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Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice

Edited by Mr. Henry D. Sokolski.

November 2004

368 Pages

Summary

Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice is the first critical history of the intellectual roots and actual application of the strategic doctrine of nuclear mutual assured destruction or MAD. Written by the world's leading French, British, and American military policy planners and analysts, this volume examines how MAD and its emphasis on the military targeting of population centers influenced the operational plans of the major nuclear powers and states, such as Pakistan, India, and Israel. Given America's efforts to move away from MAD and the continued reliance on MAD thinking by smaller nations to help justify further nuclear proliferation, Getting MAD is a timely must reading for anyone eager to understand our nuclear past and future.

Table of Contents

Preface
Henry D. Sokolski

Introduction
Henry S. Rowen

Part I. The Origins of MAD Thinking

1. The Origins of MAD: A Short History of City-Busting
Richard R. Muller

2. Destruction Assurée: The Origins and Development of French Nuclear Strategy, 1945-81
Bruno Tertrais

3. The U.S. Navy’s Fleet Ballistic Missile Program and Finite Deterrence
Harvey M. Sapolsky

4. MAD and U.S. Strategy
Charles H. Fairbanks, Jr.

Part II. MAD in Practice

5. Soviet Views of Nuclear Warfare: The Post-Cold War Interviews
John A. Battilega

6. The Origins and Design of Presidential Decision-59: A Memoir
William E. Odom

7. France’s Nuclear Deterrence Strategy: Concepts and Operational Implementation
David S. Yost

8. Chinese and Mutually Assured Destruction: Is China Getting MAD?
James Mulvenon

9. The British Experience
Michael Quinlan

Part III. Moving Beyond MAD

10. Small Nuclear Powers
Mark T. Clark

11. Nuclear and Other Retaliation after Deterrence Fails
Tod Lindberg

12. Taking Proliferation Seriously
Henry D. Sokolski

About the Authors

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