I don’t think the US understood how far ahead the Russians were in bomb development at the time. There wasn’t really a good window where we had it and we knew they didn’t where the enmity was so bad that we would have wanted to strike first.

The US also didn’t understand how much work had to be done to get their weapon onto an aircraft, etc - so the worst case scenario always turns out to be too bad to consider rationally (MAD)

> Who knows

Well we know he was wrong as his entire premise was based on war being inevitable - all the logic flows from that one wrong assumption.

Also trying to take out supposed capabilities before they are built - doesn't mean the Russia people are suddenly freed from communism. ( cf Iran ). Also there is a premise that it's somehow a one off event. When in reality you'd have to constantly monitor and potentially constantly strike ( cf Iran ).

Perhaps it was convenient for everyone involved to have an obvious enemy. Say the US wiped out the USSR... then what? Hegemonies are not known to work well without some bogeyman to conquer or rally against. The USSR was a very convenient enemy for the US, and vice versa.