very dismayed by an American nuclear strike on a small country without a VERY large provocation, aka launching nuclear weapons themselves.

Therefore it makes more sense to minimize the possible damage from North Korea being irrational and wait for them to be irrational, because the potential damage from neutralizing them is much greater than the advantage is likely to be.

 

[brovane]

The current cost of a single GBI is 71 million dollars and the best success rate thus far achieved is 50% under ideal conditions. The cost of a Minuteman III missile is ~7 million dollars. Given that you'll need something like 2-3 GBI's (at minimum) to intercept each warhead and the Minuteman-III carries three warheads, you are looking at needing 6-9 GBI's to defeat a single missile. That is 426 million to 639 million dollars to defeat 7 million. Probably even more.

The cost is completely unworkable. The defender building nothing but ABMs will go bankrupt long before the attacker building nothing but ICBMs.

And that is before we get into stuff like decoys, jamming, and warheads capable of evasive maneuvers during the mid-course and terminal phases.

Where are you getting costs for the Minuteman at 7 Million? Are you looking at the cost of production in 1970's? Where you are getting incremental cost per unit of 71 Million for the GBI?