For a country as small as Israel, even a small-scale nuclear attack could be an existential threat.

ECONOMIST: Conflict in the Middle East

During the Cold War, when the United States faced the threat of a nuclear attack, U.S. administrations made clear that any strike would prompt an all-out retaliation.

NPR: Cyberattack: U.S. Unready For Future Face Of War

And the weaker party, if nuclear capable, invariably holds out the threat of nuclear war as a way to deter conventional attack.

CNN: The Terrible Logic of Nukes

But as nuclear and missile technology has proliferated in the post-Cold War period, and more technologically primitive countries get their hands on missiles and limited nuclear capabilities, the threat of an EMP attack as become far more acute.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: An urgent memo to the next government

But India's determination to face down Pakistan is clear, with the threat of massive response to a nuclear attack.

ECONOMIST: Controlling the nuclear decision

This week Iran staged yet another "Destroy Israel" conference in Teheran, replete with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's trademark Holocaust denial, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's ritual castigation of the Jewish state as a "cancerous tumor, " and the US as a treacherous enemy, and Ali Larijani's threat to attack Israel's suspected nuclear sites.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Soldiers of peace

Such a proposition was dubious twenty years ago when the only threat of ballistic missile attack was from the USSR and involved nuclear weapons.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Center for Security Policy | ��The Case For Ending US And Israeli Strategic Vulnerability��

North Korea repeated a threat Thursday that it is prepared to attack the U.S. with a nuclear weapon.

WSJ: North Korea Moves Missile to Its East Coast