[arethuza]

"nuclear weapons have prevented continuation of WW2"

I would tend to agree with that. However, the levels of weaponry that were deployed were arguably far higher than was actually required to achieve effective mutual deterrence - by a huge factor. If you actually read the details of what would have happened if the Cuban Missile Crisis or Able Archer 83 had ended as shooting wars then prepare to have your blood run cold and we did get very close to indeed to shooting wars - particularly in the case of Cuba.

Somewhat ironically, given that I am British, a child of the 70s/80s and not a Conservative, one of the actual heroes of the Cold War was actually Reagan - not for his "Evil Empire" rhetoric but because he actually had the decency to believe that your average Soviet citizen was just as decent as your average America, Brit or German. He was, by all accounts, so shocked when he heared intelligence reports of how terrified the Soviet leadership were of a possible NATO first strike that he deciced to open up a dialogue with the Soviets. For most of the Cold War it was the Soviets who were afraid of NATO - perhaps justifiably so as I am not aware of any military leaders in the Warsaw Pact who actively tried to start a nuclear war, which is not something we can say about the West.

[arethuza]

The BBC drama "Threads" still scares me 25+ years after I first saw it:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090163/

One thing to note about this drama, where over 90% of the UK population are eventually killed, is that it is based on an official exercise called Square Leg that was generally regarded as being rather optimistic, a real attack by the Soviets would probably have been far worse:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_Leg

[sethg]

The Soviets had pledged not to be the first side to use nukes. The US did not reciprocate, because the Warsaw Pact could have overwhelmed NATO forces in Europe with their conventional forces (or so everyone thought), so the US wanted to reserve the ability to use nukes in a counterattack.

[rbanffy]

> the levels of weaponry that were deployed were arguably far higher than was actually required to achieve effective mutual deterrence

Hindsight is always perfect. You build a larger than required stockpile of weapons because you don't know if the other side will be able to shot your weapons down.

> one of the actual heroes of the Cold War was actually Reagan

The Soviet Union was already crumbling due to the financial pressure required to maintain their deterrence. The dialog that was started at that time prevented a very dangerous situation that could result in a nuclear strike by either side.