What is M.A.D?

Right now in my civics course my teacher mentioned M.A.D said it standed for Mutual Agreement Destruction and that is meens if a country where to pre-emptive stirke your country thet you both mutually agree that you can use nuked against each other, that kind of sounds stupid. Is that what it is? Can some one give me the 411 on M.A.D?

Thanks.

Yeah.

Pretty much.

With MAD between two countries, it wouldn't be a good idea to go to war.

Not a mutual agreement to use nukes but rather an understanding that to do so will assure the destruction of both parties.
Think about it, with two major nuclear armed countries squaring up against each other, any launch of nuclear tipped missiles by one country would be met with a massive retaliatory launch by the other. So, they both launch everything they have knowing that, although they will be destroyed, the other country will also be destroyed. Absolute madness and the reason that these weapons are always referred to as a deterrent, rather than a first use weapon.

To be honest, anyone developing such weapons in large numbers or biological weapons is IMHO a complete crazy and needs to be put against a wall and shot as soon as possible

As above on meaning. I fully support countries devolping them, but they are overall a bad idea IHMO, they never should have been reserached and/or put into production fully.

But Iraq had non,e and alook what happened to them. We should have gone to war with N.Korea if WMD was the REAL reason, as they are far mroe dangerous and have Nukes. Grr.

Any country with nukes that cann't really be trusted with them, North Korea is one of them, should either be warned about what could happen if they deploy them, or should be invaded to comprimise the threat!

Britguy has it right about MAD its not like they sat down and agree to nuke each other. They just realized that if either the US or Russia attacked each other the response would be their own destruction along with that of their enemy. When you have weapons like nuclear subs that could be anywhere in the world and retaliate even if their home country was wiped out there is no way to win a nuclear war in a first strike.

It might sound crazy but this keep the peace during the whole cold war. If neither had nuclear weapons both Russia and the US would have went to war but nuclear weapons make that same action unthinkable for either side.

Originally posted by zi2525
Right now in my civics course my teacher mentioned M.A.D said it standed for Mutual Agreement Destruction

No. It means 'Mutually Assured Destruction'. It wasn't a formal agreement.

and that is meens if a country where to pre-emptive stirke your country thet you both mutually agree that you can use nuked against each other, that kind of sounds stupid.

Indeed it would be.

MAD is something that came out of the Cold War between the hyper-nuke arsenals of the US and SU. Basically, each armed camp in this war had enough nukes to completely destroy one another. Whats more, they could be lauched practically or even literally automatically. People eventually realizd that if say the Soviets launched their nukes at the US, then the US would launch theirs, and both woudl be destroyed. Or if the Soviets invaded europe, then the US would respond with a nuke response and then the soviets would follow suit and both would be annihilated. So basically if either side started a war, they could be sure that they themselves would be destroyed. Their destruction was mutually assured. This is why the Cold War went cold (but that was before people were actualyl talking about "MAD"). Something similiar is beleived to occur in any future conflict between pakistan and india. WHile neither nation can annihilate the other, the leadership in each would be destroyed in an all out war. In this way, nuke proliferation is thought to prevent outright largescale war.

What throws this off? SDI / StarWars nuke attack defenses. Makes one side at least think that they can survive a nuke war and win. The other, 'disposable population'. If a nation has disposable population and infrastructure, then it doesn't care if its cities get blasted off the map, so 'Nuke Detterence' has no effect on them.

Nygdan is right it stands for Mutually Assured Destruction, but in reality it only works with countries that are able to hit each other. Say if Iran get a missile or bomb it does not factor into a MAD warfare senario with any body but Isreal. So certain countries can only be in a situation with another country that are able to hit each other.

You can thank Jimmy for MAD, you got it right. Once prior to his unquestioned rule over our nation there was a small group of scientist.
They put together a plan to put five orbiting reactors in space. Yes Russia does this all the time but it would be a first for the US. See you need a reactor to generate a particle beam. This beam can not be defeated like a laser can by color codes and spin place on a missle. With these five stations in orbit we could protect 78 per cent of the most densly poulated soil in the US. But Jimmy said anything short of 100 per cent would not be tolerated. Better that everyone dies. So we have MAD.
Russia used particle beam tests near the boarder of Turkey. Same location those missle bases were given up by Kennedy (JFK) when he actually lost the Cuban missle crises. The beams worked so well when tested that Russia started a campaign of propaganda against the comercial nuclear program in the free world. See the free world uses 4,000 psi concrete with steel sheilding that can withstand a direct hit of a 747. It is impossible to get critical mass or a Chernobyle form these power plants. They are also near population centers so if they were incorporated with particle cannons to help augment the five orbital reactors we could cover more people from the treat of nuclear and bio-chemical agents delivered by missile. Like the new missiles being fabricated by Iran. As long as we have people like Jimmy Carter "why fight for it if you can give it away" and Ted Kennedy " how much did I hear" on our side our enemies, not logic have control.

this may sound crazy but: what if you loaded up all the nukes you could find into all the stealth aircraft you could muster and sent them at a a country armed with nuclear weapons and missle delivery systems. There would be nuclear explosions all over the country before they knew what was going on....

[edit on 9-12-2004 by replicators]

Originally posted by replicators
this may sound crazy but: what if you loaded up all the nukes you could find into all the stealth aircraft you could muster and sent them at a a country armed with nuclear weapons and missle delivery systems. There would be nuclear explosions all over the country before they knew what was going on....

[edit on 9-12-2004 by replicators]

That is pretty muched what the B-2 fleet was designed for they were developed to carry nukes 16 each. The orignal number they wanted would be enough to hit most of the major Russian nuclear ICBM sites in a singel strike. But they never got close to the number they wanted.

Besides nuclear Submarines really would get you anyway in the end unless you could find them all and hit them at the same time. I doubt anyone could ever do that though. But a big B-2 fleet might hurt Russia's ablity to fire ground based ICBMs a great deal.

Originally posted by replicators
There would be nuclear explosions all over the country before they knew what was going on....

Apparently the Soviets Considered that. They built a ship that was more or less automated and fully capable of launching a large scale icbm nuke attack on the US. So MAD still holds. Heck, the US didn't really know about it supposedly, and if anyone had thought they could've nuked the soviets and get away with it, well, they'd've destroyed the US too.

Isnt M.A.D. the Magnetic Anomoly Detector array such as on the back of the P-3 Orion to hunt for submarines?

Say all you want about Mutually Assured Destruction, but it's worked for almost half a century so far...

Didnt then President Clinton pass a Presidential Order, that essentially stated that we would accept any first strike in the name of peace?


(of course, according to the insurance courts, 911 was a multiple strike event, with the WTC policy paying out on two seperate claims, court ordered)

Originally posted by Nox
Yeah.

Pretty much.

With MAD between two countries, it wouldn't be a good idea to go to war.

its not used in conventional war. only nuclear war. basically if one goes off here in the states, the country who did it will be wish they hadnt and they wont be around musch longer.

MAD was used as a detertant to the superpowers attacking each other in the cold war cause there would be nothing left in both countries if such an anexchange happened.

If our tritium were to be corrupted by say a Senator that is used to being paid well by foreign countries for favors. After all a lobbyist is just another lobbyist who cares what country their for?
If our tritium were corrupted than we would be holding an unloaded gun. So much for MAD. Sometimes the best defense is a good defense.
That was why the "Galactica III section of the High Frontier Program" was started. In a fight a shield is always pretty handy kind of like taking cover in a gun fight.
I see no reason to believe the Islamic Fascist governments would worry about MAD regardless.

Isnt M.A.D. the Magnetic Anomoly Detector array such as on the back of the P-3 Orion to hunt for submarines?

That too

Gazrok is right though, Nuclear Deterence is a good thing, it has prevented WW3...or the cold war from going hot...

Originally posted by zi2525
Right now in my civics course my teacher mentioned M.A.D said it standed for Mutual Agreement Destruction and that is meens if a country where to pre-emptive stirke your country thet you both mutually agree that you can use nuked against each other, that kind of sounds stupid. Is that what it is? Can some one give me the 411 on M.A.D?

Thanks.

It is actually Mutually Assured Destruction - each side has enough power to destroy the other many times over, therefore, only crazy people would actually do it. You had 50 years of peace between the superpowers as a result.

Right now in my civics course my teacher mentioned M.A.D said it standed for Mutual Agreement Destruction and that is meens if a country where to pre-emptive stirke your country thet you both mutually agree that you can use nuked against each other, that kind of sounds stupid. Is that what it is? Can some one give me the 411 on M.A.D?

Sadly, your teacher is retarded. If it isn't too late, see if you can get another teacher to teach this course...