Not if your doctrine is counter-force, which was our doctrine until the utterly evil Robert Strange McNamera (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McNamara http

Not if your doctrine is counter-force, which was our doctrine until the utterly evil Robert Strange McNamera (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McNamara https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McNamara see also what he did with Vietnam and then destroying 3rd World agriculture while heading the World Bank (the Edsel, on the other hand, may be something he did the right thing in canning)) changed it to counter-value (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countervalue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countervalue). After that, it wasn't difficult for the Soviets to convince themselves and their military, people, etc. that we were evil, for we very much were.