This reaction is exactly what I am talking about.
The cost of a preventative war is not zero. How high it's going to be, none of us know, yet. On the low end, it's not that big of a deal (except for US combat deaths), but on the high end, it's pretty big.
The cost of a single nuclear strike on the US is high - it would be really, really bad.
But the PROBABILITY of that strike is the issue.
If the probability of an (unprovoked) strike on the US is near-zero (which it is), then any cost of preventative war can be too high.
It’s less now, but not zero. It never will be.