I don't think MAD is a thing. We've gotten very very close to total warfare in the Cold War, in some cases, taking direct disobedience from the protocol to avoid full-on warfare. Radar bogeys heading to Moskva, core underwaterboatmen being fired at by American flares mistook for torpedos, and the truth that this was precisely the same argument wielded by "the Great Illusion" in 1911, saying that no big war would come about in the great European strengthes, as it would beget so much wrecking with the machineguns (https://youtu.be/-ucjJ7SQ5eY?t=5m).

Vladimir Zhirinovski

That's what I'm talking about. These folk gain credibility whenever America expands east with a new base. There's Eurasian nationalists, national communists, this insane prick, and they're all gaining traction when America moves farther east. It's going to be bad when a president that's proven she's poor at planning in the long term (Libya, Syria) decides that Limonov or Vladimir went too far and kills a bunch of folk and starts a war.

Contradictory to common belief, nukes are devices of peace not war.

For every war a nuke cause, there are mathematically v infinite wars a nuke ended. This is excluding ww2 because the use of nukes was flamboyant and irrational at best. This is all to say that up till now nukes have never caused a war, but have stopped many like in India and Pakistan or in the Cold War.

It's a shame that some want them to become devices of war.

but have stopped many like in India and Pakistan

They didn't stop the Kargil War

To be fair, Pakistan didn't have the capability to nuke India at the time of the Kargil War. India just called their bluff.

Seems like a fair question. If a country is going to invest billions of taxpayer's money into nukes instead of merit goods, at the very least we should be dangling the threat over our enemy's head. Mutually assured destruction, huh.

A nuke can't stop a war.

Yes, but it can prevent a war.
For decades, the threat of it's own destruction have prevented world's superpowers from waging war at each other.

Edited 8/4/2016 08:27:03

a quote of one of my frieds

''one nuke, bye bye world''