The most horrifying thing is, it’s working.
MAD is insane. However, despite a lot of sabre rattling, no one has used nukes in anger since WWII.
MAD has undoubtedly limited great power conllflicts in the last 80 years. It one of those things that works right up until the moment that it doesn’t at which point whoever is left to look back on this era will wonder how we were all so complacent . There are any number of risks that will blow this up, literally.
Unfortunately it’s a difficult road to de-escalate. Just look at Ukraine. It used to be a nuclear power. It gave up it’s nukes on the word of NATO to protect it from Russia, and Russia to protect it from NATO. Russia screwed them over, and NATO is still not acting to help properly.
The gun problems in America are of a similar vein.
Sci-fi writers do love that razor thin line into nuclear dystopia
Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle points the absurdity of this situation perfectly.