Which policy threatened an overwhelming nuclear response to deter aggression?

• A. Massive Retaliation
• B. MAD
• C. Mutual Deterrence
• D. Cold War Deterrence

Answer: (A)

The concept here is deterrence through the threat of an overwhelming nuclear strike. Massive Retaliation is the policy that embodies this idea: the United States pledged to respond to aggression with a massive nuclear retaliation, aiming to deter any attack by making the potential cost unacceptably high for the aggressor. This approach relied on the fear of devastating, outsized punishment to prevent war, especially against conventional incursions.

MAD (mutual assured destruction) is related in that it relies on both sides possessing enough force to ruin each other, which creates restraint, but it isn’t a specific pledge to unleash an overwhelming first strike to deter aggression. Mutual deterrence and Cold War deterrence describe broader stability concepts—how fear of retaliation keeps rivals from acting—rather than a single policy promising a massive first-response. So the policy most clearly matching the description is Massive Retaliation.