As the folks at
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (nuclearfiles.org) succinctly put it, “Whoever
shoots first, dies second.”
According to one report, the term was coined in 1962 by one
Donald Brennan of the Hudson Institute, which was led by Herman Kahn. The 1964
Stanley Kubrick movie “Dr. Strangelove” wickedly satirized elements of Kahn’s
strategies.
I am not qualified to comment on whether MAD is or was a
viable option. (“Viable option” seems oxymoronic at best.) I am not schooled in
war theories or military history; during the Vietnam War, I applied for
conscientious objector status.
But I do claim to be a wordsmith, so let’s start with that.
Mutually assured
destruction. Does it work as a relationship tool? Let’s see. Person A
threatens to blow the relationship up. Person B counters with, “Go ahead! Go
nuclear. Then we both have nothing. We both destroy the planet we currently
inhabit.” Kids, house, income, savings, two dogs, three cats, and the pet
iguana neither of you ever wanted but the child insisted on all go up in smoke,
more accurately it all turns into domestic shrapnel sent flying from your
respective attorneys’ offices.
Sound familiar? Veterans of divorce understand this
scenario. They and those in their nuclear testing zones intimately and
tragically know the radioactive fallout of this strategy when it fails. “Fails”
may be the wrong word. It’s safe to say the approach may have worked in the
short term — even for years or decades. “Worked” is putting it kindly. It held
divorce at bay, the way religious strictures and stringent civil prohibitions
against divorce once prevailed.
One need not go the marriage-divorce route to comprehend
this. It might just as easily go from threats of infidelity to actual carnal
misdeeds, ending with one’s worldly possessions on the curb in the rain.
It all might end with the clanging silence of ghosting, a
muffled neutron bomb without detritus.
Maybe MAD works infinitesimally better in domestic relations
than on the world stage. An after-nuclear-war planet presumably doesn’t have
second and third chances. But uncoupled and divorced people connect anew or remarry
all the time, getting a chance to try MAD all over again. Or they trod a
lessons-learned path, such as mutually assured security (MAS), albeit another military analogy.
If you like, carry this same MAD metaphor into the
workplace, financial markets, parenting, legislating, and sports. Game-theory
enthusiasts and negotiation experts already have.
Does all or nothing, “whoever shoots first, dies second”
ever work in any context?
In the field of substance-abuse and addiction recovery,
there’s a tough-love tactic that says, “Maybe you haven’t had enough. Go out
and try some more.” Even if it kills you. It’s all or nothing. No
half-measures. You don’t hear this much — how else would rehabs make money? Would
this be provisionally assured destruction and reconstruction (PADAR)?
Being twice divorced and not wishing to add the adjective
“thrice” to that past participle, I will not suggest strategies for domestic
harmony. But as for MAD as a useful gambit in other realms?
Who knows.
The fateful question is: Are you sacrificing a pawn or a
king?
