Idea that this Cold War doctrine was suicidal (for the Europeans) madness is rather popular, I think more than the opposite.

Is popular? I am not sure today people spend a lot of effort in evaluating an obsolete military doctrine from quarter century ago. And is there an alternative proposed?

given that exactly zero states were attacked by US for trying to make nukes

Notice that I didn't say "invaded", though Iraq is an interesting case. But why did Iran make a deal with the US, then?

thing you can only threaten with but can't really use

You can't really use them offensively. I doubt the politicians would taboo the use of tactical nukes in the last stand situation. That's effectively what they are for: insurance. Funny how everyone is tiptoeing around North Korea...

By the way, you know what didn't help non-proliferation at all? The way the Budapest Memorandum turned out to be a meaningless piece of paper.