Britain and France (and other small countries in Europe) faced a strategic issue in that "The Soviets" could escalate a nuclear war to a tactical /medium range

Britain and France (and other small countries in Europe) faced a strategic issue in that "The Soviets" could escalate a nuclear war to a tactical /medium range missile level, avoid the use of strategic missiles and pulverise western europe. In the meantime the US would probably use tactical weapons to kill many soviet troops and smash up eastern europe and bits of places like Ukraine, but to strike at Moscow from Germany would have been a strategic escalation and Soviet strategists might have argued that the US wouldn't have made it. On the other hand a British PM faced with 100 or more H-bomb detonations + fall out from the 500 or more that the conflict in Europe would have required (probably closer to 800 given that the red army plan called for 450 +) probably would have. And it would have been difficult for a strategist to argue that they wouldn't, much less "The French" who were all drunk all the time as any good Soviet well knew.