It is if that healthy, peaceful individual is under threat from a nuclear power, and nothing else will deter that power from taking what is yours, including your life.

MAD is a thing, and it has been working for longer than Moore's Law has held.

It's kept India and Pakistan from waging all out conventional war, despite the frequent incitements of border skirmishes.

I'm not saying it's good that such deterrents are necessary. I'm saying that wanting to cause wholesale destruction and death isn't why people have nuclear weapons.

The threat of returning violence with violence isn't peace, but it's better than war.