Well, the hypothesis is that if you can ensure that another's aggression will lead to mutual destruction then that other will never initiate things for fear of their own survival.
Certainly the hypothesis was assumed true and used as justification for the arms race, and it so happens that full-scale nuclear warfare never came to pass, but neither of those two points verifies the hypothesis as true. The military stockpiles of the modern world and the ability to inflict grievous damage on anyone who would dare to attack first far outstrip the materiel available in earlier eras, however military aggression still occurs. While we don't tend to have the rampant border conflicts from earlier eras, that can be explained by other sociological changes in global structuring of the world more accurately and effectively than applying the hypothesis of mutual assured destruction.
It's still a hypothesis, just one which was acted on by assumption of its validity.
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chiming
Re: Not a Hypothesis
Date: 2007-01-27 08:51 am (UTC)From:Certainly the hypothesis was assumed true and used as justification for the arms race, and it so happens that full-scale nuclear warfare never came to pass, but neither of those two points verifies the hypothesis as true. The military stockpiles of the modern world and the ability to inflict grievous damage on anyone who would dare to attack first far outstrip the materiel available in earlier eras, however military aggression still occurs. While we don't tend to have the rampant border conflicts from earlier eras, that can be explained by other sociological changes in global structuring of the world more accurately and effectively than applying the hypothesis of mutual assured destruction.
It's still a hypothesis, just one which was acted on by assumption of its validity.