This is what America thought all the way up until 1983. That was the year we ran one of the most elaborated and sophisticated war games to date, Proud Prophet.

This is what America thought all the way up until 1983. That was the year we ran one of the most elaborated and sophisticated war games to date, Proud Prophet. [1] US military policy to date at that point had been trying to compel cooperation through force and displays of strength. So the wargames were to simulate what might happen if this strategy reached its logical conclusion and the Cold War turned hot. In literally every single scenario that was trialed, you ended up with a rapid escalation to nuclear war, and the complete extermination of the Northern Hemisphere. About half a billion died from the immediate nukes, the rest from starvation and nuclear fallout. These wargames are what caused US military policy with regards to the USSR to take a sharp turn towards de-escalation, and within a decade there'd be McDonalds and Donald Duck in the USSR, and the entire nation would collapse. By contrast we went for force in Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and so on endlessly. And all outcomes have been catastrophic from not only a humanitarian point of view, but even from a morality-free geopolitical point of view. And those were conflicts with nations who were ostensibly incapable of fighting back. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proud_Prophet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proud_Prophet