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" No, I mean Mutual Assured Destruction. MAD. And that's only part of it. As you imply, the problem with MAD, from the standpoint of one trying to bring about Armageddon, is that there is no rational motivation on either side that would prompt a first strike. And if no one strikes first, there's no war. That's the first problem." "And the second?" "MAD only applies when there is approximate parity between two nuclear powers," Mercury explained. "If you have disparity, such as at the end of the Second World War, when the United States had nuclear weapons but no one else did, the side with nuclear weapons is so much stronger than its competitors that there's no need to use them. I mean, after the initial demonstration. It didn't matter that the United States had only two bombs, because they never had to use another one. For that matter, they probably didn't need to use the second one." "So in either case, whether there is parity or disparity, there's no incentive to use nuclear weapons. "
― Robert Kroese , Mercury Falls (Mercury #1)
