At the time, the logic of the nuclear arms race seemed utterly absurd to many.87 Nations were sinking billions of dollars into expensive weapons in pursuit of the goal of mutually assured destruction.88 Safety could only exist, according to the nuclear war mavens, in a world in which everyone was maximally vulnerable to attack from everyone else. This logic reached its
apotheosis in the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, in which both sides of the Cold War pledged not to construct weapons designed to protect themselves from nuclear attack.89 In other words, both superpowers promised to remain vulnerable to nuclear attack.