thoughts on deterrence

Iosaf O As If
Aug 8, 2017 · 7 min read

I wrote this on Quora just now. asked by Yonne Wilbur who has no profile. Could be a student. could be a highacshool kid. Could be a north korean spy!

Thank you Yvonne for the A2A, I have been a bit slow coming around to answering this because I am not sure if I can really add anything. Perhaps how I write out the same general answer as everyone may be worthwhile?

Short Answer — the more weapons nuclear powers have the more obvious it becomes to even most murderous and insane of their military thinkers or politicians that idea of using them. & the more careful the whole chain of command becomes of little incidents triggering bigger ones.


The doctrine of deterrence has now been explained in other answers & the acronym MAD in its simplicity grabbed the imagination of more than one generation, of English speakers.

Взаимное гарантированное уничтожение does not really have the same shock value in Russian. Very early this morning I was answering another question on the historical validity of champion contests. Iosaf Mac Diarmada’s answer to Are there any historical examples of battles being decided by ritual single combat as we see in literature and films? This was when a war or battle was decided not by armies fighting but by a contest between 2 or some other equal number of fighters. Achilles versus Hector for Troy. David versus Goliath for the Hebrews. A berserk Varangian versus whoever his Byzantine Emperor wanted to kick the crap out of. & as a comment reminded this morning the Oath of the Horatii which saw 3 fighters pair off against others. The legend of the Oath of Horatii was meant to teach the values of masculine self-sacrifice and patriotism. In my answer this morning I pointed out quite sensibly if I say so myself that the advantage of selecting one champion was that afterwards your soldiers could go back to their day jobs of farming, heavy lifting, mining, waving giant ostrich feather fans about to keep air conditioned & at least one side of the conflict would be minus a very dangerous murderous psychopathic killer.

There was a certain social and psychological advantage to this ancient type of proxy warfare. There was a rationale to the military doctrine. The kings still lined up all their soldiers and horses and flags and the trumpeteers trumpeted and the drummers drummed and pretty young girls sighed and sweet little pold ladies’ eyes misted over with secret memories & ancient decrepit men of 45 (remember these were ancient times and Bronze was still the Velcro of its day) told anyone and everyone that in their day soldiers had been polished. Yes indeed! The whole community had a day out. & nobody suffered or got hurt. except of course for the champions who were utterly dangerous murderous psychopaths, and the kind of people who you were sure to ensure were considered and would be considered for all eternity as nothing less than semi-divine heroes. The fabric of songs and stuff of legend.

Now let us remember humanity changes little and move thus through the ages from Achilles and Hector to “MAD” Mutually Assured Destruction and “Вгу” or Взаимное гарантированное уничтожение.

The Nuclear Arms race was rather like all the pretty soldiers in the finery doing their best to look tough, walk the walk but never ever get physical. At the bottom of my text you se the ultimate video of nuclear armed soldiers walking the walk.

Do I need to argue my point that there is remarkably little difference in the social and psychological advantages and rationale of the two military doctrines, superhero champion combat and thermonuclear bombs?

The Kings lined up all their toy soldiers and horses, tanks and guns. All the flags and standards glittered. The people rather than knowing it would all be over in a day and they could go home knew instead that it would be over in an hour and there would be no work to go to ever again. It was a brilliant way to keep psychopaths, sociopaths and those with absolutely zero regard for the welfare of others in check. Thermo-nuclear war led to the ultimate naughty zone and time out session.


Now get comfortable because I will tell you a story and it is all true. On the 13th day of August 1961 work began on a barrier officially called Stützwandelement UL 12.11, when finished it measured 360cm or 11.81 ft. It was 120 cm or 3.937 ft wide. It was 45km or 30 miles long and comprised of 45,000 concrete segments produced at 359 East German Marks each. A loaf of bread cost 1 East German Mark and 4 pfennig. Because East Germany was a utopia with bread for every worker they could afford the price of 16 155 000 East German Marks to build their wall. It was quite famous, we call it the Berlin Wall. It came down as must all walls irgendwann fällt jeder mauer — some day every wall shall fall (I link to an article I wrote about it, & every time I speak of it, I note with the respect the father of one of my friends who I never met because after years of torture by the Stasi he took his own life 2 days before the wall fell November 9–1989 )

Of course to keep this humourous and on topic, the East Germans and the Soviets did ask the west Germans and the Allies to pay for their wall.

The Allies said fuck off.

Indeed the Allies were quite happy to be heard saying fuck off and fuck them and fuckity fuck bring it on!!


Less than two months after work had begun on the wall, an incident which had seen a US diplomat hassled whilst in the Soviet sector of Berlin by an East German cop resulted in a truly terrifying stand-off. For 16 hours on the 24th of October, tanks of the USA and USSR stood still with their engines running, 150 metres apart, (450 feet approx) equidistant from the border between West and East Berlin. This was one of a few times, indeed more times than are remembered that there was a real possibility of nuclear war.

Movies and TV & “do you remember where you were gramps when______?” have ensured that the Cuban missile crises is in the collective memory. Most people know that the Soviets pulled back their ships and dismantled the weapon silos. But this was a quid pro quo deal. Much fewer people seem to know that the USA withdrew missiles from Turkey. Because those weapons were secret (just like the Cuban ones) and the USSR saw no propaganda value in telling the western public, for indeed the westerner might not have believed them. They may simply have gone fuckity fuck fuckity fuck. Thankfully Kennedy and Khrushchev had lines of rapid communication which basically was and is to this day a “telephone”. What could have occurred as a consequence of US General Lucius Dubignon Clay’s decision to send M48 tanks and position them with engines running 225 feet from the border and leave them there for 16 hours after Soviet Colonel Solovyev had sent the message “We have tanks too”.

Clay obviously appealed to all those allies who had been saying fuckity fuck over the wall. And Solovyev was right the USSR had tanks. https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961-63v14/d192%7CUS & there we see the possibility of escalation……. soldiers, and horses, chariots and spears, oliphants and war trolls! atom bombs and hydrogen too.

President John FitzGerald Kennedy of the USA and General Secretary Chairman Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev of the USSR realised that it might be a good idea to talk & “have a back channel”.

Berlin Crisis of 1961 — Wikipedia

Berlin crisis: the standoff at Checkpoint Charlie

Ah!!! The little red telephone on the desk. One by one the tanks were withdrawn on either side. It was a choreography, the wall went up & despite it, the USA and USSR reached a deal which allowed for free passage for each others’ military officers to visit each others’ sectors. Soviets got to bring Yanks that excellent East German bread and Yanks got to go to the Ballet and Opera. Just thinking about it now it reminds me of a choreography which is staged between two nuclear powers to this day elsewhere on our planet.


Every day India and Pakistan have a ritual at their border crossing on the old grand trunk road between Lahore and Amritsar. It is called the Wagah border ceremony. It is a day out for communities on both sides of the border. Just like Achilles versus Hector, just like happy Russians gawking at ICBM launchers in the annual May Day parade with which the USSR just to show of its wares or those happy Americans who used to drive out from California to see nuclear weapons tested.

Officially the dance (& it is a dance) which is daily enacted at sundown the border crossing is a sign of rivalry and brotherhood between the two countries carved out of the British Raj. 2 countries with nuclear weapons and a history of war. It all now gets distilled into a ritual closing of the border gates at exactly teh same moment with jingoist nationalist pride on both sides.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-yKea85dl0

Shall the doctrine of deterrence always work? Well in the 21st century as in the 20th there are many who considered it absolutely abhorrent to spend the amount of money and intelligence that was squandered on nuclear stockpiles and technology. There are also those who wish to give up or deactivate the deterrence capabilities of some of the nuclear states. Proliferation of such weapons has been of great concern for a long time now. All states who gave up their weapon programs and had been “enemies of foes” of the Allies saw regime changes. This week the UN security council all of whose 5 permanent members boast nuclear arsenals voted unanimously to sanction North Korea for its pursuit of both the weapons and deliverance systems.

I am horrified and abjectly sorrowful that I really do believe that in either my lifetime of that of my children some type of nuclear device will be used in conflict. Sometimes the psychopath we need rid of, is neither a champion or soldier in finery. He is the king who ought know better.

hope this answer was interesting.

øæ just in case : © iosaf mac diarmada

Iosaf O As If

Written by

Irish born writer & classical musician,polymath, polyglot, libertarian anarchist theorist.Quora top writer 2018.Long term resident in Barcelona."anarcho-cynic"

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade