LogFAQs > #971751522

Don't see why it's any more likely now than it was during the height of the Cold War when both blocs were fighting proxy wars across much of the planet, even intervening directly and having their own soldiers killed by guerrillas trained and equipped by the rival bloc.

No one's likely to push the button first if they know it's tantamount to suicide. The real danger of escalation will be if someone gambles that they can launch a low-yield battlefield nuke first without incurring massive nuclear retaliation from a third country. (It's not an entirely unreasonable gamble: if Putin used battlefield nukes against Ukraine sometime this spring, would America really say, "OK, that's it, we know it means the inevitable annihilation of the United States in an all-out nuclear conflict, but dammit, we're going to nuke Russia for the sake of avenging Ukraine because that's a noble reason to commit national suicide!"?)