Really the only countries that have the arsenals capable of possibly setting off a world wide nuclear war would be the United States, Soviet Union/Russia, China, France and Great Britain. Israel, India, Pakistan, South Africa (who had nukes and got rid of them) are only capable of setting off a regional war at most -albeit a very very nasty one - unless the Israelis decided to nuke the Soviets/Russians which they threatened to do in 1973 (i.e. if we are going down then everyone is going down).
Think of Germany in the book Cauldron - they invade Poland as part of an alliance with France. But while they can sink ships, shoot down planes and do a lot of damage on the ground they really cant threaten the UK and the US itself with real major damage - only France with its nukes can do that.
Thats why if the war had only been Soviets and WP versus Germany it would have never gone nuclear - in the end no matter what Germany by itself really couldnt harm the Soviets - but once the UK and US are in then the nuclear genie is out of the bottle.
I still think in V1 the Soviets went nuclear too early - I think the creators of the game saw it as necessary to destroy the US production capacity before it got to the point that there was no realistic way for the Soviets to get to the Kalisz moment - but Soviet territory had barely been touched by invaders yet in the war and off they go to the nukes. Much more realistic would have been nuking the Chinese and then transferring everything they had to the West and if they still cant stop them then they go nuclear on the West.
Nuking China back then wasnt that big a risk to the Soviet Union as a whole - but nuking the US and UK is a much bigger deal - and in V4 they hit the French big time too - there is no way the French dont say hi with a hundred or so warheads to the Soviets as well.
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