BTW, Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was relevant when both Russia & the U.S. were the only nuclear powers in the world. So, MAD is no longer relevant now that more nuclear capabilities exist in today's world, than just Russia & the U.S.
In short, it's an outdated paradigm, and has been for quite sometime now.
Robert DeLong:
"BTW, Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was relevant when both Russia & the U.S. were the only nuclear powers in the world.
So, MAD is no longer relevant now that more nuclear capabilities exist in today's world, than just Russia & the U.S.
In short, it's an outdated paradigm, and has been for quite sometime now." And yet... and yet... MAD in some version would come into play under your posited scenario where Russia attacks us with EMP.
There is no way Russia or anybody else attacks us with nukes and we don't respond with something very serious.
Call it MAD, call it whatever you want, that's what's kept us from WWIII since 1945.