Anyone who does not want war would do well to recall an enduring lesson from the Cold War: Parties will be deterred from fighting if they know in advance that they will lose everything.
With Russian President Vladimir Putin threatening to use nuclear weapons if the West tries to intervene militarily in Ukraine, NATO must revive the doctrine of mutual assured destruction (MAD).
The logic of MAD was dismal but not crazy. Both the Soviet Union and the United States (or any other NATO member) knew that if one attacked the other, it would be annihilated in response. The key to the MAD equilibrium was that the aggressor’s annihilation would be assured if it launched an attack.
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