[adventureful]

I intentionally left out WW2 because only one nation on earth had nukes, and only at the end of the war. It's not a valid reference in a discussion about multiple countries having nukes and that acting as a form of peaceful standoff.

The point about conventional war is, for example, if India were stomping Pakistan in a conventional war, there would be an inflection point at which Pakistan would be willing to unleash nuclear war to stop India. History is a pretty consistent reminder about how irrational nations can be, there's nothing about nukes that prevents that.

Japan had not acted rationally for a very long time. They invaded China and slaughtered civilians by the tens of thousands. They initiated war against the the Ally powers and joined with Adolph Hitler. I'm not sure what your point in referring to that is however.

[barrkel]

I think the biggest propaganda coup of the US in recent years is convincing the world that "rogue", "terrorist" etc. groups are irrational. It justifies so much.