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Comment by subjectsigma | Hacker News Reader

Whoa, hold up for a second.

> He began by saying that the US has to “scare our adversaries to death” in war. Referring to Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel, he said: “If what happened to them happened to us, there’d be a hole in the ground somewhere.

You cited this as an example of an extreme opinion, but this is bog-standard MAD that’s been a big part of the US strategy since the Cold War.

We don’t want to go to war -> Enemies won’t attack us if they think they can’t accomplish their goals by doing so -> Make sure they understand they will die if they attack us -> no war! (At least, in theory.)

You may disagree with that opinion but it’s not at all extreme, that’s the mindset most of the military has. And it is rooted in the desire to prevent large scale conflict.

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> this is bog-standard MAD that’s been a big part of the US strategy since the Cold War.

That's not MAD as I understand it: The essential challenge of international relations is to create non-escalatory situations - situations where parties won't be compelled or tempted to engage in a escalatory cycle that lead to warfare, which is often unwanted by all parties to it but unavoidable. Obviously, that can't be allowed to happen with strategic nuclear weapons.

Parties that are 'scared to death' tend to escalate; they are human; they panic, they imagine things and act on their fears. It's the warmongers and basement generals who imagine 'scared to death' tactics.

MAD was designed to create a stable, non-escalatory, trusted situation. There were treaties limiting weapons and their deployment, hotlines, verification. Weapons were spread out, including in the triad (at sea, in air, and on land), to reduce the ability of the enemy to knock them all out, and thus to disincentivize a surprise attack.

MAD is only used with nuclear weapons afaik, and only with Russia and now, probably, with China.

This is bog-standard MAD that’s been a big part of the US strategy since the Cold War.

Except it's not "standard MAD". In fact MAD doesn't apply at all to the Oct 7 attack (which was evil and awful and all that -- but objectively not at scale sufficient to trigger a MAD response).

Instead he's calling for an unhinged, completely disproportionate response (nukes). That's simply not what MAD is or how it's supposed to work. In any case it's objectively not (contrary to what he claims) how the U.S. responds to such situations.

It's just bluster, meant to push people's buttons. And he's doing to push his product, basically (yes in part for ideological reasons -- but at the end of the day, as a sales tactic).

Enemies won’t attack us if they think they can’t accomplish their goals by doing so

What you're referring to is general deterrence strategy. That's not what MAD is. It has a very specific meaning and you're getting it completely wrong.

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