Talk:Massive retaliation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

MILHIST This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see lists of open tasks and regional and topical task forces. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.

Mutually Assured Destruction has never been official US policy, ever. It has always been "Assured Destruction", e.g. we WILL destroy you.

[edit] Problems with the theory section

Actually, Massive Response is a form of MAD. The theory section is also wrong in saying that Massive Response encourages first strikes.


There are many problems with this page. Massive Retaliation is described simplistically. It is not equivalent to MAD, nor does it posit preemptive war. Assured Destruction was actually a policy the resulted from McNamara's efforts to get away from Massive Retaliation. --Corinthian 13:12, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question about the 'Policy Shift' section

Is it accurate to say Kennedy abandoned 'massive retaliation' during the Cuban Missile Crisis? The Soviets tried to intimidate the U.S., but there was no actual attack to retaliate against. To say Kennedy abandoned 'massive retaliation' seems to imply that 'massive retaliation' precluded diplomacy, that the policy of 'massive retaliation' was to retaliate against threats, not just actual attacks. In his Missile Crisis speech, Kennedy said: "It shall be the policy of this Nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union." A promised 'full retaliatory response' to a single nuclear missile launch, not just against the U.S. but against any nation in the hemisphere -- I think that fits 'massive retaliation.'Ten-K (talk) 06:40, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Military history/Assessment/Tag & Assess 2008

Article reassessed and graded as start class. --199.253.177.254 (talk) 13:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)