Stuff You Should Know - What is Mutual Assured Destruction?

Episode Date: November 24, 2009

In this episode of Stuff You Should Know, Josh and Chuck discuss nuclear profliferation, nuclear parity and the Cold War strategic doctrine called Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as the lovely and talented Charles W. Chuckers Bryant. Hi. Hey, Chuck. Hi. So you've switched hats?

From when to when. From the Chicago Bears hat to the Atlanta Braves hat? Yeah, that was yesterday. Today's today. You're a man of many hats, Chuck. Many fan allegiances. I'm not a Bears fan. You know what that was all about.

Punkins. Yes. Punkin' Chunkin'. Yes, Josh. We are going to mention, once again, the Discovery Channel, our awesome parent company, is releasing two television shows on Thanksgiving night. Don't confuse people, Chuck.

They're going to be on the Science Channel. Well, sure. On Thursday, November 26, which is Thanksgiving, lots of dead turkeys that day. Yep, The Road to Punkin' Chunkin' and Punkin' Chunkin'. Right, The Road to Punkin' Chunkin' comes on at 8 p.m. Eastern Time on the Science Channel, followed by The Real Punkin' Chunkin' at 9 p.m. Eastern.

I would follow it up with a show called The Road from Punkin' Chunkin'. Going back home after Punkin' Chunkin' in Delaware, no less. So that's that, right? Sure. Alrighty. So Chuck. Yes, Josh.

I have a little, this seems vaguely familiar. We're talking about mutual assured destruction. OK, well, how does that seem familiar? Because I did it with Candace many, many moons ago on Stuff You Missed in History Class. Really? Back when it was called Factor Fiction. Dude, that was another lifetime, wasn't it?

It really was. I have so many more gray hairs now, and my posture is much more stooped. You have the Seattle slump. I do, actually. Nice one. Thank you. Chuck, we've talked about this, I

think here, there we've mentioned it. Remember, we did a podcast on how easy is to steal a nuclear bomb? Sure. We concluded that if the Jamaicans are buying it and you steal it en route to Jamaica, you could probably get away with it. Right.

This podcast is specifically on a Cold War strategic doctrine called mutual assured destruction, which was abbreviated as mad appropriately enough. Yeah, it's funny. It's scary as all get out, but it's also comforting in the same breath. It's weird. Well, yeah, because if you think about it, you and I grew up.

We were Cold War babies. Sure. We grew up with the expressed knowledge that at any moment, nuclear war could break out. And if that happened, everyone on the planet was dead. Sure. And that's how we were raised. Kids that were born in mid-80s today,

which is just nuts to me that there's people walking around that are sentient that were born in the mid-80s. But kids that were born in the mid-80s and after did not grow up with that specter looming over them. And I imagine are completely different people, personality-wise, than you and I. Well, that's like everyone else on our staff almost. Agreed.

You ever think about that? I did not. There were a few old folks like us, although I'm much older than you, obviously. You definitely are me. You'd like to point out. Chuck's wearing right now a jean jacket with a Sharpie marker used to do the journey logo on the back.

It's pretty cool, Chuck. Thank you. You have burnout? So Chuck, as I was saying, we grew up as Cold War kids. And every once in a while, you have to stop and think, why didn't the US and the USSR blow one another up? Are you asking me that? Yeah.

Well, let's talk about the Cold War a little bit. Yeah, because the answer is the end of the podcast. OK. All right, so let's save that. All right. The Cold War, Josh, I had a couple of really scary moments, if you want to talk about those. I do.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was. That was a pretty tense couple of weeks. Probably the first one in 1962. President Kennedy threatened to strike once he found out that Russia had moved, or I guess the Soviet Union, had moved missiles to Cuba and were pointing them at his face. And Cuba seems like a world away,

but it's really just 90 miles off the southern coast of Florida. A short boat ride. Right. So if you have long-range nuclear warheads pointed at the US, they can hit their mark, probably as far as Kansas City, let's say. Right. They could definitely hit temperature.

Sure. That was a scary couple of weeks. Sure it was, because there was a standoff. Basically, we were saying, hey, we're going to nuke you if you don't remove these missiles. Right. And the Soviet Union said, oh yeah, well, we'll nuke you back. And actually, you can actually point to this

as perhaps the beginning of the mad doctrine. Right, sure. And the other scary one was in 1980, when Jimmy Carter, this was weird. Chuck, this actually happened several times. I know. But this was probably the worst. That's some bad communication going on.

What happened was NORAD got some information that the Soviet Union had launched 2,220 nuclear missiles our way. So Chuck, yeah, NORAD, which is the command center for our missile system, deep in Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. Nice. On some guys' computer screen that tracks Soviet missile movement, all of a sudden, it was just

peppered with missiles that were coming this way. And National Security Director Brezhnevsky. Nice job. Is that right? I think it's right. I can't remember. That a lot of consonants. And it's not that I can't remember.

It's that I've never heard it. I have an honor. Brezhnevsky. Sure. We're going with Brezhnevsky. He was alerted, it's pretty early in the morning, right? Yeah, 2 AM. He was alerted and woken up.

And they're like, hey, there's a Soviet missile strike and all-out missile strike. 2,220 missiles coming our way, sir. And he is picking up the phone to call President Carter, who I don't know what Carter would have done. Carter wasn't exactly the most militant president we've ever had. Great guy, great statesman, great diplomat.

He might have pooped his pants and gone back to bed. Maybe so. But that was terrible. He wouldn't have done that. He never got that phone call because Brezhnevsky was informed that, oh, wait, it's a computer glitch. Right. They whacked the side of the monitor

and it all corrected itself. They said what shocked me was it was a seven minute window that we had to decide what to do. Well, it's a long way from the Soviet Union to the US. Even by way of Alaska. Seven minutes. That's scary. You have to make up your mind in seven minutes

whether or not you're going to destroy the world, basically. I'm saying you would think that it would be less than seven minutes. Oh, well, yeah. OK, so and I'm telling you, that was probably the worst case. But that happened many times during the course of the Cold War. And from what I understand, the Soviets

had similar incidents too, right? Oh, did they? Yeah. So we have these incidents. We have the Cuban Missile Crisis. Why didn't either side pull the trigger? Because of the doctrine, the mad doctrine, basically, which indicates that everyone will die.

So we blow everybody up on both sides, so let's not do that. Right, and the USSR in the United States could actually, very quickly, from 1947 to 1941, both nations were building up their nuclear arsenals, which is called nuclear proliferation. Right? Yes, yes. I think I got that out.

That's sort of. Nuclear proliferation. Nice. You take that one for the rest of the podcast, OK? OK. OK. And so each side had this arsenal, and we're keeping up in step with one another.

You know what that's called? Yeah. Nuclear parity. Yeah. Which is ideally what you want, strangely. Yes, in this case, you definitely do. So both sides had more than enough nuclear missiles to wipe out, not just the other side,

but the entire planet, several times over. That's a really important point. Several times over. Why would you need a nuclear arsenal that could wipe out the world, the planet, several times over? Now, maybe if they destroyed some of our weaponry with their strikes? That's part of it.

OK. But another part of it is because if one side adds a missile, you've got to add a missile. Well, if you're seeking nuclear parity, which is really important, then it can't be out of whack. How did they release all this information to each other? Was it? No, it was intelligence, guesses.

That kind of stuff. Like, all of a sudden, there's like a metal hole in the ground in Wyoming that wasn't there before. The Soviets probably assumed, oh, well, they have a new nuclear warhead there. They didn't IM each other and say, built new missile, LOL. Click.

I knew you were going to say that. I knew you were going to say that. Have you ever just thought to yourself, why me? Why is life so unfair? What do other people see? When they watch me walk by, when I catch my reflection, people run. Like, I have a contagious infection.

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Once again, use promo code HEART20 through January 30th to receive 20% off your 2023 trip. So both sides are building up their arsenal. And early on, Chuck, I was reading another article on game theory, which we'll see plays into this, written by our esteemed colleague in my BFF, Tom Schieve. And he talks about how early on, apparently Eisenhower, who is what, the second president to have the bomb,

but really the first president to manage like an amassed nuclear arsenal. To love the bomb. He stopped worrying. He looked at them as like any other type of weapon, because he was a military man. But luckily, there was a game theorist named Thomas Schelling, who had the ear of Eisenhower

and managed to convince him that, no, no, no, these things are way, way more powerful and destructive than anything else in our arsenal. They exist in this vacuum that has to be kept separate. And therefore, they should be viewed only as deterrents. And he managed to change Eisenhower's view. And from that point on, it was the presence of a nuclear arsenal was a weapon in and of itself.

It was the preventative. And not only to nuclear war, but the point that, did you write this one? The point that you made, which I found interesting, was that it also was a deterrent to conventional war. Excellent point. Because conventional war, after the arms race, there was no such thing as conventional war.

No, and not between the US and the USSR, right? Or a guaranteed conventional war. It might start out that way, but it would escalate, and all of a sudden, the button is pushed at some point. Right, because our nuclear arsenal did exist in, say, a vacuum outside of the rest of our arsenal. But once you exhausted the rest of the arsenal,

then the inevitable conclusion was that nuclear arsenal being deployed, right? Or even if you didn't exhaust it, even if you just said, you know what, let's just end this game. Exactly. So as a result, the US and the USSR just fought a Cold War. They never directly engaged one another. But they fought one another through proxy wars in places

like Nicaragua and Afghanistan, right? Got a lot of good movies out of the Cold War. Definitely. Rambo 3? Yeah, and some good James Bond movies in that time. I liked it when the Ruskies were the villain. You liked the James Bond movies or the Cold War? Well, OK, yeah, maybe the early ones.

I'm thinking like Timothy Dalton era, woof. Yeah, I mean, trust me, Roger Moore is kind of a laughable bond now that I'm older and look back. You're crazy. Roger Moore is the best James Bond ever. Well, that's because we grew up with him. I mean, come on, Roger Moore was kind of a doof. Maybe, but I think that was his director

that he was working with. I kind of like Pierce Brosnan. He was good. He was OK. I'm pretty hip on the Daniel Craig. He's all right. Well, that's the only direction they could take that really. What, blonde?

No, just more realistic butt kicking with fists and that kind of thing. You don't think Moom Raker was realistic? He was constantly winking at the camera and making bad friends. Can you believe I'm saying this? Yeah, it's like Jonathan Strickland is James Bond, I guess. Good one.

All right, so sorry about the sidetrack. What happened was we created a détente. It wasn't like, OK, we all have the same amount of weapons, so we're BFFs now and it's all good. It was a détente, meaning it was sort of a, what's the best description of that? An uneasy truce. Yeah, so basically, the US and the USSR had our weapons

and were keeping an eye on one another. Anytime one added a new missile or some new capability, the other scrambled to catch up and vice versa. And we just basically went to sleep with one eye open for the next several decades, right? So Josh, what two things have to take place in order to achieve this weird stability? Well, the weird stability, the very fact that it existed,

it wasn't an organic, it wasn't organically created by the presence of nuclear weapons, right? Henry Kissinger, who was Secretary of State throughout much of the Cold War. Love Kissinger. He actually was a huge fan of game theory. He took a lot of game theory classes when he was an underclassman at Harvard

and he kept in touch with game theory and hung out with game theorists. And he actually was one of the people who was responsible for applying game theory to nuclear strategy. Really? Yeah, and other people kind of caught on and saw that there was a lot of merit and validity

to viewing nuclear strategy through game theory, right? So the two things really are having that archival. Yeah, US, that part. I'll answer my own question. What's key is A, to have the weapons to begin with. And then as Robert McNamara points out, the defense secretary in 1960s was that you have to believe that the other guys actually

has the cahones to pull the trigger. Right, and apparently both the US and the USSR like to leak false information about how crazy their leaders were. Do you remember how we were brought up viewing like the Russians? Sure. Like they were all nuts, right?

And they would just push the button at any second. Yeah, they wanted American blood. Apparently that was planted by the Russians because you have to believe that the other guy is willing to strike. And not just create a first strike, but definitely a counter strike as well, right? Sure.

So if you are assured that if you launch a first strike that the other side's going to launch a retaliatory strike, what you've just done by launching that first strike is committed suicide. Pretty much. The basis of mutual or assured destruction is that nobody wants to die.

Right. OK? Yeah, yeah. OK. And also at the time, I mean at first the way the nuclear warheads developed over the years is pretty cool because like you pointed out, at first it was just a big huge dopey bomb that

would just blow up everything. Yeah, have you seen pictures of Fat Boy and Little Man? Yeah. They really do like big dumb, they do. They're like Bugs Bunny would drop out of the back of a plane. Yeah, did you know they weren't the same type of bomb? Fat Man, which was dropped on Nagasaki was plutonium. And Little Boy, which was dropped on Hiroshima was uranium.

Interesting. I didn't know that. And they were working on both of these. So basically we split the atom in the late 30s, and all of a sudden we're just working on any kind of atomic bomb we want. Right, right. It's nuts.

So over the years though, it became very precise and much more strategic, so you could, let's say, send your nuclear warheads to specific military targets at first, obviously to wipe out some of that capability. Hold on, you're talking about escalation. Let's talk about the nuclear proliferation. It wasn't just in a ladder of escalation. Well, hold on, let's talk about where the nukes were.

So at the height of the Cold War, it wasn't just missile silos in Wyoming and Ukraine. It was there was the European Theater, Eastern and Western. We had nuclear warheads all over the place there. At any given time, both the Soviets and the US had aircraft in the air at any point in time. Right, with nuclear bombs.

With nukes, right? We had nuclear submarines all over the globe. So land, sea, and air, both sides had it covered, right? So OK, the world is completely covered with thermonuclear devices, very high-tech delivery systems, right, and both sides have enough to wipe the other one off the planet several times. We're at a daytime, right?

Big time. So what happens if somebody does launch a first strike? Because it's no longer a holocaust, where we're just shooting missiles anymore. We have the capability to launch a precise surgical strike. Well, there would be a counter-strike. There is, but this is where the ladder of escalation you were talking about comes in.

Well, yeah, you liken it to a chess game. There's a strike, then a counter-strike, and then increasing levels of strikes as they climb up the ladder. Right, so basically, yeah, it's like trading punches, right? Right. So you start out soft, and I hit you. I don't.

I bring it all from the beginning. Well, then I'm really glad you weren't at the helm of the United States or the USSR during the Cold War. But let's say we were evenly matched, right? Yeah. And I punch you. You punch me a little harder. I punch you a little harder.

Right. And then it keeps going on until finally one of us is like, OK, stop, right? Uncle. But what we've done is we've escalated the damage we're doing to one another. Right. But there's something very important that's easily

overlooked in that trade of punches. There's a moment that comes after each punch. Where someone might quit. Where somebody has the option to quit, right? Or trade another punch, and if you trade another punch, you're going to escalate. Right, so in the case of nuclear arms that are real precise at this point, they take out

a few of our military bases. We take a few of theirs out. And all of a sudden, one of the leaders steps back and says, wait a minute, we're going to annihilate everybody. We have to stop. You win. Right, exactly.

And what's crazy is the fact that there would even be a retaliatory strike is all based on saving face, which is kind of disgusting in and of itself. Yeah, both sides had this kind of agreement. I can't remember what it was called, where it's like, in the ladder of escalation, first you start with, say, a nuclear silo. And then the next wrong on the ladder is actual troops.

And then the next wrong after that is maybe a rural area. Then after that is a city, and it keeps going. And they're eye-emming each other between. Give up yet? Both sides knew what was coming next. It was part of the ladder of escalation. Luckily, we never engaged in that. And luckily, there was no instant messaging back then, too.

I know. That would have been fun. Or it could have saved, well, I guess we were saved. But Chuck, I know you recognize the ladder of escalation because your favorite movie, or one of them, had this factor heavily into it. Sure, War Games. Did we talk about this one in the steel and nuclear bomber?

Was it another one? We've talked about it at least one other time. Yeah, it's a great movie. What are we up to, like 10,090 podcasts so far? I think so. And we've mentioned War Games in about half of those. I would say so. In 1983, a young Matthew Broderick, although he still

looks exactly the same. He really does, doesn't he? He doesn't age. Sarah Jessica Parker hasn't aged either. Yeah, but if you look at Square Peg's, her versus Sex in the City, her, there's quite a difference. OK. Although I still don't find her very attractive, to be honest.

Oh, Chuck. I'm going to hear from the ladies on that one. And Sarah Jessica Parker. Dude, if she listened to the show, that'd be great. You're really hot, Sarah Jessica Parker. Yeah, Josh, in War Games, Matthew Broderick hacks into the NORAD system and to play some games. And what he chooses to play is Thermonuclear War.

And the computer constantly, at the end of the movie, it's like the only way to win is not to play. Right. Which is true. Which is actually correct. And that is right on the money. It's also akin to an actual game theory exercise called the Prisoner's Dilemma.

Yeah, that's cool. Tell us about that, Josh. Well, the Prisoner's Dilemma, let's say you have two accomplices and a crime that are separated. Let's say it's you and me. All right. So Chuck, you're being interrogated in room A. Josh did it.

Well, we're both in trouble. Well, I'm in trouble and you're not. But let's say we're actually buddies and we like each other outside of the podcast. Sure, that'd be cool. And we've committed a jewel heist. So we've been caught, but nobody's said anything yet. You're in interrogation room A. I'm in interrogation room B.

Problem is, I have no idea what you're doing. You have no idea what I'm doing. If you implicate me, I go to jail, you go free. If I implicate you, you go to jail, I go free. If we both implicate each other, we both go to jail. What's the best option here? To not say a word. Not say a word.

And then either one of us is implicated and we both go free. That's a classic TV and movie thing, too, when you always split them up. And you always go into the one room and say, your partner's in there singing like a bird. Yeah, stoolie. Yeah. See?

Rocky's going to fix your singing. And then all of a sudden, they get that prisoner, or that criminal, to rat out the other guy because they think that they're being rat out. Which is stupid. Yeah, they should just keep your mouth shut. Have you ever just thought to yourself, why me? Why is life so unfair?

What do other people see? When they watch me walk by, when I catch my reflection, people run. Like, I have a contagious infection. But it's not my mental health. I know that can be crushing. I'm talking about plaque psoriasis. Bet you didn't see that coming.

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pain or swelling in the nose and throat, skin rash or irritation, including itching and redness, peeling, burning, or stinging, headache, itching, and flu. Tell your doctor about all the medicines you take, and if you're pregnant or plan to be, ask your doctor if Vitamocreme is right for you. You deserve more from your topical. To learn more, visit topicaluprising.com.

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That's always good. Get that people out. All right, so if you want to read more about mutual assured destruction, frankly, I think that I wrote this a little flowery. That's a good article, actually. But it was one of my favorite ones. It was just interesting.

Yeah. You can type in mutual assured destruction on the site. It'll also bring up Tom Sheeve's Game Theory article, which is definitely worth reading as well. And you will type that into the handy search bar, which means that it's time for Listener Mail. Indeed. Josh, I'm going to call this our first genuine unicorn email.

All right. Sort of. What about the ones where people send us pictures of unicorns? It's not genuine? No. OK. That's false. Hi, Chuck and Josh.

You mentioned that you wanted some unicorn stories, and I couldn't resist sending you this one. It might be a good lead-in to a podcast on traditional medicines. This law makes sense in a minute. I just got back from a trip to Vietnam. And as a part of my trip, I went into the Hill Country in northern Vietnam called Sapa.

This is where many minority tribes are residing. And part of their way of life is selling their wares to tourists and offering home stays. Kind of cool. After a day hike, a group of us ended up at a family home, and they served us a delicious dinner of traditional food and something they called happy water. I liked some of that.

Some made rice wine. You can imagine why it's called happy water. It got us a little giggly to begin with. And what really got us going was seeing the lady at the house nonchalantly walk out of the kitchen with a cow's horn stuck to her forehead as if she were a unicorn. OK.

When we finally contained ourselves, we all felt like schleps because our guide explained that this was a traditional way of getting rid of headaches. You put the horn in the fire. You brand it to your forehead. And then after a short time, you take it off. And for the next two weeks, you have the round red mark on your forehead.

Maybe it hurt more than the headache. And therefore, to remind us of it, I'm not sure. Doesn't sound like the best. Crazy? Yeah. Anyway, this is my semi-unicorn story. Thanks for the great podcast from Aang, who is a Canadian listening in Indonesia.

And say Vietnam again. Vietnam? Nam? Well, thanks, Aang, for that. Actually, yes, that is definitely the closest thing to an actual unicorn listener mail we've gotten so far. Indeed. If you have any Cold War stories or any unicorn stories

or your name is Aang or contains those letters in that same arrangement, send us an email. You can send it to StuffPodcast at HowStuffWorks.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. Want more HowStuffWorks? Check out our blogs on the HowStuffWorks.com home page. You're ready to travel in 2023.

And since 1981, Gate One Travel has been providing more of the world for less. Let Gate One handle the planning for you with affordable escorted tours and European river cruises. And right now, through January 30th, use promo code HEART20 to receive 20% off your tour. That's promo code HEART20 through January 30th. Visit gateonetravel.com for more information

or to book your tour. That's GateTheNumberOneTravel.com. Once again, use promo code HEART20 through January 30th to receive 20% off your 2023 trip. The South Dakota Stories, volume two. I could see beyond the black hills and the way they called for exploration. I could feel the air, the way it paints against skin

and fills hungry lungs. I could hear the way the water ran for miles and the way the bison grazed. The way our boots meet the earth as we step past expected. I could imagine my time in South Dakota and I wish to go back because there's so much South Dakota, so little time.