[Lancelot Jones]

"What do you think our strategy in dealing with the Soviets was? Mutually assured destruction."

Wrong.

The Cold War and Containment

Europe’s post-World War Two economy was in a shambles. Although the United States provided some economic assistance immediately after the war, the slow rate of economic recovery was such that the basic fabric of Western European civilization was being pulled apart. The United States feared that the failure of the democratic governments to cope with their fundamental economic and related social problems would open the door to communist opportunism -- external or internal. To counter that threat, Secretary of State George C. Marshall in 1947 proposed a massive program of American aid to help rebuild the shattered economies of Europe. The proposal was not initially presented as an anti-communist measure and the offer of aid was open to any European state.

In 1948, Congress endorsed the proposal and established the European Recovery Plan (under which 16 nations of Western Europe (later including West Germany) received $15 billion in loans and grants between 1948 and 1952. The European Recovery Plan, better known as the Marshall Plan, was also offered to Russia and other communist states, but it was declined by the Soviets, who denounced the program as an anti-communist effort. As it turned out, the European Recovery Plan did become anti-communist by application, and it emerged as an essential element of the containment policy

Containment, as a policy launched by the Truman Administration, was designed to frustrate Soviet attempts to expand their military, political, and economic base in Europe. The Greece-Turkey Aid Act of 1947 reflects the policy's initial application. In theory, the policy held that if the Soviet Republic could not expand its influence or borders, communism would eventually collapse of its own inherent weaknesses. The containment policy and its role in Cold War strategy took another turn when the United States joined with other nations in creating the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949.

Source: The Management of Security Assistance 21st Edition - Jun 2001
Defense Institute of Security Assistance Management

The Cold War was about containment; the arms race was a way to bankrupt the Soviet Union, and it worked.

Mutual destruction is never the goal of any war...victory over the enemy is.

Beauseant!

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

Actually as I understand it, although I was not well informed at the time I admit, we were willing to use nukes for simply invading. We had a pre-emptive policy back in the Cold War.
If we were nuked, then our response would have been even more severe.

[AliVeritas]

Thank you.
Behold the pen of wisdom.
Education is cordite to their ilk.

Cue Viking Kitty.

[SittinYonder]

Certainly what I posted was an over-simplification of the strategy, but if the Soviets had launched nuclear weapons against us we would have responded in kind. Mutually assured destruction was part of the strategy.

[LS]

You don't know how right you are. In "Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons," Paul Lettow shows that Reagan from Day 1 opposed MAD and looked for ways to get rid of it---to the point of eliminating all nukes. "Star Wars" was almost entirely his idea as a means to eliminate MAD.

Reagan would never in a million years advocate "nuking" Mecca, and Lettow's book shows that his advisors seriously doubted that if the USSR actually attacked us Reagan would even "push the button"---but certainly he would not "push the button" on a site unrelated to the attack.

It's a terrific book, and has great wisdom for this debate. Tancredo (whom I like a lot) should read it and learn from RR.

[William Terrell]

And if, a nuclear weapon, or more than one, are detonated in America, the cause being terrorists representing Islam, your suggestion would be. . .?

[norton]

"Mutual destruction is never the goal of any war...victory over the enemy is."

MD is not and never was a 'goal'. MD was (is) a threat - a promise made to the other guy that he cannot (!) expect a one time knock out strike.

[If you manage to murder me, your own destruction is en-route, have a nice day!]

I don't much care any more what Islamists 'want', any more than I care what Castro 'wants'; I care about a strategy that will force them to back off of what they'd like to see because of what they cannot imagine.

To a large degree it presupposes that the other guy is not crazed enough to want to see his entire culture go up in smoke, and his understanding that the threat is very, very, real.
Problematic but not so much so as to make it inoperable.
So long as we don't manage to elect another Carter or Clinton or some clone from the Sixties.

Beats the hell out of refusing to profile lest it bruise some feelings.