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Mutual assured destruction, or mutually assured destruction (MAD), is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of high-yield weapons of mass destruction by two or more opposing sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender (see Pre-emptive nuclear strike and Second strike).〔(Mutual Assured Destruction ); Col. Alan J. Parrington, USAF, (Mutually Assured Destruction Revisited, Strategic Doctrine in Question ), Airpower Journal, Winter 1997.〕 It is based on the theory of deterrence where the threat of using strong weapons against the enemy prevents the enemy's use of those same weapons. The strategy is a form of Nash equilibrium in which neither side, once armed, has any incentive to initiate a conflict or to disarm. ==Theory== The MAD doctrine assumes that each side has enough nuclear weaponry to destroy the other side and that either side, if attacked for any reason by the other, would retaliate without fail with equal or greater force. The expected result is an immediate irreversible escalation of hostilities resulting in both combatants' mutual, total and assured destruction. The doctrine requires that neither side construct shelters on a massive scale, such as there are in Switzerland. If the US were to construct a similar system of shelters, it would violate the MAD doctrine and destabilize the situation, because it would not need to fear the consequences of a Soviet second strike.〔Freeman Dyson, ''Disturbing the Universe'', Chapter 13, ''The Ethics of Defense'', Basic Books, 1981.〕〔''Weapons and Hope'', Freeman Dyson, Harper Collins, 1985〕 The same principle is invoked against missile defense. The doctrine further assumes that neither side will dare to launch a first strike because the other side will launch on warning (also called fail-deadly) or with surviving forces (a second strike), resulting in unacceptable losses for both parties. The payoff of the MAD doctrine was and still is expected to be a tense but stable global peace. The primary application of this doctrine started during the Cold War (1940s to 1991) in which MAD was seen as helping to prevent any direct full-scale conflicts between the United States and the Soviet Union while they engaged in smaller proxy wars around the world. It was also responsible for the arms race, as both nations struggled to keep nuclear parity, or at least retain second-strike capability. Although the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, the MAD doctrine continues to be applied. Proponents of MAD as part of U.S. and USSR strategic doctrine believed that nuclear war could best be prevented if neither side could expect to survive a full-scale nuclear exchange as a functioning state. Since the credibility of the threat is critical to such assurance, each side had to invest substantial capital in their nuclear arsenals even if they were not intended for use. In addition, neither side could be expected or allowed to adequately defend itself against the other's nuclear missiles. This led both to the hardening and diversification of nuclear delivery systems (such as nuclear missile silos, ballistic missile submarines, and nuclear bombers kept at fail-safe points) and to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. This MAD scenario is often referred to as nuclear deterrence. The term "deterrence" was first used in this context after World War II; prior to that time, its use was limited to legal terminology. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mutual assured destruction」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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