Keep Calm And Think MAD

By far the most asked question i have fielded this week is are we on the brink of a nuclear war?
As a Cold War kid it does have a certain feel of the 80s about it only with North Korea taking the role of the Soviets in this latest incarnation and most importantly two very unstable leaders threatening to incinerate each other.
Where we had the relatively stable Ronald Reagan on one side and Mikhail Gorbachev on the other, we now have two leaders who are anything but stable in Donald Trump and Kim Jung-Un and that is where it is different.
Where the USA and USSR had thousands of nuclear tipped weapons pointed at each and if used would wipe us all out several times over, North Korea have a handful with limited range but are backed by China who more than make up for a lack of numbers.
One of the things that stopped us all burning up in a radioactive firestorm in the 80's still holds today, the appropriately named MAD or Mutually Assured Destruction.
This is a doctrine in which use of nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender so America won't launch a nuclear attack on North Korea or China as it will mean the end of America and to the same end, North Korea or China won't attack America for the same reason, it would be as equally incinerated at its target. 
That was always the reason given to us kids who asked the same question to stop us worrying as it just wouldn't happen, neither the Soviets or the Americans would be that insane to condemn their country to such a fate.
Trump and Kim Jung-Un will continue to bluster, threaten and try to intimidate each other because they are both bullies and pathetic human beings but neither will want to push so hard to test the MAD theory that stops any cold war becoming hot.