Perhaps you're missing the end result of applying your logic everywhere. For instance, in place of Europe, there would be Nazi Germany, still existing, and looking forward to actually being a thousand-year reich.
I don't see any way this logic could work without the world turning into fascist hellholes.
Not disagreeing there. Some actual diplomacy would be great.
Funny personal thing is that used to have dreams (not really nightmares) that always ended with nuke mushroom clouds rising in the horizon. Those dreams stopped on February 2022.
The rational move by Russia would be to withdraw from Ukraine before launching nukes. Nobody wants to conquer irradiated land, and the Ukranians would agree to a ceasefire.
There is alternative to MAD. Nuking US ships and foreign military bases, is not missiles headed to US, and doesn't trigger 6000 missiles back. It is only launching 1000+ ICBMs that triggers MAD response, and US destroyed, btw.
Russia isn't gonna nuke us. At most he'll nuke Ukraine. Nuking Ukraine will not lead to western countries nuking Russia, but if russia nukes a nato country, they're dead too.