NUCLEAR  WARFARE

Nuclear warfare is a military conflict or political strategy in which nuclear weaponry is used to inflict damage on an opponent.
Nuclear weapons have been detonated on over two thousand occasions for testing purposes and demonstrations.

Types of nuclear warfare

Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can be vastly more destructive in range and extent of damage, and in a much shorter time scale.
A major nuclear exchange could have severe long-term effects, primarily from radiation release, but also from the production of high levels of atmospheric pollution leading to a "nuclear winter" that could last for decades, centuries, or even millennia after the initial attack.
A large nuclear war is considered to bear existential risk for civilization on Earth.
Only two nuclear weapons have been used in the course of warfare, both by the United States near the end of World War II.
On August 6, 1945, a uranium gun-type device (code name "Little Boy") was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
On August 9, a plutonium implosion-type device (code name "Fat Man") was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan.
These two bombings resulted in the deaths of approximately 200,000 Japanese people (mostly civilians) from acute injuries sustained in the detonations.
For six months before the atomic bombings, the United States intensely fire-bombed 67 Japanese cities.
Together with the United Kingdom and the Republic of China, the United States called for the unconditional surrender of Japan in the Potsdam Declaration issued July 26, 1945.
The Japanese government ignored this ultimatum.
By executive order of President Harry S. Truman, the U.S. employed the uranium-type nuclear weapon code named "Little Boy" on the city of Hiroshima on Monday, August 6, 1945, followed three days later by the detonation of the plutonium-type weapon code named "Fat Man" over the city of Nagasaki on August 9.
Within the first two to four months after the bombings, acute effects killed 90,000–166,000 people in Hiroshima and 60,000–80,000 in Nagasaki, with roughly half of the deaths in each city occurring in the first 24 hours.

The Hiroshima prefectural health department estimates that - of the people who died on the day of the detonation –

60% died from flash or flame burns,

30% from falling or flying debris, and

10% from other causes.

During the following months, large numbers died from

the chronic effects of burns,

radiation sickness, and other injuries,

compounded by illnesses.

In a U.S. estimate of the total immediate and short-term causes of death,

15–20% died from radiation sickness,

20–30% from flash burns, and

50–60% from other injuries, compounded by illnesses.

With the monopoly over nuclear technology broken, worldwide nuclear proliferation accelerated.

The first, a limited nuclear war, refers to a small-scale use of nuclear weapons by two (or more) belligerents.
The second, a full-scale nuclear war, could consist of large numbers of nuclear weapons used in an attack aimed at an entire country, including military, economic, and civilian targets.

Nuclear warfare is horrific. Such a  horrific catastrophe would almost certainly cause permanent damage to

1.      most complex life on the planet,

2.      its ecosystems, and

3.      the global climate –

particularly if predictions about the production of a nuclear winter are accurate.

A study presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in December 2006 asserted that even a small-scale regional nuclear war could produce as many direct fatalities as all of World War II and disrupt the global climate for a decade or more.
In a regional nuclear conflict scenario in which two opposing nations in the subtropics each used 50 Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapons (ca. 15 kiloton each) on major population centers, the researchers predicted fatalities ranging from 2.6 million to 16.7 million per country.
Also, they estimated that as much as five million tons of soot could be released, producing a cooling of several degrees over large areas of North America and Eurasia (including most of the grain-growing regions).
The cooling would last for years and could be "catastrophic", according to the researchers.

ICBM, SLBM are more powerful than the bombs dropped on Japan.

After WW II, the press reporters asked Einstein “Sir, How will be the WW III ?”

Einstein replied, “I don’t know about WW III, but if WW IV exists then people will fight with sticks.” It indicates that everything will be annihilated.