I think you'd have to follow through in case it didn't turn out that the world was destroyed in the first strike[1] and other nuclear capable actors remained.

I think you'd have to follow through in case it didn't turn out that the world was destroyed in the first strike[1] and other nuclear capable actors remained. [1] there's so much non-information about what would actually happen that the uncertainty is the strongest signal in the channel. The point of MAD is the "logic" ( that actually inspired Heller to write "Catch-22" ) which is: Nuclear weapons are no good if you use them. They're only any good if you don't use them. Played properly, not only is there no nuclear war, there is no conventional large scale war. This happened. We still ran one of the warm spots in the Cold War at the German/Russian border. And nothing actually ever happened. We could only have stupid and in cases, possibly ruinous proxy wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan (1980 version). That's (globally) better than WWII, conventional or nuclear. Those were not psychologically sustainable. So they ended. I attribute this to MAD. Any technology which allows us to use one simple koan of bullsh8t to keep from killing each other is a very useful technology.