That's certain, but being hit by a second strike is already much better than a first strike, or, even better, not being hit at all. See, Saddam almost had it with his bluff.

> No nation's military can afford to use nuclear weapons first because it will absolutely result in country-ending retaliatory strikes. There wouldn't have been an Iraq left for Saddam to rule.

See, such naive assumption are exactly what make it more than likely. People are infirm, and all kinds of regime leaders are much better "poker players" than any Western politician out there.

Imagine, you a president of a nation state, or whomever took his place in chain of command. You got news that you biggest city took a hit, possibly hundreds of thousands are dead, than another. You tell you forces to continue to advance, then you hear a loud bang while you sit in your bunker, and there you get a call on your direct line with an offer... to let you live...

I don't see the psychology of warfare being any much different in a nuclear exchange, than in a firefight. You only have one life, and one set of limbs, and with each inch of enemy territory taken you will be asking yourself more and more "isn't that enough?" and you will feel your will almost physically crumbling. Fear of death is a really powerful thing.

When I lived in Canada, I encountered a number of Afghan war veterans. All an every of them who ever been deployed in the field can tell of stories of "unwritten" ceasefire agreements, and exchanges on the radio with Talibans with offers of peaceful withdrawals that never got written into any official report. And this is happening even when Afghan war is a complete turkeyshoot for Nato armies.