Pete,

I submit that you have the situation exactly in reverse. US Strategic Command, which has operational control over US nuclear forces, states that the US must be “irrational and vindictive”, leadership elements should appear “out of control” it “hurts to portray ourselves as too fully rational and coolheaded”. The US is the world’s leading rogue state. No other state uses military force contrary to the rules of international order to the degree that the US does. As Strategic Command states US nuclear weapons cast a “shadow” over any conflict in which the US is engaged.

It is a rational response by the potential targets of the world’s leading rogue state to acquire a deterrent to aggression and it is a rational response for the world’s leading rogue state to deny them that deterrent, by whatever means