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Following the observation of belief-based decisions, I argue that, to properly understand the different historical outcomes dividing the tracks of nuclear power and synthetic fuels, it is not enough to compare them in terms of objective facts and figures. Instead, it is necessary to understand the role of the state as an apparatus in search of legitimacy in regard to civil society, and the symbolic repertoire that it often must wield in order to maintain its self-image as a benevolent superpower. Nuclear power technology received much greater attention and support than synthetic fuels in the early postwar period not because the nuclear technology was more technically advantaged, but because it possessed important ideological value and served symbolic functions in the ideology of the American nation-state, as well as the ideology of the Cold War. The national security state intentionally idealized civilian nuclear power by exaggerating its benefits and underestimating its problems. The United States was obsessed with fighting the Soviet Union. Technological supremacy was considered a necessity in the country's Cold War psychological strategy. The economic cost-benefit assessment of civilian nuclear power was hardly a concern in the decision to promote the peaceful use of atoms.
A simple timeline of nuclear power development is shown in the following table:
Table 2. Timeline of nuclear power development.
| Time | Development |
| Late 1940s – early 1950s | Atomic Age was speculated as a fantasy |
| 1950s – early 1960s | Atomic fantasy was manipulated by Cold War psychological operations and turned into a myth and enduring belief (chapters 2 and 3) |
| Mid-1960s – early 1970s | The myth/belief of the Atomic Age became a self-fulfilling prophecy and fostered a “bandwagon” market (chapter 4) |