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by estro0182 1571 days ago
I am using nuclear war in a literal sense, but I do see how my wording seems sensationalist given historical context.
2 comments

It's not equivalent to nuclear war with Ukraine in either the sense of relative risk (for the reasons I gave) nor in the sense in which the term "nuclear weapons" is actually used. Russia intelligence agents poisoned Alexander Litvinenko with radioactive polonium, but this was not called a nuclear attack because that's not what the term means.

One could argue, at most, that this would be equivalent to a radiological weapon ("dirty bomb"). But even then it wouldn't be correct because of the important difference between purposeful radiological dispersal and radiological dispersal as a side-effect of a legitimate military action.

It is war, and it involves nuclear things. That’s what he meant by “literal sense,” I think.
Ah, behold, my fist is an atomic weapon because ultimately the damage it inflicts is because of the Coulomb repulsion force of the fist atoms with other atoms.
No. Your fist is a biological weapon.
A kinetic weapon, really.
D) All of the above
There is a distinction between nuclear warfare and radiological warfare, which is what this would (arguably) be.