A return to MAD?

During the Cold War MAD or Mutually Assured Destruction was how the US and USSR avoided destroying the planet and obliterating humanity. Basically it worked by having so many nuclear weapons scattered with different delivery systems (ie. bomber aircraft, ICBMs, missle subs) that the other side could not hope to deliver a first strike without massive retaliation. MAD used three "legs" to deliver nuclear weapons: Bombers, InterContinental Ballistic Missles, and Missle Submarines. Throughout the Cold War the US kept bomber aircraft flying just off the USSRs borders 24/7 awaiting orders to nuke the Soviets. The crews understood that most likely by the time they got the orders to strike large mushroom clouds would be appearing over the largest cities in the US. In remote parts of Wyoming, Nebraska and South Dakota large underground silos housed ICBM missles to be launched at the President's command. Finally, probably the best of the three legs of MAD was missle submarines. During their constant patrols not even their own naval command knew of their location. That was MAD, and at the end of the day neither the USSR or the US wanted to end the world.

After the fall of the USSR the US kept its MAD systems in place although they did stop the expensive 24/7 nuke armed flights off the now former USSR. While the US may have slain the Dragon they have found the jungle full of poisonous snakes. On September 11, 2001, a date that will live in infamy, 19 men with box cutters delivered a devistating bite on America. Now the question that must be asked is if determind terrorists can wreck so much devistation with box cutters what could they do with a nuclear bomb? In the post cold war era we now face the possibility of small states not being controled like they were in the past and going rouge, potentially with nuclear weapons. Terrorists can strike if they ever get the weapons and not fear nuclear retaliation because who would we target? Rouge states with little or no concern for even their own people might actually use nukes if they had them but could also just supply them to a terrorist group upsetting the MAD balance.

The latest invasion of Georgia by Russia and other minor military actions by the Russians are clearly aimed at restoring their place as a world player. By reigniting competion between Russia and the US they would regain the national pride they lost with the colapse of the USSR. The USSR took great care to protect and hide their nuclear arsenal so vital to their survival. But with the fall of the USSR many of those weapons are now being guarded by soldiers on low wages and who don't even get paid every month. As many of the former soviet republics flock to NATO, Russia will need new satalite countries. Russia has a long history of controling their smaller satalites with an iron fist; just look at Hungry in 1956, Czechoslovacia in 1968 or Georgia in 2008.

Russia has bought many of the untapped oil fields in Iran and it is possible that a deapening of tentions with the US could drive Iran to closer a allience with Russia. While this allience of two of America's worst threats is not good; Iran is ruled by an Islamic theocracy and has been throwing out a lot of serious threats of late. If Iran became a prominate satalite of Russia the Russians might be able to rein in Iran. If Iran was a satalite of Russia the Russians would not allow them to run amuck since that could easily lead to conflict with the US. If Iran ever went through with their threats to anhilate Israel the Iranians would drag Russia along into war with the US and NATO.

MAD is a very dangerous policy to live by, but it beats dying under a mushroom cloud by a long shot.