5 times we almost nuked ourselves by accident

[Zen Badger]

Bad as those weapons are(and they are pretty damn horrific) the alternative was worse.

I don't think a high chance of Europe being even more fucked up by another full scale conventional war in the the 1950s or 1960s is worse than a lower but still significant probability of all out nuclear war between NATO and Warsaw pact between 1960 and 1990.

One would be another setback for modern civilization, the other might have ended human civilization completely.

My point being that the US and the USSR would have gone to war if they had only had conventional weapons and that war would've lasted years if not decades.

At the very least the prospect of being themselves wiped out in a nuclear exchange gave the polititians serious pause for thought.

After all it is very easy to declare war when you yourself do not have to go into the firing line.