Does the prospect of nuclear disaster still frighten anyone these days?

[abaris]

Those would be western and Central Europe, some of of near east, china, Japan and Australia.

I only quote this part, since the rose colored view is most obvious with this one. First, the USA is NATO and if NATO became involved it would automatically draw the largest part of Europe in. Which again means that the prospects would be the same as they had been in the years leading up to 1989. Europe would be a nuclear as well as a conventional battlefield with large scale destruction.

Leaving human loss aside for a moment, the aftermath of such a war would be disastrous in any aspect. The global economy would crash for decades and, following that, most surviving nations would face instability on a never before seen scale. Riots, civil wars and ultimately "small" wars would ensue for the last clean ressources.