I’d rank them more by the desperation of the countries leadership. That means we agree that Russia is at the top. They have a hot war with Ukraine that is not going at all well for them.

I’d put Israel next. Netanyahu is likely to lose his position at the upcoming election along with a number of his party in the Knesset. Turning the always-simmering hostilities in the area into a hot war could give him cover to cancel or ignore elections and retain power.

Then the US. Thats another likely loss of party power if not the leader’s actual position. Again, the motivation would be to ignore or cancel elections.

The rest are all in a lump at the bottom. India/Pakistan is perhaps the only place where nuclear weapons are actually a deterrent. Their main enemies are each other.

China/France/UK don’t have any blood feuds or desperate leaders.

South Korea - my take is that Kim mainly wants nukes for the prestige. With them, he can credible say that NK is not some backward country. South Korea is too close to use them there, and Japan or China would provoke a devastating (probably non-nuclear) response.

—Peter