What prevented the Cuban Missile Crisis from heading into Armageddon was luck and the fortuitous decisions of a few onsite commanders. There wouldn't have been any crisis if there weren't nukes, hardly a good argument for having them and just some of the idiocy used by some to rationalize them.


Yes, perception is one important facet and shows how precarious this whole business is. If the Russians strongly believe ( as they have suspected at various times in the past ) that the US is preparing a first strike attack the pressure for them to pre-empt that attack would become enormous. Our attempting to push NATO up against their borders is highly provacative (picture them forming an alliance with Mexico) as is to a somewhat lesser degree our tweaking the dragons tail in the South China Seas. I don't know who is the most "dangerous" presidential candidate at this point, but they're inheriting a situation that is becomming more unstable by the day. Unpleasant to think about to be sure.