Neo-realism and the Utility of Mutually Assured Destruction to Maintain Peace

during the Soviet-American Antagonism in the Cold War

It may be that we shall by a process of sublime irony have reached a stage in this story
where safety will be the sturdy child of terror, and survival the twin brother of
annihilation.1
Winston Churchill, March 1, 1955

Introduction
Many believe that the twentieth century was the most barbaric period in history. And
this is supported by the fact that two world wars were fought during the first half of the
century along with a catastrophic holocaust. As a consequence, at the end of the Second
World War European countries were left devastated and vulnerable to the influence of the
emerging superpowers. The United States and the Soviet Union, allies during World War II
to defeat Adolf Hitler, emerged as the new world leading powers. However, after the end of
the Second World War, the relationship between these countries became deadly as they had
different visions and ideologies for the structure of the post-war world.2
The Cold War was characterized by a confrontation of ideological and political ideals from
the US and the Soviet Union.3 This confrontation occurred in the second half of the 20 th
1 Winston Churchill. "The International Churchill Society". Never Despair.
Accessed November 01, 2016.
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/1946-1963-elderstatesman/never-despair.
2 Office of the Historian. Bureau of Public Affairs United States Department of States. Accessed
October 28, 2016. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1937-1945/us-soviet

3 Raymond L., Garthoff. Deterrence and the Revolution in Soviet Military Doctrine (Washington,
D.C: The Brookings Institution) 1990, 1.

century and it was characterized by the particularity that a direct conflict between both
superpowers never occurred. One important feature of the rivalry between these countries
during the Cold War was the development, improvement and stockpile of nuclear weapons
to such a high level that the world feared catastrophic consequences against the human race
if a nuclear war occurred.
Before the Cold War, wars occurred constantly and were difficult to prevent, and they were
fought with conventional arms that harmed the enemy in a way that the aggressor did not
cause damage to itself. However, with the innovation of nuclear weapons and the effects
that they showed when the atomic bombs were dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the
final phase of the Second World War, it made the leaders of the new superpowers think
twice about their usage before launching an attack against their enemy.4
Thus, in order to avoid a severe conflict between the US and the USSR, measures had to be
taken to protect the world from such a catastrophe. In this context, a doctrine based on
deterrence known as Mutually Assured Destruction emerged. Mutually Assured
Destruction along with the existence of nuclear weapons created the conditions that
preserved the peace during the Soviet-American antagonism in the Cold War and it was
effective at preventing a nuclear conflict that would have represented a suicide to whoever
decided to use their nuclear arsenal to inflict damage against their opponent.

4 Office of the Historian. Bureau of Public Affairs United States Department of States. Accessed
October 28, 2016. https://history.state.gov/milestones/1945-1952/atomic

MAD, Neo-realism, Nuclear Weapons and Peace during the Cold War
Modern history has been characterized by continual confrontations between civilizations5 in
which leaders attempt to prevent an external force from damaging their territory 6 and these
conflicts represent key elements that have influenced the course of international relations
throughout the last two centuries.7These battles, however, were fought with military
weapons and equipment that induced damage to the enemy but that did not represent any
considerable threat to the attacker himself. However, the end of the Second World War
brought the beginning of the nuclear age in which the US and the Soviet Union carried out
a series of tests to develop and increase their arsenal of nuclear weapons in order to be able
to compete in the game of arms race. This new phase of development of arsenal, nuclear
age, created a new scenario in the sense that instead of leading to a major conflict between
the players, it created an atmosphere of high danger about their usage in an actual conflict
like never seen before8 and made the policy makers think on alternatives to avoid their
usage, and one way to do so was by unofficially adapting the nuclear doctrine of Mutually
Assured Destruction based on the theory of deterrence whose principles are based on the
assumption that if a superpower has enough arsenal to launch an attack and cause lethal
damage to its enemy, but at the same time the attacker is uncertain of the potential damage

5 Aron Raymond. Peace and War: A Theory of International Relations. (New

York: Doubleday & Company, 1966), 150.
6 Colin S. Gray. War, Peace and International Relations: An Introduction to
Strategic History. (New York: Routledge, 2007), Introduction.
7 Ibid, Introduction.
8 Ibid, 184.

that its nuclear weapons might inflict, the country would be deterred from carrying out the
attack fearing that it would harm himself.9
Mutually Assured Destruction was unofficially added to the policies of the US and the
Soviet Union after the end of the Second World War. The core of this doctrine lies on the
assumption that no power has credible opportunities to win or even survive a nuclear
conflict. During the 1960s, the idea of non-inevitability, non-necessity and non-expedience
of nuclear war, made many policy makers and political leaders realize that a nuclear war
would indeed cause a catastrophic scenario that would probably eradicate humanity from
the surface, and because of this ultimate danger, a war of this proportion had to be
prevented.10
An alternative to analyze the utility of MAD to maintain relative peace during the Cold War
is thought the lenses of the neo-realist thought in international relations theory. Neorealism- or structural realism emerged during the 1970s 11, in the middle of the Cold War.
The foundation of this theory is usually attributed to Kenneth Waltz 12 and this theory can be
seen as an attempt to update the classical theory of realism and find new ways to explain
the phenomena of the changing international system after the end of the Second World War.

9 Nuclear darkness, global climate change & nuclear famine. Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
Accessed on October 28, 2016.
http://www.nucleardarkness.org/nuclear/deterencedoctrineandstrategy/

10 George Allen and Unwin. Soviet Military Thinking. (London: Center for Science and
International Affaris, Harvard University, 1981), 94.

11 Jill Steans et al. An Introduction to International Relations Theory. (Essex: Pearls Education,
2010), 58.

12 Ibid, 58.

In this new version, structural realism focuses more on the structure of the international
system rather than being concentrated on the states like the classical realism.13
Some of the elements from the neo-realist theory can help us explain and understand the
reasons why MAD was effective in ensuring relative peace during the American-Soviet
rivalry. To begin with, neo-realism highlights power in both the international community
and within states and they look at the systemic nature of its distribution. 14 Neo-realism
distinguishes between bipolar and multipolar systems. 15The international system was
characterized for being multipolar until the end of the Second World War. However, during
the Cold War, the system changed and a bipolar system emerged in which power was only
distributed between two countries: the US and the Soviet Union.
According to neo-realism, this new bipolar system is the most stable of all. 16 The main
argument that supports this notion is the fact that during multipolar system many wars were
fought and especially during the first half of the 20 th century, two of the most devastating
wars took place. Nevertheless, during the Cold War, both the US and the Soviet Union
balanced each other and the international system remained more stable and no direct wars
between these superpowers were fought, only the closest times were during the Berlin
Blockade in 1948 and the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

13 Ibid, 58.
14 , John J. Mearsheimer. John J. Mearsheimer. The Philomathean Society. Accessed on October
20, 2016. http://mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/pdfs/StructuralRealism.pdf . 72

15 Robert Jackson and Georg Sorensen. Introduction to International Relations. (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2013), 80.

16 Ibid, 80.

In War and Peace from 1966 by Raymond Aron, he mentions peace as the more or
less lasting suspension of violent modes of rivalry between political units.

17

In this

sense, the absence of military confrontations between states signifies a status of peace18
and this is verified by the fact that during the Cold War existed an absence of direct
confrontation between the superpowers. Also, the author distinguished different types of
peace, including peace by terror, which requires parity of nuclear bombs from both
superpowers and the effects of the use of a nuclear bomb would claim millions of
casualties in the enemy.19
The Cold Was can be considered as the closest to peace by terror that we have ever
reached. Peace by terror involves the use of the deterrence theory,20 in this case, Mutually
Assured Destruction, meaning that both superpower have similar nuclear capabilities and
played a game to threaten to use them. And peace by terror is also related to a clash of
ideologies21. During the Cold War, the divergent ideologies from the two superpowers
created an atmosphere of rivalry, occasioning that every action made or decision taken by
one superpower seemed dangerous for the other and for the entire Cold War, this dispute
led to a competition from both sides.

17 Aron, 151.
18 Ibid, 151.
19 Ibid, 159.
20 Ibid, 163.
21 Ibid, 164.

Neo-realism shares the anarchic vision of the international system made by the classical
realism22, in which the lack of supreme authority above of states creates a tense relation
among states because they fear each other due to the uncertainty of the intentions of
other states. Thus, their main objective of states in the international system is to seek
survival in this untrustworthy anarchic system. 23 In this sense, during the Cold War the
uncertainty of the intentions of the Soviet and American side created tensions between
them, however, as the main goal of the states is survival, a nuclear war would not have
guaranteed the survival or either the US or the USSR and they had to adhere MAD to
survive and avoid a nuclear homicide.
However, assuming that survival is the ultimate goal of all states, they also need to strive
for power inside the framework of not damaging itself. According to neo-realism, states
pursue power in order to avoid being vulnerable in the anarchic system. Also, the
possession of offensive military capabilities allow states to protect themselves 24. In this
sense, the arms race that took place during the Cold War between the US and the Soviet
Union can be seen as an attempt to develop and improve their capabilities in order to
protect their interests from the enemy.
Neo-realism distinguishes between offensive and defensive realism25 in terms of the kind
and amount of power that a state should develop. The main goal for offensive realists is

22 Mearsheimer, 73.
23 Ibid, 74.
24 Mearsheimer, 73.
25 Ibid, 76.

obtaining power at all costs26 and by all means without worrying if they harm another
state and this is based on the assumption that the anarchic international system
propitiates the hunger of power among states. On the other hand, defensive realists
believe that the structure of the international system indeed creates some arguments to
contain or limit the seeking of power by the states27. In this sense, MAD acted as a tool to
contain the seeking of power from both the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold
War. Both countries were seeking the supremacy in the international system, however, in
order to be able to survive in it, they had to limit themselves and maintain their position
in the system without forgetting about the existence of the other superpower.
In the work The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May Be Better by Kenneth Waltz,
known as the founder of structural realism, he claims some ideas regarding the
importance of nuclear weapons in securing peace in the bipolar system from the Cold
War. He argues that the very existence of nuclear weapons, indeed, make wars less prone
to happen28. The proliferation of nuclear weapons began at the last phase of the Second
World War and the later competition of the US and the USSR in terms of military
capabilities, were influential at maintaining relative peace between them. The fact that
bipolar system comprises only two superpowers, allows each one of them to keep
surveillance between each other. 29Mutually Assured Destruction praises the idea that
26 Ibid, 76.
27 Mearsheimer, 76.
28 Kenneth Waltz. Sogang University. Accessed on October 10, 2016.
http://home.sogang.ac.kr/sites/jaechun/courses/Lists/b6/Attachments/39/5.%20The%20spread
%20of%20nuclear%20weapons.pdf, 26.

29 Ibid, 2.

both superpowers increase their stockpiles to a point where both parties have enough
capabilities to destroy each other, and this is because nuclear weapons are a weapon of
last resort, they are most likely to be fired in defense in case the US or the USSR fire
first.
When the Soviet and American strategic thinking are compared, there are some
differences in terms of the views of the consequences of a strategic nuclear war and the
view on MAD, In terms of the consequences of nuclear war, in general terms both
countries agreed that a nuclear war would bring disastrous consequences to both sides,
making MAD a central element of both US and Soviet strategic belief systems.30

Conclusion
History has been characterized by the continual military confrontation between states
which have emerged and dissolved along the different stages of civilization. Leaders of
such states always attempted to protect their interests and territory and they saw war as the
only mean to achieve this goal. However, the 20th century brought a new turn into the way
the superpowers interacted. During the first half of the 20th century, two world wars were
fought and they inflicted terrible damage to most of its participants. However, during the
final phase of the WWII, the development of nuclear arsenals began and a series of nuclear
tests were carried out and nearly at the end of the war, US dropped nuclear bombs in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki inflicting a level of damage like never seen before.
30 Ibid, 57.

The WWII came to an end and the Cold War began as a conflictual period between the US
and the USSR relations. However, taking into account that both countries were developing
and increasing their nuclear capabilities and considering the damage occasioned in Japan
with the drop of the atomic bomb, they realized that for their own survival, a nuclear war
had to be avoided somehow.
The neo-realist theory of International Relations offers a fair analysis of the effectiveness of
the nuclear doctrine that both superpowers adopted: Mutually Assured Destruction which
allowed the Cold War to remain cold and avoid any catastrophic conflict between the
superpowers that would threaten the existence of humanity.
Neo-realism proposes a vision in which the bipolar system from the Cold War and the
existence of nuclear weapons created an environment that prevented a major conflict from
happening, believing that bipolar systems are the most stable. The international system is
viewed as one where states have to find a way to survive and obtain power in the anarchic
system, however, a nuclear war would not satisfy the desire of survival and in this sense,
the superpowers only used their nuclear stockpile as a policy of containment of the enemy
and to balance the bipolar system of international relations.
It is believed that neither the US nor the Soviet administration intended to start a nuclear
war31 However, the hostile environment of distrust in the cold war made both countries
increase their nuclear capabilities in order to maintain their influence in the international
arena and at the same time the doctrine of MAD allowed them to avoid neglecting their
defense capabilities but only in the sense of balancing the bipolar system.

31 Raymond L., 1

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