Which U.S. policy threatened nuclear response to aggression during the Cold War?

• A. Flexible Response
• B. Massive Retaliation
• C. Mutual Assured Destruction
• D. Containment

Answer: (B)

The main idea here is that Cold War strategy used a blunt deterrent: any act of aggression would be answered with a massive nuclear strike. This approach, often called the Massive Retaliation doctrine, argued that the United States should threaten overwhelming nuclear force in response to aggression, especially from the Soviet Union, to make the costs of aggression intolerable. That stark promise of a nuclear blow was meant to deter rivals by ensuring they understood the consequence would be ruinous. This differs from Flexible Response, which advocated using a broader mix of military options—conventional and special forces as well as nuclear—depending on the situation. It also sits alongside Containment as a larger aim to keep communism from spreading, not a specific nuclear-armed response policy, and alongside Mutual Assured Destruction, a deterrence logic that both sides would suffer catastrophic damage in a nuclear war, but not a stated policy of retaliating with nuclear force to any aggression.