"bw" wrote in message ...
"George Z. Bush" wrote in message
...
Dave Holford wrote:
"George Z. Bush" wrote:

AIR, the "dew line" was established to give us 20 minutes notice of
inbound
Soviet missiles, wasn't it? If so, I think the actual time when MAD
became
our joint policies would have been in the middle fifties, or perhaps even
a
little bit earlier, to coincide with our government having learned that
the
Soviets had stolen our nuclear secrets and were acting on them.

George Z.


The DEW line was for air-breathers (bombers in those days) now replaced
by North Warning.

BMEWS (Ballistic Missile Warning System) was the missile warning system
based in Alaska, Greenland and the U.K.

Picky! Picky! So when did BMEWS become operational? We're trying to figure
out
when MAD became the joint policies of the US and the USSR. You got any
input?

George Z.

MAD was never a "joint policy" at any time. The idea of MAD goes back a long
way in war planning. It was derived from the game theory guys at the war
colleges. The pentagon generals gave it attention in the years after Sputnik.
I think LeMay was an early advocate. Exactly when it was adopted by the
politicians is unknown but it was in effect before it was publicly
ackowledged by McNamara. If the Martians attacked, it would be put into
effect.

MAD was covered in Kahn's "On Thermonuclear War" published in 1961.
It must have been extensively studied before that. It was probably a
forward-looking strategy in the 1950s anticipating the development of
a Soviet nuclear force.

It was certainly in the US popular mind in the early 1960s. "Dr
Stangelove" in 1964, personal fallout shelters, all that.

Kahn's book had lots of ideas, but MAD proved popular. Kahn proposed
a much more extensive system of bomb shelters and fallout shelters,
but the US politicians did not spring for that one. Kahn proposed all
sorts of limited nuclear war senarios and anti-escalation techniques,
but limited nuclear war was a unsettling idea to the populace.

Kahn thought total nuclear war could be made horrible enough to cause
significant deterrence of the first-striker, but not suicidal.
However, post total-war planning would not be a good thing for
politicians to talk about since it would upset the public.

In a way MAD was kind of soothing to the populace compared with other
aspects of nuclear war strategy, so that is probably why it got some
public promotion.

A bit of smoke and mirrors. Lots of policies, but few were fit for
public consumption. Kahn is interesting in that he aired them without
respect to their political impact.