How would world politics be like if the top 100 countries (in terms of military strength) all had their own nuclear arsenals?
How would world politics be like if the top 100 countries (in terms of military strength) all had their own nuclear arsenals?
De Facto countries count as a country for the purposes of this question, including unrecognized ones.
Top 100 means about half of all countries.
So many people having their fingers at the triggers. There would be many unreasonable and evil ones among them.
We would have nuclear war every year.
I suspect we'd only have it once.
I suggest to read about Hiroshima, and what really happened there, and afterwards.
Here's a good book: Hibakusha: Survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki https://a.co/d/8KS4RXC
One bomb kills people in a circle of 10 or 50 km (I forgot), and injures people maybe 100km around. Then it does damage to nature maybe even 1000 km around. I live 2000km from Chernobyl, and we had some warnings regarding vegetables for a year or so.
But the planet has a circumference of 40.000 km. Now let your thoughts run around the planet.
It depends on the systems of alliances and international commitments against a first strike. For instance, the Iran-Iraq War went on for several years and included the deployment of chemical weapons. I'm pretty sure that a nuclear exchange would be tolerated.
Yeah, I think people need to recognize that this arms Kuwait, Tunisia, Lithuania, Oman, Netherlands, Chad, Yemen, Bulgaria, Tajikistan, Rwanda and Cameroon all with nuclear weapons. (Ranks 91-100 if we just go by number of military personnel, active and reserve, an imperfect but very convenient way to measure.)
If I'm not mistaken, two of those countries are currently involved in conflict. (Yemeni Civil War and Rwanda involved in Congo)
Dutch with nukes. May the lords and ladies have mercy.