Nuclear war would be pointless
Nuclear\xa0weapons\xa0carry enormous destructive power in a very small package. A nuclear weapon weighing about a quarter of a ton can release as much energy as exploding 1.2 million tons of TNT \u2013 that\u2019s a multiplication factor of about five million.\xa0During the Cold War the combined numbers of US and Soviet nuclear weapons reached about 70,000. There are not so many these days but there are\xa0still enough to end civilisation as we know it.