Editing Mutual assured destruction (section)

==Official policy==
Whether MAD was the officially accepted doctrine of the United States military during the Cold War is largely a matter of interpretation. The [[United States Air Force]], for example, has retrospectively contended that it never advocated MAD as a sole strategy, and that this form of deterrence was seen as one of numerous options in US nuclear policy.<ref>National Archives and Records Administration, RG 200, Defense Programs and Operations, LeMay's Memo to President and JCS Views, Box 83. Secret.</ref> Former officers have emphasized that they never felt as limited by the logic of MAD (and were prepared to use nuclear weapons in smaller-scale situations than "assured destruction" allowed), and did not deliberately target civilian cities (though they acknowledge that the result of a "purely military" attack would certainly devastate the cities as well). However, according to a declassified 1959 [[Strategic Air Command]] study, US nuclear weapons plans specifically targeted the populations of Beijing, Moscow, Leningrad, East Berlin, and Warsaw for systematic destruction.<ref>{{Cite web|title = Strategic Air Command Declassifies Nuclear Target List from 1950s|url = http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb538-Cold-War-Nuclear-Target-List-Declassified-First-Ever/|website = nsarchive.gwu.edu|access-date = 2016-01-06}}</ref> MAD was implied in several US policies and used in the political rhetoric of leaders in both the United States and the USSR during many periods of the Cold War:

{{blockquote|To continue to deter in an era of strategic nuclear equivalence, it is necessary to have nuclear (as well as conventional) forces such that in considering aggression against our interests any adversary would recognize that no plausible outcome would represent a victory or any plausible definition of victory. To this end and so as to preserve the possibility of bargaining effectively to terminate the war on acceptable terms that are as favorable as practical, if deterrence fails initially, we must be capable of fighting successfully so that the adversary would not achieve his war aims and would suffer costs that are unacceptable, or in any event greater than his gains, from having initiated an attack.|President Jimmy Carter in 1980|[[s:Page:Carter Presidential Directive 59, Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy.djvu/2|Presidential Directive 59, Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy]]}}

The doctrine of MAD was officially at odds with that of the [[USSR]], which had, contrary to MAD, insisted survival was possible.<ref name="Richard Pipes 1977">{{cite web |url=http://people.reed.edu/~ahm/Courses/Reed-POL-422-2012-S1_NP/Syllabus/EReadings/05.2/05.2.Pipes1977Why-the-Soviet-Union.pdf |title=Why the Soviet Union Thinks It Could Fight and Win a Nuclear War |author=Richard Pipes |publisher=[[Reed College]] |year=1977 |access-date=September 4, 2013 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131214024826/http://people.reed.edu/~ahm/Courses/Reed-POL-422-2012-S1_NP/Syllabus/EReadings/05.2/05.2.Pipes1977Why-the-Soviet-Union.pdf |archive-date=December 14, 2013 }}</ref><ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/63015546/Why-Russia-Thinks-It-Could-Fight-and-Win-a-Nuclear-War |title=Why the Soviet Union thinks it can fight and win a Nuclear War |author=Richard Pipes |magazine=Commentary |year=1977 |access-date=April 21, 2013}}</ref><ref name="gwu.edu">{{cite web|url=http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv//nukevault/ebb285 |title=Previously Classified Interviews with Former Soviet Officials Reveal U.S. Strategic Intelligence Failure Over Decades |editor1-last=Burr |editor1-first=William |editor2-last=Savranskaya |editor2-first=Svetlana |date=September 11, 2009 |location=[[Washington, DC]] |access-date=April 21, 2013}}</ref> The Soviets believed they could win not only a strategic nuclear war, which they planned to absorb with their extensive [[civil defense]] planning,<ref name="Richard Pipes 1977"/><ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1977/mar-apr/dorough.html |title= Soviet Civil Defense U.S.S.R. preparations for industrial-base war survival. | author= Captain John W. Dorough Jr. |publisher= Air University Review, March–April 1977. |access-date= 2013-09-04 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20131217102003/http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1977/mar-apr/dorough.html |archive-date= 2013-12-17 |url-status= dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|url= http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/30948/john-c-campbell/war-survival-in-soviet-strategy-ussr-civil-defense |title=War Survival in Soviet Strategy: USSR Civil Defense |journal=Foreign Affairs |publisher=[[Foreign Affairs magazine]] |author=Leon Gouré Reviewed by John C. Campbell |year=1977|volume=55 |issue=January 1977 }}</ref> but also the conventional war that they predicted would follow after their strategic nuclear arsenal had been depleted.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Military Planning for European Theatre Conflict During the Cold War: An Oral History Roundtable, Stockholm, 24–25 April 2006 |journal=Zürcher Beiträge zur Sicherheitspolitik |date=November 2007 |issue=79 |url=http://www.css.ethz.ch/publications/pdfs/ZB-79.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130523195804/http://www.css.ethz.ch/publications/pdfs/ZB-79.pdf |archive-date=2013-05-23 |url-status=live|access-date=April 21, 2013 |editor1-first=Jan |editor1-last=Hoffenaar |editor2-first=Christopher |editor2-last=Findlay |editor3-first=Andreas (series) |editor3-last=Wenger |editor4-first=Victor (series) |display-editors = 3 |editor4-last=Mauer}}</ref> Official Soviet policy, though, may have had internal critics towards the end of the Cold War, including some in the USSR's own leadership:<ref name="gwu.edu"/>

{{blockquote|Nuclear use would be catastrophic.|1981, the Soviet General Staff<ref name="gwu.edu"/>
}}Other evidence of this comes from the Soviet minister of defense, [[Dmitry Ustinov|Dmitriy Ustinov]], who wrote that "A clear appreciation by the Soviet leadership of what a war under contemporary conditions would mean for mankind determines the active position of the USSR."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Simes|first=Dimitri K.|date=1980|title=Deterrence and Coercion in Soviet Policy|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2538421|journal=International Security|volume=5|issue=3|pages=80–103|doi=10.2307/2538421|jstor=2538421|s2cid=154442754|issn=0162-2889|url-access=subscription}}</ref> The Soviet doctrine, although being seen as primarily offensive by Western analysts, fully rejected the possibility of a "limited" nuclear war by 1975.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Sokolski|first=Henry|url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/986955494|title=GETTING MAD : nuclear mutual assured destruction, its origins and practice.|date=2014|publisher=LULU COM|isbn=978-1-312-32984-3|oclc=986955494}}</ref>