Needless to say, this theory made people on all sides of the ColdWar very nervous. Indeed, before the [[TheGreatPoliticsMessup the end of the cold war]], most academics thought the acronym "MAD" was appropriate - the strategy seemed insane[[hottip:*:To be fair, hindsight reveals that most politicians on both sides ''also'' thought it was insane, but didn't have any better alternative: nukes were a way of life since the 50's and the genie couldn't be put back in the bottle. This is also why the various nuclear weapon reduction treaties were so contentious and difficult: SALT and START faced the prospect of reducing nuclear stockpiles from "We can kill everything everywhere several times over" to "If we fired our missiles just right, we might win now".]]. It may come up in hypothetical WorldWarIII scenarios or works set in the late-era (1980s) of the ColdWar. With the fall of the Soviet Union, MAD has lost its value as the focus shifts to combating [[TheWarOnTerror terrorists]] who do not have access to a large stockpile of nuclear weapons.

12th Jan '13 3:12:59 PM memememememe

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4th Jan '13 3:55:18 AM Achaemenid

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22nd Dec '12 3:36:31 AM erforce

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21st Dec '12 5:00:06 PM Jacob175

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