Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a term coined to describe a system where both adversaries can withstand a first-strike offensive and are able to deliver a devastating second Kegley and Wittkopf, 518. In his ‘Study Guide to Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove’, Lindley says that “When Mutually Assured Destruction(MAD) is achieved, it becomes illogical to ever use nuclear weapons, no matter the scenario. If you attack, you will get clobbered.” He later says, “The two ways of making retaliation credible [in order to assure MAD] are by making retaliation automatic or by introducing illogic and uncertainty.” In the movie, this is illustrated through the use of an automated ‘doomsday machine’ and in the inability to recall the mobilized ‘American military machine’.
This type of nuclear deterrence, based on MAD, has been in practice since the U.S. dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. So, why hasn’t this system failed us yet and what wisdom can be found by analyzing Dr. Strangelove? I believe that this movie illustrates the failure of deterrence as an unavoidable outcome caused by the fallibility of human nature coupled with the laws of probability. In 1949, a team of engineers working on Air Force Project MX981 surmised the following:
“If anything can go wrong it will”
- Engineer in charge, Capt. Edward A. Murphy
"Avoid any action with an unacceptable outcome."
- Northrop project manager, George E. Nichols
"The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle."
-Doctor in charge, Col. John P. Stapp
. (AFFTC History Office)
I believe that these quotes describe the unavoidable possibility of failure that occurs when a task or project is entrusted to people. And furthermore, that human fallibility caused the failure of deterrence in Dr. Strangelove.
A deterrent, such as a ‘doomsday machine’, must be announced to all parties in order to have the desired outcome of deterrence. In the movie, this information had not been communicated to the Americans. Gen. Ripper’s attack was intended to start a nuclear war that he believed would be won by America, yet successful nuclear deterrence relies on both sides believing that there could be no victor in a shoot-out. Given all of the information, we could assume that Gen. Ripper would not have made the same decision. Furthermore, it was not foreseen that the one man holding the recall code could go mad, so there were no safeguards in place to counter this contingency.
Once the attack command was given, the attack plan moved forward as rehearsed and gained momentum, becoming less and less possible to recall. We are shown that, although the proper recall measures are ultimately taken, an unforeseen event, in this case one misguided crew of pilots bent on finishing their mission, can still lead to a nuclear holocaust. Thus, the ultimate flaw in deterrence appears to be its lack of room for error.
A small error such as this during the Cold War, could have indeed have had a devastating outcome. Dr. Strangelove portrays for us the paranoia, relative gains thinking, and security dilemmas that were prevalent during Cold War times and caused in many cases by misperceptions of the enemy and ourselves. These images are illustrated through the characters of Generals Ripper and Turgidson, and by the defensive actions of the Russians.
The paranoia present during the Cold War is illustrated in the movie by Gen. Ripper who lives in a lurid fear of communist infiltration and a belief that the fluoridation of water was a communist plot. Lindley tells us that this was not an uncommon fear during the Cold War, he says: “We were really paranoid and we were on a hair trigger nuclear posture with armed airborne planes for a number of years.” He further tells us that many politicians responded to this fear by holding “un-American witch trials” and other indecent acts spurred by paranoia.
General Turgidson, whose name is a synonym for a ‘son of arrogance’, represents relative gains thinking. He encourages actions based not on absolute statistics such as loss of life, but rather on our relative position to the Russians. He urges the president to take this accidental attack as an opportunity to strike at the Russians, disregarding the loss of American life in retaliation as less than that which would be incurred by the Russians. He also goads the president to, on the onset of nuclear winter, take action to ensure that the Russians do not hide more people in mineshafts than the Americans. As Lindley says, Turgidson believes that “any advantage for them is bad for us”. This is representative of the zero-sum thinking at the heart of the theory behind relative gains.
Kegley and Wittkopf tell us that security is a relative phenomenon and they define the security dilemma as “the chronic distrust that actors living under anarchy feel because, without sanctions or regulatory rules, rivals will do anything, including using aggression, to get ahead, with the result that all lose their security in a climate of mistrust” (p 511). In Dr. Strangelove, when the Russian ambassador informs us of the existence of the ‘doomsday machine’, he defends its existence as the only viable way for the Russians to remain a competitor in the arms race. It is the spiraling nature of the arms race caused by the security dilemma that has tapped the Russian defense budget and forced them to take drastic action. He also adds that the Russians believed that the Americans were also working on such a device.
This type of misconception was very common during the Cold War and often became a self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, Country A thinks that Country B has C. Country A thinks that to be safe they must also have C. Country B, who did not have C, sees Country A acquire it and realizes that they need to have it as well. In the end, both countries acquire a weapon that neither had to begin with.
After the Cold War, this thinking is what led many other nations to acquire nuclear weaponry. Many nations felt that ‘extended deterrence’, whereby a state’s allies are protected from attack by pledges of retaliation by that state(Kegley and Wittkopf, 518), were not sufficient to protect them from the likelihood of nuclear attack.
During the Cold War, the U.S. and Russia were the only confirmed nuclear powers. This is different from the situation today where there are numerous confirmed nuclear powers, one unconfirmed (Israel), and possibly many that we are unaware of. Previously, nuclear weapons have been used as a form of compellance (Kegley and Wittkopf, 515), and there is a growing fear today of rogue nations or terrorist groups getting hold of a nuclear weapon and using them for purposes of terror.
I believe that the potential for nuclear annihilation is still present in our world today, and that it grows stronger as more states gain nuclear weapons. When I think of the way deterrence is applied today, with overlapping areas of extended deterrence and missiles pointed in every direction, I am reminded of a scene that I often see in gangster movies and old westerns. In the scene there is a standoff and the characters are pointing guns at each other’s heads. If one person fires, it’s very likely that they all will die. Sometimes in these scenes, a dog barks, or a bottle is dropped and the bloodbath ensues. The scene fades out with all of the characters lying in pools of each other’s blood. I believe that this outcome, where everything is destroyed, is a possibility as long as nuclear deterrence is a prime defensive tactic.
There are some steps that are being taken to prevent nuclear conflict such as the existing Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a proposed Missile Defense Shield. However, many fear that the treaty will not work because there will be no way to enforce it and that the proposed U.S. Anti-ballistic Missile Shield will cause another arms race worldwide. The Missile Shield is alarming to some nations, such as Russia, who feel that this shield will undermine their current nuclear deterrents and destroy the existing nuclear balance (Mulvey). An arms race might occur if some nations are goaded into building more missiles and developing new technology to compromise the shield.
In conclusion, currently deterrence is the most widely supported theory used by the greater nuclear powers to maintain a nuclear peace. Although, as a theory, it is relatively sound, I believe that even the smallest loophole or error could cause the immediate destruction of life on Earth. I believe that Kubrick’s movie, Dr. Strangelove, illuminates the inherent dangers involved in trusting the security of the world to a staring match.
Works Cited
AFFTC History Office. “Murphy’s law was invented here”. The Desert Wings.
3 March.1978. Online. Internet. Available.
Lindley, Dan. “What I learned since I stopped worrying and studied the movie: A
Teaching Guide to Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove. 29 June. 2001. Available online. Internet.
Mulvey, Stephen. “Why Russia fears U.S Star Wars”. BBC news Online. 16 July. 2001. Available Online. Internet.
Kegley, Charles W., and Eugene R. Wittkopf. World Politics: Trend and Transformation. 8th edition. Boston: Bedford, 2001.
