balance of terror

American  

noun

1. the distribution of nuclear arms among nations such that no nation will initiate an attack for fear of retaliation.

   maintaining the balance of terror between the United States and the Soviet Union.

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balance of terror Cultural  

1. The balance of power between nations that are equipped with nuclear weapons, stemming from their fear of mutual annihilation in a nuclear war.

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Etymology

Origin of balance of terror

First recorded in 1955–60

Example Sentences

A late season action scene also plays this out in peerless balance of terror and wheeze-inducing slapstick that keeps raising the level of ridiculousness.

From Salon • Apr. 24, 2022

Yetnikoff played the good cop as well as the bad cop, creating what he called “a mutual balance of terror between me and my artists.”

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 10, 2021

The knowledge that everybody has something on somebody creates an informational barter economy and a reputational balance of terror, a small-scale version of the Doomsday-avoidance mechanism being used by the U.S. and the Soviets.

From The New Yorker • Sep. 28, 2015

Applied in the context of the post-war nuclear stand-off, the theory produced "mutually assured destruction" - the balance of terror that has prevented full-scale war between nuclear-armed states.

From BBC • Aug. 15, 2015

The global balance of terror is a very delicate balance.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan