The exercises of Cold War civil defense are seen by historian Guy Oakes in 1994, as having less practical use than psychological use: to keep the danger of nuclear war high on the public mind, while also attempting to assure the American people that something could be done to defend against nuclear attack. However, according to contemporary Cold War civil defense pamphlets, like "Civil Defence: Why we need it" released in 1981, civil defense countermeasures were presented as analogous to seat belts, and the suggestion that knowing what steps to take in the "slight" possibility that a nuclear explosion occurs in your region, keeps such calamities high on the public mind, is "like saying people who wear seat belts are expecting to have more crashes than those who do not", and as with a seat belt, there is never a suggestion that if the countermeasure were implemented, it would save everyone.