Secure Second Strike

A term dating from the Cold War, also known as counter-force, which refers to the ability to strike an enemy's population centers with nuclear weapons, after having first attacked missile silos and nuclear bases. The desirability of the secure second-strike option partially explains the extraordinarily high number of nuclear weapons maintained by both the United States and the Soviet Union during the arms race.

Secure second strike was a concern that followed the massive retaliation doctrine (also known as nuclear utilization theory) and ignored the implications of mutually assured destruction (MAD). The policy of the United States in the early 1950s was that the country should be prepared to respond to security threats with nuclear weapons. This policy was established in the context of the recognition of the overwhelming superiority of Soviet conventional forces.

By the early 1960s, the U.S. defense establishment realized that the most likely outcome of the outbreak of nuclear war would be the elimination of both sides. This understanding came to underpin the maintenance of the balance of power and negotiation of peace agreements between the United States and the Soviet Union to reduce their nuclear arsenals. The secure second-strike doctrine was criticized by most experts for failing to recognize that the number of weapons unleashed in such a scenario would automatically make life impossible throughout much of the world.