> without much rational sense just to beat the other side
Assumes that just beating the other side was not a sufficient rational motive. Which, given that the threat both sides faced was "you and your way of life will be utterly obliterated", is a pretty irrational criticism.
What's the point of <X>, if <something we only learned by doing X>? There's tremendous hindsight bias in criticising even the Shuttle program on the basis of what we know now, while disregarding the value of everything we learned from doing it.
Even copying another country's technology on the basis of speculative military applications may not be irrational, unless you're somehow privy to all the knowledge that was available at the time when those decisions were made.
The remarkable MAD doctrine itself can be criticised as inhumane or insane, but hardly irrational. It's a triumph of rationality and a counter-intuitive application of game theory, the iron laws of mathematics elevated to places where we really would rather see common sense and humanity prevail.
Assumes that just beating the other side was not a sufficient rational motive. Which, given that the threat both sides faced was "you and your way of life will be utterly obliterated", is a pretty irrational criticism.
What's the point of <X>, if <something we only learned by doing X>? There's tremendous hindsight bias in criticising even the Shuttle program on the basis of what we know now, while disregarding the value of everything we learned from doing it.
Even copying another country's technology on the basis of speculative military applications may not be irrational, unless you're somehow privy to all the knowledge that was available at the time when those decisions were made.
The remarkable MAD doctrine itself can be criticised as inhumane or insane, but hardly irrational. It's a triumph of rationality and a counter-intuitive application of game theory, the iron laws of mathematics elevated to places where we really would rather see common sense and humanity prevail.