I mean, isn't that a bit pedantic? If you go down that route, MAD didn't keep us safe either, it's our enemies belief/knowledge that we had weapons of mass destruction, that kept us safe. etcetcetc

It's all part of it. Without intelligence (from dozens of source) to act upon, and Americas enemies believing we could find meaningful targets and/or hit them, MAD wouldn't really exist. Same goes for not having the tech to launch the nukes. Or a hundred other things.

It all helped, to one degree or another, and that is all they said. "This [X] we're standing on right now helped protect us from nuclear war".

Am i missing your point?