It's a bit more nuanced than that. From a practical perspective, China and Russia's possession of nuclear weapons has been a sufficient deterrent to US or NATO action for nearly a century. By contrast, The advent of smarter bombs, stealth technology, and drones has largely freed the US from the negative consequences of large scale bombing campaigns and ground invasions.

The result has been 3 decades of near continuous warfare in countries of little strategic threat to US interests. As a peer competitor to the US, do you fear a smarter drone or an ICBM?