Despite the popular Cold War concept of mutually assured destruction (MAD), the United States and Soviet Union engaged in risky, escalatory nuclear competition despite the costs and risks. University of Cincinnati associate professor and Cato adjunct scholar Brendan Rittenhouse Green discusses what drove this competition and explains the role of nuclear arms today, with a focus on the future of U.S.-China nuclear relations.
Show Notes
- Brendan Green bio
- Brendan Rittenhouse Green, The Revolution that Failed: Nuclear Competition, Arms Control, and the Cold War, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020).
- Brendan Rittenhouse Green and Austin Long, “The MAD Who Wasn’t There: Soviet Reactions to the Late Cold War Nuclear Balance,” Security Studies 26, no. 4 (July 7, 2017): pp. 606–641.