Comment by defrost

It's happened before, although with no loss of civilian life.

In 1998 neither India nor Pakistan were considered members of the nuclear warhead club.

Then India detonated 5 warhead sized kiloton and sub kiloton class thermonuclear (fusion / hydrogen) weapons .. and within 20 days Pakistan responded with six atomic tests (non fusion, larger than warhead size).

The interesting thing about that exchange is that India suprised the world intelligence community pants down with capability and execution, and Pakistan's speed of response was equally suprising.

Despite the spectacle of rapid cross fire of eleven nuclear weapons and tense international responses the small nuke treats didn't escalate into anything larger .. and likely served to keep heads a little cooler wrt both India and Pakistan.

All up there has been > 2,000 nuclear detonations across the globe, some definitely intended to intimidate or otherwise push the envelope of possibility.

In that light another small nuke that avoided civilians and had a military target is unlikely to escalate although it would certainly cause a collective intake of breath and give pause.