Yep. That MAD prevents nuclear strikes is an absolute article of faith at this point, used to reject unease outright; not an objective, practical calculus. Like

Yep. That MAD prevents nuclear strikes is an absolute article of faith at this point, used to reject unease outright; not an objective, practical calculus. Like all natural phenomena there will be exceptions and deviations. A nuclear incident is inevitable. The real question to my mind is whether the benefit of nuclear deterrence suppressing non-nuclear conflict is greater than the cost that will be incurred from MAD failures/exceptions. But that's an almost impossible question to answer today. Still, it's a more honest perspective. I suspect we don't look at in this way because the public would almost certainly decide (perhaps irrationally) that they're far more afraid of a nuclear strike than the slow slaughter of conventional warfare, creating pressure to discard nuclear weapons entirely.