Apple has been asking for it, and now they’re getting it.

Cupertino has been doing its best to sue Samsung’s Android tablets and smartphones out of the market rather than compete with them. Now, Motorola — under Google’s control — is returning the favor. Motorola Mobility is asking the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) to ban the import of iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

Welcome to the next logical step in the world of patent warfare: mutually assured destruction (MAD).

For those of you who didn’t grow up during the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union, here’s how MAD worked.

In MAD-driven foreign policy, the U.S. and the Soviet Union never let things get too ugly between the superpowers because if one of them went too far, the other could bomb the other into the Stone Age and vice-versa. So, yes, there were all kinds of wars from the ’50s through the ’80s — Afghanistan, Angola, Korea, and Vietnam — but the great powers never launched nukes at each other.

MAD was a cold, hard policy; but it worked.

Apple decided to go after Android, in the form of leading Android smartphone vendor Samsung, in what Steve Jobs called “thermonuclear war.” Jobs may have been a great leader and a brilliant thinker, but he was no Henry Kissinger when it came to business partnerships and lawsuits.  

Mutually Assured Destruction: Google/Motorola vs. Apple. More >