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Assured Destruction is a concept sometimes used in game theory and similar discussions to describe a condition where certain behaviors or choices are deterred because they will lead to the imposition by others of overwhelming punitive consequences.
The concept of Assured Destruction occasionally arises in the death penalty debate and biotechnology debate, though it is most well known in the context of nuclear strategy where it is most often discussed as mutually assured destruction – a deterrent strategy where both participants have the ability to respond overwhelmingly against whomever strikes first.
For an Assured Destruction strategy to be successful:
- the threat must be known in advance
- the threat must be credible both in the opponent’s ability to retaliate and in the opponent’s moral willingness to retaliate
- the target of the strategy must behave based on rational self-interest
- Three-man cells in terrorist organizations, who establish interlocking treaties between each pair of the participants for the death of any party who refuses to cooperate
- Poison pills in stockholder agreements
- Highly punitive criminal and civil punishments for drug possession
- Psychologists, notably B. F. Skinner, determined that promises of punishment seem to play little or no role in deterrence of adult behavior. Challengers of the general application of Assured Destruction tactics point to the failure of post-facto measures to end standoffs presumed to lead to mutually assured destruction, the role of martyrs and the effectiveness of suicide attacks.