Cold war question - Nuclear exchange

I'm familiar with the conceopt of MAD. Surely someone in Soviet High Command thought, " I think we could win this thing".
 
There's little sense in "winning" if you are dead, or trapped underground in a bunker for the next 100 years or so.
 
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senojekips said:
There's little sense in "winning" if you are dead, or trapped underground in a bunker for the nest 100 years or so.
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Agreed. Plus, given the number of nuclear weapons both sides had, neither side would be much more than a smoldering radioactive crater if the bombs had dropped.
 
In 1982 I heard from a Navy Captain who used to command a submarine that we could win a limited Nuclear war with the Soviet Union. HOWEVER, after sitting in the El Morocco bar in Naples talking with a Soviet sailor I seriously doubt either side would have own. No Mutual destruction, just mutual death.
 
Navy Captain just trying to make admiral huh? Sometimes you have to accept the fact that you can't win. As an NBC/Infantry guy, I'd know.
 
I think both sides thought at different times they could win.

We both were scared to death of the first strike and the destruction of our retaliation capability. Thats why SSBNs were developed, and then Subs developed to hunt them. The entire cold-war was a game set up to win a nuclear exchange, what the definition of win was varied. That was the point of the bunkers, of "Star Wars" it was wall meant to make a nuclear exchange winnable. If either side thought that it was truly un-winnable, we would not have been on the brink of nuclear war several times.
 
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