How convincing is deterrence theory on explaining the absence of nuclear conflict during the cold war?

How convincing is deterrence theory on explaining the absence of nuclear conflict during the Cold War?

Deterrence theory is a strategy used to preserve the status quo by threatening the other side with unacceptable costs if it seeks to alter the current relationship. No nuclear weapons were used during the Cold War, this has been said to be because there was no direct military conflict between the United States of America and the Soviet Union. Throughout this essay I will be explaining how deterrence theory is good and bad on explaining the absence of nuclear conflict between 1945 and 1991.
One reason why deterrence theory was used during the Cold War was because if nuclear weapons have a distinctive capacity and radioactive fallout and is very powerful as it can affect future generations on the natural cycle as well as destructing all life on earth. This is a convincing point that the theory explains the absence of nuclear conflict during the Cold War because the aim of the USA was to prevent communist to spread around to other European countries and by using nuclear weapons it would affect everyone as a whole.
An advantage of the use of deterrence during the cold war is that if nuclear weapons were used during the war then it could end with the taboo which can lead to other states to use them rather than verbal war or even could lead to a larger scale of nuclear war. As Freedman stated in 1996 the Cold war without deterrence it would merely be an ‘occasional stratagem’ and therefore only seen as a way to get away with the use of the nuclear weapons as states wouldn’t really want to use it. Nuclear weapons within a state increases destructive power and this makes it much harder for international relations and peace to occur. These make wars suicidal and unwinnable as there will never be a winner or a loser as both of them would lose not the war itself but lives and resources from the country and as mentioned it would be bad for the humanity as a whole.
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