Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD)

Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) is a doctrine that emerged during the Cold War, primarily between the United States and the Soviet Union. It is a strategic concept based on the idea that if both sides possess a sufficient nuclear arsenal capable of surviving a first strike and retaliating with devastating force, neither side would initiate a nuclear war due to the certainty of their own destruction.

In October 1962, the United States discovered that the Soviet Union had secretly deployed nuclear missiles in Cuba, just 90 miles off the coast of Florida. The presence of these missiles posed a direct threat to the United States, as they could potentially reach major American cities within minutes.

This discovery led to a tense standoff between the two superpowers, with the world on the brink of nuclear war. The United States, under President John F. Kennedy, demanded the immediate removal of the missiles and established a naval blockade around Cuba to prevent further Soviet shipments. It was during that period that the term "Mutual Assured Destruction" (MAD) was coined.

The core principle of MAD is deterrence. It rests on the belief that the threat of overwhelming retaliation would prevent either side from launching a nuclear attack because the consequences would be catastrophic for both nations. The doctrine assumes that leaders are rational actors who prioritize self-preservation and would avoid actions that would lead to their own annihilation.

Under MAD, each side maintains a secure second-strike capability, which means they have enough surviving nuclear forces after a first strike to launch a devastating counterattack. The goal is to create a situation of "assured destruction" where both sides understand that any aggression would result in their own ruin.

MAD was seen as a stabilizing force during the Cold War because it introduced a balance of power and prevented the outbreak of a large-scale nuclear conflict between the superpowers. However, it also led to an arms race as both sides sought to build up their nuclear arsenals to ensure the credibility of their deterrence.

Since the end of the Cold War, the global strategic landscape has evolved, and the concept of MAD has been challenged by emerging security threats and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. However, the idea of deterrence remains a fundamental principle in international relations and continues to shape nuclear policies and strategic thinking.

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AI Technical Trustability Update

While working on an update to my RF Cafe Espresso Engineering Workbook project to add a couple calculators about FM sidebands (available soon). The good news is that AI provided excellent VBA code to generate a set of Bessel function plots. The bad news is when I asked for a table showing at which modulation indices sidebands 0 (carrier) through 5 vanish, none of the agents got it right. Some were really bad. The AI agents typically explain their reason and method correctly, then go on to produces bad results. Even after pointing out errors, subsequent results are still wrong. I do a lot of AI work and see this often, even with subscribing to professional versions. I ultimately generated the table myself. There is going to be a lot of inaccurate information out there based on unverified AI queries, so beware.

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