How fucked up is our world? Look no further than Mutual assured destruction (MAD)

This is nothing new, really, but the basic idea goes as follows: As long as a hostile action by one party (country) can be met by equal or greater force (either right away, or as a second strike) by the target, leading to a bilateral escalation resulting ultimately in complete destruction of both parties, this initial hostile action will not take place. (see “Cold War”).

Talk about incentive. At some point in the future (or the past), the reason for being at peace will become peace itself (or was?), in the meantime, death is a good deterrent.

MADness does not, however, take one scenario into consideration. What if your enemy relishes, nay, PRAYS FOR, mutual assured destruction? Where do suicide bombers figure into this equation? They don’t, obviously. They want to kill us, and they also want to die (you know, 82 virgins and all that)…

Yup. we’re fucked.

The world Global Peace Index for 2009 just came out. Germany is tied with Qatar in place 16 (stats must have excluded Neukölln,Moabit, Lichtenberg and Wedding ).

Other interesting stats include Egypt, and Jordan ranking above the USA at 83 (barely beating Kazakhistan — yay Borat!)

Lebanon came in 132 out of 144. You can thank Hizballah for that on Sunday. Numbers don’t lie.