Overkill
The English term overkill (literally "overkill", German translation "multiple destruction capacity") referred to the ability to destroy an enemy more than once during the Cold War and was intended to illustrate the futility of the nuclear arms race between the USA and the Soviet Union .
In general, the “overkill capacity” is and was the measure of how often the enemy could be destroyed. The overkill was an important part of the balance of horror .
Explanation
In order to illustrate the extent of the nuclear threat, the theologian Uta Ranke-Heinemann asked in a speech in October 1981 where one would get the 100 billion people who could be destroyed by the explosive force. There is no longer a shortage of weapons, rather the people who could be destroyed by nuclear weapons are no longer sufficient. Statistically speaking, the gap between active and passive annihilation potential is widening, according to Ranke-Heinemann.
The overkill strategy is still used today by the United States of America and Russia , whereby it is always important to have sufficient nuclear weapons to achieve every possible target, e.g. B. to hit an enemy missile position with multiple warheads. This is intended to compensate for a “loss” caused by opposing defensive measures and / or the destruction of one's own bases, so that the target is ultimately hit and destroyed by at least one warhead.
In today's parlance, the term is also used quite generally in the sense of “excess”.
See also
literature
- Dieter Ruloff: How wars begin . Causes and forms. Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 978-3-406-51084-7 .
- Yvan Vanden Berghe: The Cold War 1917–1991 . Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2002, ISBN 3-935693-81-8 .
