That could be said of anything, military or not. An object, by its presence, influences the world around it. If you are talking about the deterrent effect of mu

That could be said of anything, military or not. An object, by its presence, influences the world around it. If you are talking about the deterrent effect of mutually assured destruction, I again point out that we don't really have the data. A war between large powers is likely to be devastating even if nuclear weapons are never used and that doesn't seem to deter aggression over a long enough timeline. I don't disagree that an escalation scenario is possible or even likely. It probably is, but I don't think the term "always" really takes into account either the breadth of possibilities or human nature. Part of the problem is that we still frame this in a very binary "Western Europe vs. Eastern Europe" way. If Iran or North Korea fired a nuclear warhead, I don't think that it would necessarily provoke a nuclear response, but an overwhelming conventional response. It's unlikely that either has enough warheads to provoke an all out nuclear conflict and they could likely be overwhelmed conventionally. Our desire not to enter into a catastrophic conflict is probably quite high. Obviously I'd really like there to be no possibility of this occurring.