How would a global nuclear war turn out today? Who would be struck?

Depending on prevailing winds Ireland could be destroyed. Birth defects and other radiation symptoms have been evident in Wales since Chernobyl in 1986.

The question of efficiency and power of weapons is moot, really, because there would be so much overkill. The name of the game was Mutually Assured Destruction, and that hasn't changed.

You have to realise that there is only one country which has ever used these weapons in anger, and there are many people in that country who are still gung-ho to use them again.

Films like Threads, and When The Wind Blows, which came out a couple of years later, showed nothing so well as our total inability to deal with the aftermath of a nuclear strike. I live in London, so at least we would all be eradicated immediately; I really wouldn't want to be around for the post-Bomb era.

The first things that would happen would be an EMP that would cut all forms of electrical and electronic communication. So that, plus the blast damage, would mean no internet, no radio, no TV.

If you want to see how things would turn out go to http://tinyurl.com/bomb-that

I think it would be pretty similar to what would have happened back then.

I've never believed that just because the Cold War is over that the United States (my country) and Russia are not pointing their weapons at each other. They are the only countries whose arsenal rivals the other's--since they built them up, they have been obligated, IMO to keep them directed at each other.

I don't know what the English and French would do if a war broke out. Technically, they're obligated by NATO to attack Russia, but we're pretty low on good will in the world lately, it seems. Since they are NATO members, they might be attacked anyway.

The English supported us in our nation-building experiment in Iraq, so I think they'd probably be with us. They might be weary after the Middle East stuff, though, so who knows.

The French, not so much. They've called us out on things that we deserved to be called out on, IMO, and our response (at least from much of the populace), has been to consider them cowards because of what happened in WWII.

I think India and Pakistan have arsenals far too small to make them likely to attack any of the other nuclear powers. Plus, they'd be far too interested in wiping each other out.

North Korea is nothing more than a nuclear terrorist at this point. They might be able to take out a city, but they would be annihilated in retaliation. Judging by their rhetoric of late, they'd love to hit us, but they're more likely capable of hitting Japan or someone else closer to them.

I'm not sure what China would do. They would have been a definite ally of the U.S.S.R. back then. I think they have a significant arsenal at their disposal. They own so much of our debt now, and their economy is so intertwined with ours, that they might be inclined to try to protect us, regardless of how they really feel about us. They'd like to be a super power, though, and seeing as we are the only one (at least nominally) left, they might take a shot at us.

From the early 70's onward the Soviet "Threat" was a fiction of the US military industrial complex designed to secure their profits. By this stage Soviet combat capability was severely depleted by the ageing of their equipment and the poor state of readiness of their forces.

Put simply there would not have been a global nuclear war. If the Soviets had attacked, barely 5% of their nuclear weapons would have actually worked and only about 5% of them would have made it to their targets.

The Soviets would have been wiped out by the massive and far more effective US attack, while the US and Europe would have been pretty much untouched. The Soviets knew this and would never have started anything.

This all came out after the fall of the Soviet Union when old military records and documents were studied by the West, and when Soviet military personnel wrote books and memoirs about the cold war.

To answer your question about today, ironically the threat of nuclear war is actually 100 times worse now than it was during the Cold War!!! It's just that the vast majority of people are too stupid to realise it that it isn't a bigger issue.

I think that is a very complicated question to be asking (and answering), but it's something that I've studied a bit, for the same reason as you, except, I love nukes. They are at the same time the most horrible of all inventions and the most useless. The stupidity of building, maintaining and/or using them, is astounding. That fascinates the hell out of me.

I think the most likely scenario is a limited exchange, where a very low number of warheads would be used and it could happen in a Pakistan-India conflict. Due to the relatively high population, it would mean a severe deathtoll on both sides. It would mean decreased temperatures (please read a previous reply) and a large area contaminated.

North Korea would never use the few nukes they have laying about, because the leaders know they would be vaporised in a retallitory strike.

USA/UK/France vs. Russia, is not impossible, but implausible, as the coorperation between the worlds nations become increasingly closer.

China has no use for their arsenal and no enemies as such threatening them, and the sheer magnitude of the money they have put into the US, they have absolutely no reason, to use their nukes.

Israel. Well, you can never be sure, but I doubt it. They may launch a preemtive strike on Iranian nuclear facilities, but I think the international consequences alone, abstains them.

Nuclear terrorism, as some people are terrified of, is virtually impossible IMO. To deploy a ready for use nuke, requires money, equipment, skilled labor and electrical power, if the weapon isn't to degrade into a mere 'fizzle'. That kind of maintenance would be noticed, I think, because it requires sofisticated stuff. So, neither Taleban or Al-Qeida have any nukes, at all. It's actually quite difficult to maintain a single nuke.

There are some great articles on wikipedia on the subject, which I strongly recommend, if people are interested in the subject, also som declassified videos on youtube.

Start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_war

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=8EF0BD18A0FD2E7F&search_query=declassified+u.s.+nuclear+test+film&rclk=pti (takes a while to see all of them!)

In the current geopolitical climate, I think the likely flashpoints are an exchange between India and Pakistan, a limited strike by North Korea against western interests as Japan or South Korea and *potentially* a new 'cold war' if the planned U.S. missile defence 'shield' ever goes live with installations in Romania, Poland and the Czech Republic... not to mention the possibility of nuclear incidents in the middle east.

Beyond those issues, there's also the unknown factor of whether terrorist factions will acquire nuclear devices and how they might use them - either claiming direct responsibility or, more worryingly, whether they would use deception insofar as faking the origin of the attack (see films such as "The Sum of All Fears" or "By Dawns Early Light")

As for where the weapons are pointed? Well it's somewhat a moot point since warheads are given their targeting data can be uploaded within minutes, not to mention that aircraft delivered bombs will use GPS for targeting or simply HUD-based manual release of the weapons.

On the number and destructiveness of the weapons, some data on the U.S. stockpile is available here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_the_United_States#Current_status

If there were ever to be a nuclear exchange in the modern political climate, I sincerely hope that cool heads will prevail and that it would indeed be a *limited* exchange of relatively low-yield weapons. The real worry is whether their still exists the 'launch on warning' doctrine that might see nuclear force commanders make counterstrike decisions with either limited data... a very real worry should an enemy launch be faked. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov for one such instance of how false data could have triggered a launch)

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I think in the modern day the threat of a government (save perhaps one of the more extremist nations, NK is a pretty "out there" nation as far as ideology and leaders go, I don't trust Kim) is a bit lower than during the cold war. I think the risk in the future will be more in the private domain than the international one. I think the chances of a private group such as Al-Qaeda obtaining and using a nuclear device in the US is much higher than a nation choosing to fire them. A nation still has that sense of mutually assured destruction, NK knows if it fires a thermonuclear device into the US, even if it managed to destroy the land outright, would be met by ships, submarines and any functional bases with nuclear devices of their own.

Al Qaeda doesn't have that fear, they're not associated with any one nation so they could conceivably use a device such as this without any real threat to the organization itself. Many of them may be arrested, or killed or whatever after the device goes off but since they're so spread out there's literally no way any government could hope to completely destroy them. On top of that, I think Al-Qaida or other extremist underground groups like them (whether they happen to be Communist extremists, religious extremist, nationalist extremists or whatever) are often just batty enough they may actually decide it's a good idea. Religious extremism in any form in particular I find unsettling, it seems people can do literally anything to their fellow man when they have the justification of "god is on my side"...

--
*+_Charos_+*

"I have often laughed at weaklings
who thought themselves good because
they had no claws."

I'm not getting into the political discussion going on here since I even though I have opinions don't consider myself well educated enough in the matter.

I simply reply to the OP.

I think that if there was a nuclear war USA would be involved in it. Simply because 1. They have the weapons. 2. They've shown in the past that they're not afraid to use them. 3. They've been actively involved in many conflicts even in recent time and even invaded other countries. Contrary to Europe which big countries in the past were the ones fighting wars but now are rather peaceful, in comparison. Who would the enemy be then? Probably several countries working together since not many would go against the US alone. However such a situation is not something I see happening to ay but rather something that perhaps could happen in the future. All the wars going on needs to escalate a lot more for nuclear weapons to be used.

So who would be hit? In my scenario the US obviously and the enemy countries. However I think the conflict could escalate and involve Europe. After all if USA is attacked I think at least the UK and France would come to it's aid. They came to their aid during WWII after all. Things have changed since WWII so I think Germany would help as well and perhaps even more countries. Which would mean Europe could come under attack as well.

I think there are regions which could avoid being hit. I myself live in Sweden which even avoided being dragged into WWII. Because we acted like cowards and claimed neutrality of course but nonetheless war did not reach Sweden. I think that in ANY nuclear war scenario we'd not be among the first to get hit or even hit at all. Sure we'd be extremely easy to invade due to our small population and lack of military resources but because of that same reason we're not a threat either. Perhaps in a later stage of the war the enemy (and by enemy I mean whoever is fighting USA and Europe since if we had to pick a side we'd of course pick USA and the rest of Europe) would look in our direction because of our nature resources. I believe that would mean a invasion rather than nuking us not to ruin those nature resources. And like I said, we wouldn't be able to put up much of a defence. In conclusion, mainly I think we'd avoid being hit because 1. We're not a treat to anyone. 2. In the past we've managed to stay neutral and maybe we'd manage to do so again in a possible future war.

Just my two cents. A scenario which perhaps seems all wrong to those who have studied these matters. I haven't so this is just opinions and guesses rather than serious analysis of the political climate of the world today.


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