Mutually Assured Destruction

Mutually Assured Destruction 

              We are growing up in an age where it is not uncommon for us to hear about nuclear weapons, this is era is know as the Atomic Age. This is a very controversial topic that is used in conversation and debates all around the world. People either believe that nuclear weapons are a great source of protection and should be kept close or they believe that there is no need for nuclear weapons and they should be diminished all together.

              The end of WWII was the first time that nuclear weapons were really used. When the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, ending the war, the atomic age began. The U.S. wanted "to keep the new weaporn a monopoly only to be used by them but this soon changed after the secret got out. Four years after the U.S. dropped the atomic bombs the Soviet Union detonated there first nuclear weapons, the United Kingdom followed in 1952, France followed in 1960, and China followed in 1964."(Arms Control Association). After the second world war the United States and the Soviets were not on the best terms and this led into the Cold War, a war in which no fighting occurred, however if one made an attack with nuclear weapons the other would attack back with nuclear weapons. This was the beginning of what is known as mutual assured destruction or MAD. The actual definition from of mutual assured destruction is as follows, “A doctrine of military strategy and national security in which a full-scale use of high-yield weapons of mass construction by two or more opposite sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender. To achieve mutual assured destruction both states must be self preserving, have large stockpiles of nuclear weapons, and have a secure second strike."(Wikepidea)

             The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 was the thing that got the idea of a full on nuclear war stated. Both the United States and the Soviet Union had the capability to launch a “nuclear- tipped missile from a submarine”, this completed the nuclear triad that was necessary to apply the MAD doctrine. This was the first time in history that we had the power to completely annihilate the human race.  “MAD has been compared to two men standing 10 feet apart, each of them holding a revolver pointed at the other man's head. The revolver is loaded, their fingers are on the trigger, quivering, and they are shouting insults at each other. This vivid metaphor captures the mutual terror that was at the base of our security policy during the Cold War.” I found this eye opening metaphor for a speech given by Secretary of Defense William Perry in Washington on Thursday, January 05, 1995. This speech was given to help calm the people after the Cold War that nuclear war was to be understood but not feared. After the Cold War ended in 1991 the Treaty of the Non- Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) was brought to the table. This was a treaty whose objective was to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and nuclear technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to reach the goal of nuclear disarmament. This is the only treaty that has the goal to disarm nuclear weapon states, it was enforced in 1970 and on May 11, 1995 was extended indefinitely. 190 parties have joined the treaty and out of these the five major nuclear weapon states have signed.

               Now that the threat of total world annihilation has died down people are starting to wonder if it is smart to allow thousands of nuclear weapons to be stockpiled and ready for action in a mere fifteen minutes. People believe that this is just setting us up for nuclear war instead of being a protective agent against it, that keeping them around is actually harming us instead of helping us. The United States alone has 7,506 nuclear weapons and those aren’t counting the ones that are dismantled or waiting to be dismantled. As an entire world we have a total of 17,105 nuclear weapons, enough to destroy the planet multiple times over. (Fact Sheet Global Nuclrar Weapons Inventions in 2014).To the people that want to get rid of all the nuclear weapons these statics are scare tactics to get people to realize the sizable amount of weapons that we have. To a believer in the positivity of nuclear weapons these statics give them a sense of pride in the vast amounts of weapons that we have created.

              Nuclear weapons sound bad and what they do is bad, however the idea behind them is good. Nuclear weapons were made for protection like every other weapon ever made. The only difference between the two is the intenseness that the nuclear weapon holds. The ability to wipe out an entire city, state, country had never even been discussed until WWII and the almost normality of having it was not imaginable until the Cold War.  Protection is why nuclear weapons are made and why they are till important to have around today. Without them we would not be able to defend ourselves like we can today, everything would be different.

             With the positive to keeping nuclear weapons around also comes the negative." Nuclear weapons have the possibility to lead to nuclear terrorism, this treat is low but the consequences would be dire, we also face new states acquiring nuclear weapons and the collapse of the Non- Proliferation Regime (Joseph Citincione: Scholars Online), an interlocking system of treaty’s that has limited the spread of nuclear weapons."(Dictionary.com). All of these and more could happen if nuclear war begins to strike again. People feel so strongly about the idea of totally diminishing the world’s supply of nuclear weapons that they are willing to go to any length to fight for it, from rallies to protests all the way to websites. I found one website that really suck out to me called GlobalZero.com. It features background information, statistics, media, and places to join and donate to their cause of stopping the use of nuclear weapons. The passion that is embodied through this website is just a small example of the intenseness that this topic has all around the world.

             Mutually assured destruction was a doctrine that helped to give a sense of understanding to the confusion of the Cold War. There has been a fear of total world population wipe out but sense the ending of the Cold War this fear has lessened for some and grown for others. This topic is always going to be very controversial because it can't not be with the intensity that it holds. It literally holds the entirety of the people in the worlds life's in its metaphorical hands. The idea of demising the worlds supply of nuclear weapons is a great idea however this can never happen because of the power that nuclear weapons hold. Every country that already has nuclear weapons could never agree to completely erase nuclear weapons and time goes on more and more countries are beginning to obtain them. Nuclear weapons are used as a protective agent and should be taken seriously and should be kept close. 

Chart of Nuclear Weapons Around the World 







Photo from above Hiroshima After First Atomic Bomb was Dropped








The Atomic Bombs, Little Boy and Fat Man, on Display

Cold War Propaganda

















                                                                               

Stockpile of Nuclear Weapons                               














Sites:
 Wikipedia: Mutually Assured Destruction
I used this site at the very beginning to get a very brief overview on mutual assured destruction and to get a basis of knowledge to help my further research.
Global Zero
This site is a anti nuclear weapons site that I used to find opinions on how people felt about nuclear weapons. This was very helpful because if gave me factual and opinionated evidence onto their believes.
Encyclopedia Britannica: Mutual Assured Destruction
I used this site similar to how I used Wikipedia as in I used it to get basic information and I also used it to get more facts and simple things that helped me actually understand what I was researching.
Arms Control Center
This site was helpful in getting true statistics on the amount of nuclear weapons each country had. It was crazy to learn the actual amount of weapons that we have obtained as a world.
U.S. Department of Defense Speech
This was one of my primary sources that I used and that I got one of my quotes from. It showed me how people were dealing with the things happening around them and how that took control of these situations.
Cold War History
To get a better understanding of the Cold War and what happened throughout it, I used this site to help me do this. I was researching so much on mutual assured destruction and I kept hearing about the Cold War which I did not know much about so I used this site to give me basic knowledge on it.
Joseph Crincione Video
These videos were interviews with a professor asking him about how he feels about different aspects of nuclear war. This helped greatly because it gave opinions as well as facts. It gave me the information on how the bad things that could happen if nuclear war struck.
United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs

I used this site to find another treaty that helped me to back up other things that I have said. It is also

a treaty which allows me to have actual evidence for support.