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mutual assured destruction

mutual assured destruction noun: the threat of massive retaliation using nuclear weapons should a potential enemy use them first, both sides being annihilated in the event of war.

Noun

mutual assured destruction (uncountable)

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

mutual assured destruction meaning in Arabic, Persian and Vietnamese

mutual assured destruction in Arabic

threat
دمار متبادل

mutual assured destruction in Persian

threat
نابودی قطعی متقابل nâbudi-ye qat'i-ye motaqâbel

mutual assured destruction in Vietnamese

threat
đảm bảo phá huỷ lẫn nhau

Synonyms of mutual assured destruction

Forms of mutual assured destruction

alternative formmutually assured destruction

Origin of mutual assured destruction

A pun on "assured destruction" ("a highly reliable ability to inflict unacceptable damage ... even after absorbing a surprise first strike"), a term used in discussions of American nuclear strategy in the 1960s. Perhaps coined by Donald Brennan, conservative defense analyst and a public critic of the policy.

Words formed from mutual assured destruction

  • assured destruction

Questions about mutual assured destruction

What does mutual assured destruction mean?
Mutual assured destruction means the threat of massive retaliation using nuclear weapons should a potential enemy use them first, both sides being annihilated in the event of war.
What is mutual assured destruction in Arabic?
Mutual assured destruction in Arabic is دمار متبادل. See Mutual assured destruction meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is mutual assured destruction?
Mutual assured destruction is a noun.

Words near mutual assured destruction in the dictionary

  1. mutts
  2. mutua
  3. mutual
  4. mutual admiration societies
  5. mutual admiration society
  6. mutual assured destruction
  7. mutual combat
  8. mutual combats
  9. mutual consent
  10. mutual consented
  11. mutual consenting

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mutual assured destruction (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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