IRL you had RAND, which did game out beneficial nuclear war. The idea was that only America would survive (as long as we did it first) and it would hurt our enemies more than us. Then the wealthy could maintain a relatively normal lifestyle, like the vault dwellers, while reaping the unharmed natural resources (oil, minerals, metals) of former enemies.

Of course, like you said, the material forces of the real world kept that from happening. The game world doesn't have the material limitations we do.