What does Mutually Assured Destruction mean?

Answer 1

Mutually assured destruction (MAD) was a post-WW2 term used during the Cold War when USA and USSR were building up their arsenal of nuclear weapons (e.g., bombs, strategic bombers, and intercontinental ballistic missiles. MAD is a doctrine for defending your country, and its premise is that you have enough nuclear weapons that would allow you to completely destroy your enemy if it should start a nuclear war. This threat assures the enemy that no one will survive the nuclear war and therefore it is useless to start one. There is no such thing is a limited nuclear war. If one country started it, the other would retaliate in a full-scale attack.