This image would deter me from being deterred from supporting deterrence systems: the USSR seems dominating and like it could suffocate the U.S., just as it is in the picture.

Or the will exists during the time that the deterrence system was created.

I think the context and the environment are essential for understanding both the rationality of the decision maker as well as the structure and functioning of the system itself. We may run into the same boundary drawing problem here, because some might say that the decision makers within a system have their own rationality, while others might say that the system itself has a rationality built into it, and that this rationality emerged in part from the environment in which the system developed.

When reading Meadows, I always thought that some of the power of a system is its ability to make decisions in advance for those that are affected by the system. A predetermined system of deterrence can give people or institutions power by making an immediate decision "out of their hands" or something that cannot be changed. For example, systems theory can provide a reason for why negotiations are impossible during deterrence, because a change in procedure would require changing an entire system of behavior.