[Hack&Lube]

Given the course of the 20th century and how wars between developed first nations were going global and increasingly lethal and far reaching through mechanization and technology, I'd say that we would have totally been on course for a WWIII or a WWIV if not for M.A.D.

Proxy wars and occupations between cold war powers battling over scraps of developing countries is preferable to the larger and larger scale global conflicts that seem inevitable of human nature had not the possibility of M.A.D. impose some sense into people by their natural self-preservation instincts.

The cold war and existence of the atom bomb also healed centuries old rifts between Western European countries as they united against the Soviet threat and redefined themselves as allies and the west. It further encouraged Western Europe to integrate their economies (European Coal and Steel Community which is the prescursor to the EU) to further prevent any possibility of future war by pretext of allying against the larger threat.