SINSULL,

As previously stated and as clearly demonstrated over the last 61 years, the US, Russia, China, France or the UK are not going to use their nuclear weapons, because each country mentioned there possesses second and possibly third strike capability. The use of nuclear weapons would gain nothing bar guaranteed destruction.

The new members to the nuclear club, Pakistan, India and possibly/potentially North Korea, Iran and Israel are all states that only possess first strike capability, where the accepted dictum always was - "who strikes first wins" - remember that the "model" described in the article linked by BB was a regional conflict.

India and Pakistan are not likely to go to war, they are both working very hard to resolve their remaining differences.

SINSULL - As you stated terrorists are totally unpredictable - I note that nobody has dismissed as being impossible the scenario of a weapon being given to a group of international terrorists. This is comforting to know - In the USA your House and Senate Joint Security Committee, in conjunction with your Intelligence and Security Agencies came to that conclusion about five years ago. Now who do you think would be most likely to do that? My bet would be that Iran would donate such a weapon as long as it was to be used against Israel, North Korea has "developed" nuclear weapons to use primarily as a bargaining chip in its negotiations with the outside world. However, if the situation warranted it, it could sell such a group a weapon and not really give a hoot about who it was going to be targeted at.