OMAHA, U.S. -- Despite the repeated signals from Russia that it may use tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine, the most likely place where a nuclear conflict could take place is the Korean Peninsula, a former U.S. intelligence officer told Nikkei Asia.

This is because North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has a very different risk calculus, said Markus Garlauskas, who led the U.S. intelligence community's strategic analysis of North Korea from 2014 to 2020 as the national intelligence officer for North Korea on the National Intelligence Council.