Something that doesn’t often get remarked upon is that the Cold War wasn’t the first instance of the strategy of MAD. World War 1 was the culmination of a MAD strategy gone awry.
How did World War 1 involve mutually assured destruction? It seems to me that destruction can’t have been particularly strongly assured given that the significant powers on one of the sides wasn’t destroyed. There were significant casualties and economic cost but MAD tends to imply something more than just “even the winner has casualties!” considerations. Are you using “MAD” far more loosely than I would expected or making some claim about history that surprises me?
(By contrast a Cold War in which both sides had lots of nuclear weapons stockpiled actually could result in mutual destruction if someone made a wrong move.)
Far more loosely. Part of the object behind the complex network of alliances was to make war too costly to initiate. Once war was initiated, however, it was guaranteed to be on a massive scale. The damage done by WW1 is forgotten in consideration of the damage done by WW2, but it carried a substantial toll; around 33% of military-age British men died over a four year time period.
In both cases the nations involved were always one event away from total catastrophe.
France also had more casualties in WW1, and may even loom bigger in our memories.
That seems likely. Absent any specific information to the contrary I expect ‘looming’ to approximately track casualties/population and by that metric France was over three times worse off than Australia.
How did World War 1 involve mutually assured destruction? It seems to me that destruction can’t have been particularly strongly assured given that the significant powers on one of the sides wasn’t destroyed. There were significant casualties and economic cost but MAD tends to imply something more than just “even the winner has casualties!” considerations. Are you using “MAD” far more loosely than I would expected or making some claim about history that surprises me?
(By contrast a Cold War in which both sides had lots of nuclear weapons stockpiled actually could result in mutual destruction if someone made a wrong move.)
Far more loosely. Part of the object behind the complex network of alliances was to make war too costly to initiate. Once war was initiated, however, it was guaranteed to be on a massive scale. The damage done by WW1 is forgotten in consideration of the damage done by WW2, but it carried a substantial toll; around 33% of military-age British men died over a four year time period.
In both cases the nations involved were always one event away from total catastrophe.
It tends not to be forgotten here. Australia had far more casualties in the first world war than the second.
France also had more casualties in WW1, and may even loom bigger in our memories.
That seems likely. Absent any specific information to the contrary I expect ‘looming’ to approximately track casualties/population and by that metric France was over three times worse off than Australia.