First, he named Japan as one of the world's nuclear superpowers.

"Ukraine is now a nuclear superpower with 50million people," he said.

And the Soviet Union remains a strategic nuclear superpower.

Among other points, Russia has said it wants a special consideration for its status in the partnership based on its standing as a nuclear superpower.

Russia is still a nuclear superpower and has many times more territory and people than Ukraine.

The Pentagon, which spent hard, cold decades preparing to battle a nuclear superpower, calls these missions "operations other than war."

It was a little like planning to take on a nuclear superpower with a battering ram.

Although it was divided between two nuclear superpowers, both were status quo powers in their own way.

China suffers from a civil war as a new communist government seizes power, and America becomes the world's sole nuclear superpower.

It is perhaps impossible to coexist indefinitely with a premodern nuclear superpower.