[heroiccocoa]

The destruction, death and injuries seen in occupied Ukraine are already absolutely equivalent to nuclear war, minus the radiation. Also, I imagine the next nuclear weapons to be used in conflict will try to minimize their lingering "dirty" nature. So the added threat of nuclear annihilation is inconsequential.

[somenameforme]

Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed over 200,000 - almost entirely civilians. And those were tiny little bombs relative to what exists now a days. The biggest nuke ever tested, Tsar Bomba, is more than 3,000 more powerful than those.

And many don't seem to realize what nuclear war will be like. It's not going to be two sides launching little tactical nukes at each other's armies. If nuclear war breaks out, the involved countries are going to try to eliminate the other country. Not their army or their military, which can be rebuilt, but literally completely destroy the other country. US nuclear targets were declassified some time back. [1] While we did of course focus on trying to eliminate Soviet air capability, we were also planning to extensively bomb civilian population centers, medical production centers, industry, and more. And it's 100% guaranteed that the Soviet target list looked pretty similar.

Conventional war is nothing even remotely comparable to what nuclear war will entail.

[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/us/politics/1950s-us-nucl...