By Madhav Nalapat
During the Cold War, the possibility of any form of direct attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, or vice versa, was reduced to near zero by the principle of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). Each country had the capability to absorb even a nuclear first strike and thereafter inflict unacceptable damage on the other.
This knowledge kept the peace. Indeed, the Soviet Union was so intimidated by the U.S. nuclear arsenal that the Communist Party lacked the courage to mount even a conventional challenge, not only against the United States and its NATO allies, but also against countries such as Pakistan that were openly being used by Washington to conduct a proxy war against Moscow.
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