Right, so the Nazi's used genetics as an excuse to wipe out millions, confiscating wealth and property in the process, certainly terrible to be sure, and in a theoretical US v. Russia full scale nuclear war, politics would be used as an excuse to wipe out millions, perhaps stemming from a crisis or disagreement over some resource, leaving a horribly stunted future for people all around the globe to endure for generations to come. It's hard to compare horrific tragedies like that but I think calling such a scenario a nuclear holocaust would be a very fitting term. I mean, in theory, if we're shooting nukes over there, we aren't interested in killing everyone, just the people who happen to live over there, right!?

That is a good point, MAD hasn't failed so far, so that is a feather in its cap. Given that the nuclear weapon technology is already out there, we can't exactly just un-invent it, and I suppose perhaps the threat of a nuclear holocaust does discourage casual use of the technology. It sounds like from the MacArthur and Truman exchanges, when they were first developed, we didn't really have a good idea of how to treat them, or what to do with them, other than simply regard them as just really big bombs. Obviously now, they're revered as a kind of symbolic force which I can see as being better and safer for everyone. And point taken about military spending; it's a bipartisan money funnel with no bottom, held in place by some very powerful people who really seem to love that "freedom."