mutual assured destruction

mutual assured destruction

English

Alternative forms

• mutually assured destruction

Noun

mutual assured destruction (uncountable)

1. (politics, public policy, military) The threat of massive retaliation using nuclear weapons should a potential enemy use them first, both sides being annihilated in the event of war.

Usage notes

• Google searches (3 April 2009) suggest that the two forms of this expression—mutually assured destruction and mutual assured destruction—are roughly equally popular in academic journals and books, but that mutually assured destruction is the favored form in general web usage and in news sources.

Synonyms

• MAD

Derived terms

• assured destruction

Translations

threat

Arabic: دمار متبادل‎ Chinese: Mandarin: 相互保證毀滅／相互保证毁灭 (zh) (xiānghù bǎozhèng huǐmiè) Esperanto: please add this translation if you can Finnish: molemminpuolinen varmistettu tuho French: please add this translation if you can German: Gleichgewicht des Schreckens n Hebrew: please add this translation if you can Hindi: please add this translation if you can Korean: 상호확증파괴(相互確證破壞) (sanghohwakjeungpagoe) Persian: please add this translation if you can Romanian: distrugere reciprocă asigurată f Russian: взаимное гарантированное уничтожение (vzaimnoje garantirovannoje uničtoženije) Spanish: destrucción mutua asegurada Turkish: karşılıklı kesin yıkım Urdu: please add this translation if you can Vietnamese: đảm bảo phá hủy lẫn nhau

See also

• eye for an eye
• internecine
• Kilkenny cats