Quote:
Originally Posted by Sigaba
IMO, this statement is overly broad. If mutually assured destruction was accepted as the norm, then why did both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. pursue increasingly sophisticated nuclear weapons technology throughout the Cold War but especially during the Reagan administration?
(MOO, America's pursuit of "escalation dominance" across the spectrum of warfare during the Reagan presidency was a clear rejection of "mutually assured destruction.")
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Reagan rejected not Mutually Assured Destruction but the policy of detente (essentially go along to get along) and chose to confront the USSR militarily/economically as well as morally. MAD, along with a little luck, kept the nukes from flying for almost half a century (although we came close a couple times). But we were still active rivals vigorously competing for ideological dominance on the world scene. By building up military capability, both offensive and defensive, the two great powers were striving to gain an advantage politically rather than to nullify MAD. Regardless of the Russian nuclear advances, the U.S. would always have a second-strike retaliatory capacity through its nuclear subs secretly swimming the seas undetected. Although Reagan's pursuit of the Star Wars missile defense program was technologically unfeasible at the time, it was used to great effect as a bargaining chip with the Soviets who thought it could negate MAD thereby gaining a strategic advantage for the U.S.
Leave it to a Hollywood actor to pull off the big bluff when the nuclear chips were down...Chuck Norris 2012!