What i was trying to get at I think was the supreme irony of the apex of the cold war...that a nation so bent on the destruction of class through marxist leninism forged in turn the perfect sword to obliterate it, and that its capitalist enemy at the time seemed to have no choice but to pursue an utterly nihilist brinksmanship it knew it was forbidden to pursue in any spirit other than rote patriotism.
the history of the bay of pigs comes to mind. Fidel Castro, in my opinion, may have been the only communist to have the outright conviction to use nuclear arms, save Leonid Brezhnevs legendary temper and the Brezhnev doctrines closed fisted threat to glass the soviet states who fell out of line.
