Mutual assured destruction (MAD)

[rich]

The notion of MAD was something tossed off by Robert McNamara in the sixties
and it is extremely unlikely that the US war/political machine ever
considered anything but a winnable nuclear war.
__________
do you think that was the prevalent view (not of MAD, but a winnable nuclear
war) of the Pentagon and of the military brass besides nuts like Curtis
LeMay and Doug MacArthur and and the parasitic think thanks not types like
Herman Kahn  I'm not so sure

the more I read about folks like Herman Kahn, boy does Dr Strangelove make
even more sense.

that would be the real Mad Men TV show

rich




On Sun, Feb 14, 2010 at 3:42 PM, Richard Fiero <rfiero at gmail.com> wrote:

> It's not clear to me what exactly was meant in "Is it O.K. to be a
> Luddite?"
> "An unblinking acceptance of a holocaust running to seven- and eight-figure
> body counts has become -- among those who, particularly since 1980, have
> been guiding our military policies -- conventional wisdom."
> The notion of MAD was something tossed off by Robert McNamara in the
> sixties and it is extremely unlikely that the US war/political machine ever
> considered anything but a winnable nuclear war.
> "Since 1980" could refer to the MX folly of the late Carter administration
> (Soviets could build missiles cheaper and faster than the US could build
> hardened missile silos) which morphed into the Reagan provocations of Able
> Archer 83 and the like.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Able_Archer_83
>
> A cold war conundrum
>
> https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/a-cold-war-conundrum/source.htm
>
> Mutual assured destruction (MAD)
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction
>
>
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