Editing Mutual assured destruction (section)

===Pre-1945===
{{See also|The bomber will always get through}}
The concept of MAD had been discussed in the literature for nearly a century before the invention of nuclear weapons. One of the earliest references comes from the English author [[Wilkie Collins]], writing at the time of the [[Franco-Prussian War]] in 1870: "I begin to believe in only one civilizing influence—the discovery one of these days of a destructive agent so terrible that War shall mean annihilation and men's fears will force them to keep the peace."<ref>{{cite web | url=http://wilkiecollinssociety.org/newsletter-spring-2009/ | title=Wilkie Collins and Mutually Assured Destruction | publisher=The Wilkie Collins Society | date=Spring 2009 | access-date=17 September 2014}}</ref> The concept was also described in 1863 by [[Jules Verne]] in his novel ''[[Paris in the Twentieth Century]]'', though it was not published until 1994. The book is set in 1960 and describes "the engines of war", which have become so efficient that war is inconceivable and all countries are at a perpetual stalemate.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Paris in the twentieth century|author=Verne, Jules|date=1996|publisher=Random House|others=Howard, Richard, 1929-|isbn=978-0-679-44434-3|edition= first US |location=New York|oclc=32854161}}</ref>{{primary source inline|date=February 2019}}

MAD has been invoked by more than one weapons inventor. For example, [[Richard Jordan Gatling]] patented his namesake [[Gatling gun]] in 1862 with the partial intention of illustrating the futility of war.<ref>Paul Wahl and Don Toppel, ''The Gatling Gun'', Arco Publishing, 1971.</ref> Likewise, after his 1867 invention of [[dynamite]], [[Alfred Nobel]] stated that "the day when two army corps can annihilate each other in one second, all civilized nations, it is to be hoped, will recoil from war and discharge their troops."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://history1900s.about.com/od/medicaladvancesissues/a/nobelhistory.htm|title=Everything You Need to Know About the First Nobel Prizes|access-date=2016-10-04|archive-date=2016-08-01|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160801011956/http://history1900s.about.com/od/medicaladvancesissues/a/nobelhistory.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> In 1937, [[Nikola Tesla]] published ''The Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-dispersive Energy through the Natural Media'',<ref>Tesla, Nikola, [http://www.teslaradio.com/pages/teleforce.htm ''The New Art of Projecting Concentrated Non-dispersive Energy through the Natural Media, System of Particle Acceleration for Use in National Defense''], circa 16 May 1935.</ref> a treatise concerning [[charged particle beam]] weapons.<ref name="Seifer454">{{cite book |last=Seifer |first=Marc J. |title=Wizard: the life and times of Nikola Tesla: biography of a genius |year=2001 |publisher=Citadel |isbn=978-0-8065-1960-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h2DTNDFcC14C |page=454}}</ref> Tesla described his device as a "superweapon that would put an end to all war."

The March 1940 [[Frisch–Peierls memorandum]], the earliest technical exposition of a practical nuclear weapon, anticipated deterrence as the principal means of combating an enemy with nuclear weapons.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Brown|first1=Andrew|last2=Arnold|first2=Lorna|date=2010-09-20|title=The Quirks of Nuclear Deterrence|journal=International Relations|language=en|volume=24|issue=3|pages=293–312|doi=10.1177/0047117810377278|s2cid=143594540}}</ref>