Explain how the concept of mutually assured destruction influenced the course of the cold war

Mutually assured destruction was an agreed upon course of action that stated if two countries were to get into a nuclear war, a majority of the populations of both the countries would dwindle and utterly destroy both. Because both the U.S. and U.S.S.R. did not want to lose themselves as countries and their populations, the Cold war never had any nuclear action taken, hence the nme Cold War.

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