Ok
@clob94 per your request, I just watched "The Bomb". Fascinating film, much of it covered in Richard Rhodes book. It was good to see him so prominently referenced in the documentary. I liked seeing Walter Boyne offering his views. They credit him as an retired SAC pilot but he is also a reputable Air Force historian and author of many books. I own a couple of them. Near the end of the film as they are discussing how popular opinion shifts the political will, they listed many films that played a role in shaping our perception of nuclear weapons. I found this interesting because I have seen every one of them and in fact, just watched War Games again last week when I saw it while scrolling through the channel guide. That movie aged pretty well and Ally Sheedy never looked better.
Now as to your question about whether or not a nation state would ever willingly employ such weapons given the potential repercussions. Let me echo
@Wildcat414, no nation state led by reason would do so. Now this leaves quite a bit of wiggle room as we must then define reason. What is reasonable to a man of the West is quite unreasonable to a man of the East and vice versa. I think the most likely nations to employ nuclear weapons will be those of a theocratic bent, that is Pakistan or Iran, with the former more likely than the latter to do so. I do not discount the potential for North Korea but I believe that potential is at least mitigated for now. The greatest potential I fear, comes from Islamic terror groups.
One final note, as part of my American history classes each semester, we spend the last three weeks conducting a Cold War exercise. I developed this module of instruction because in the wake of the 2016 election it became painfully apparent to me that our students had no idea why so many Americans were upset over potential Russian meddling in our electoral process. The module I put together revolves around a game, "Twilight Struggle" that is a fantastic boardgame about the Cold War. The students get to play rather than listen to me lecture. They learn about signal events of the conflict and must develop complex strategies of their own to win. I have likened the game to playing chess and poker at the same time. They conduct the gameplay against a backdrop of Cold War music videos that I have put together. Iconic songs that run the gamut from Elvis to The Bangles. The response has been overwhelmingly positive. Since its inception, I have run this exercise across 12 classes and the result is evenly split, with the USA winning 6 and the Soviet team taking 6. The whole object of the game is to AVOID nuclear war. If you plunge the world into thermonuclear conflict, your team loses the game. Some of y'all are gamers, if you have a Steam account you can buy the electronic version of the game for play online. If you do that, give me a shout, I'll be happy to get you started.
