How would a post-nuclear world look like?

[UniversalCommons]

Declaring neutrality is an after the fact decision. There are also some ideas about using high powered nuclear weapons on military bases. There is such a thing as nuclear artillery, and nuclear submarines which have smaller warheads which can specifically target the base and not destroy the cities surrounding them.

There are multiple phases in a nuclear war. There will probably be nuclear weapons planted in certain location which will go off instantly. Shipping containers or small boats can easily move a nuclear bomb to a specific location. Also, there are backpack nukes which will also go off in strategic locations before missiles are launched.

The missiles will then be launched. There will be retaliatory missiles. Then there will be a next wave from submarines.

After the submarines, there will probably be a nuclear battlefield with nuclear armed artillery affecting the United States, Europe, and Russia.

It will be a long time before modern civilzation comes back. There will be pockets of it in Africa, Asia, possibly places like New Zealand, south america, etc.

 

[FairlyUninformedGraduate]

Declaring neutrality is an after the fact decision. There are also some ideas about using high powered nuclear weapons on military bases. There is such a thing as nuclear artillery, and nuclear submarines which have smaller warheads which can specifically target the base and not destroy the cities surrounding them.

There are multiple phases in a nuclear war. There will probably be nuclear weapons planted in certain location which will go off instantly. Shipping containers or small boats can easily move a nuclear bomb to a specific location. Also, there are backpack nukes which will also go off in strategic locations before missiles are launched.

The missiles will then be launched. There will be retaliatory missiles. Then there will be a next wave from submarines.

After the submarines, there will probably be a nuclear battlefield with nuclear armed artillery affecting the United States, Europe, and Russia.

It will be a long time before modern civilzation comes back. There will be pockets of it in Africa, Asia, possibly places like New Zealand, south america, etc.

Yup. It would be a world of crumbling infrastructure that cant be repaired, rule by force, summary justice, isolation and subsistence. Someone earlier disparagingly mentioned the walking dead, but that's not a bad example, but instead of zombies its fallout, irradiated land, poisoned earth and cannibalistic survivors. Probably a few larger units than on that show, rather than a dozen or do in a group, but not dissimilar. In other words, hell.

 

[lionhead]

Let's say this nuclear exchange occurs between 1966 and 1970, assuming the contingency operations of every major power goes as planned and civilization manages to rebuild, what would a post-nuclear world look like say 30 to 40 years after? How would this affect culture including music, cars, and social taboos? Would there be more war or less war in general?

that would really depend on where the bombs will fall and how many of them wouldn't it?

I mean, nuclear winter is a real thing.

collapse of economy we will survive. millions of dead we will survive. cancer rates skyrocketing we will survive. technology set back a couple of decades we will survive. but when the planet goes cold, and livingspace shrinks its every man for himself.

global warming doesn't seem so bad anymore suddenly.

Will we really rebuild civilization in 30-40 years?

 

[ahmedali]

Which is why 'declaring neutrality' is useless. If a country is armed by one of the superpowers, and has that power's forces - including theatre and strategic nuclear weapons - based within its territory, any declaration of neutrality will be worth the paper it's written on. You'd need to demonstrate that neutrality - fully withdraw from alliances and eject foreign forces - to be credible. And even that might not be enough. In some nuclear war plans, neutral powers were to be hit anyway to stop them becoming a problem later. There was apparently at least one country that would have been nuked by the US and the USSR.

I don't believe a full-scale nuclear exchange would be an extinction-level event. Threads has been cited - and while I've not seen the film, what I've heard suggests to me that it's broadly representative (possibly slightly pessimistic, but only slightly) of conditions in Europe. The inherent dispersal of the United States and the Soviet Union would mean that the survivors weren't as badly off as in Europe, IMO.

Most underdeveloped countries can be effectively destroyed by one nuclear weapon. Generally, the capital city is also the principal port, the hub of the transport system, and where most of the industry is located. Take that out, and the country cannot function as a single entity any more. But even that isn't always necessary. In a lot of cases, the biggest concerns would be famine and the total disappearance of trade. Simply not being nuked isn't enough to keep you out of trouble in a meaningful nuclear war.

With an exchange in the 1966-1970 period? Most of the 'Green Revolution' stuff has been killed. Perhaps literally, because Norman Borlaug and his colleagues are likely now atomised and somewhere in the upper atmosphere. The resulting climate disruption will mean worse harvests, just as less-developed countries were starting to feel the crunch of feeding their population in OTL. And, even if someone does have high-yielding rice, or a surplus of pesticides, or something - there's no global trade network any more. The ports have been destroyed. The ships are derelict through lack of maintenance. So, as is invariably the case in any famine, people will starve not because there isn't food, but because it can't be got to them.

Similarly, communities built around resource extraction will now have no income. What use is a copper mine if nobody's buying copper? And even if they are, where are you buying the machinery from? The factories that built it are now irradiated ruins.

Japan was hit with nuclear bombs and its civilization did not collapse

I don't see a reason why that would happen to the rest

(For example, why do Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Portugal, or Spain go nuclear while they are neutral? So do the Middle East, East Asia, Australia, New Zealand, or even)

So the end of civilization is still exaggerated madness

 

[ahmedali]

that would really depend on where the bombs will fall and how many of them wouldn't it?

I mean, nuclear winter is a real thing.

collapse of economy we will survive. millions of dead we will survive. cancer rates skyrocketing we will survive. technology set back a couple of decades we will survive. but when the planet goes cold, and livingspace shrinks its every man for himself.

global warming doesn't seem so bad anymore suddenly.

Will we really rebuild civilization in 30-40 years?

Will the nuclear powers follow a strategy (if I die, I will not die alone) or will they only strike the nuclear states of each other?

The second option is the possible scenario

 

[KuboCaskett]

I don't believe a full-scale nuclear exchange would be an extinction-level event. Threads has been cited - and while I've not seen the film, what I've heard suggests to me that it's broadly representative (possibly slightly pessimistic, but only slightly) of conditions in Europe. The inherent dispersal of the United States and the Soviet Union would mean that the survivors weren't as badly off as in Europe, IMO.

Me neither, especially as eventually humanity will recover in some shape and form, somehow, even though the culture, society, and geopolitics will be so unrecognizable it might as well be from another planet all things considered. Although I have seen parts of Threads and while it might be off in some areas, like nuclear winter, it's just as depressing as everyone says it is. And like Resurgam says, 1983 Doomsday's take is quite questionable to say the least, though Protect & Survive might be the middle ground in terms of optimism and pessimism (and afaik, preferrable over the former TL).

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

Japan was hit with nuclear bombs and its civilization did not collapse

Two bombs that even by the standards of the mid 50's, let alone the 70's or 80's were very low yield. You're talking 10-15kt compared to 500 kiloton up to 5 megaton yield, or larger. Also those two bombs persuaded the Japanese to surrender rather than fight to the death.

 

[ahmedali]

Two bombs that even by the standards of the mid 50's, let alone the 70's or 80's were very low yield. You're talking 10-15kt compared to 500 kiloton up to 5 megaton yield, or larger. Also those two bombs persuaded the Japanese to surrender rather than fight to the death.

I agree that the seventies are going to be really strong, but the sixties are more like the forties And the question is about 1960

 

[KuboCaskett]

I agree that the seventies are going to be really strong, but the sixties are more like the forties And the question is about 1960

Didn't the OP say between '66 and '70? though granted it might as well be past that timeframe considering nukes and all.

 

[KuboCaskett]

exactly. The possibilities of the end of civilization are greatly exaggerated, and may even destroy a few countries

Exaggerated sure, but what's not is what others have said about death and destruction, of which would basically make the post-nuclear world one big unexplored territory in terms of just about everything (though admittedly I find it more interesting to do than space exploration IMO but I digress).

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

I agree that the seventies are going to be really strong, but the sixties are more like the forties And the question is about 1960

You are badly underestimating things. Britain was expecting to be hit with megaton sized weapons in the 1960's and by the mid 60's even the US would have been badly mauled.

 

[ahmedali]

Exaggerated sure, but what's not is what others have said about death and destruction, of which would basically make the post-nuclear world one big unexplored territory in terms of just about everything (though admittedly I find it more interesting to do than space exploration IMO but I digress).

Of course a huge number of people will die

But for the world to become like the Walking Dead and Mad Max, that is highly unlikely

The old world will largely survive the new

 

[marktaha]

Wonder what would have become of Southern Africa?

 

[xerex]

One paradox about a post nuclear world. Since most of the world weapons manufacturers just got blown up, the surviving Southern nations are going to have to ask themselves "If I invade my neighbor, where will my replacement tanks and planes comes from ? " "Maybe I should keep them home to maintain order against my own population first"

Broadly technology as a whole will fall back. Microchip tech is probably gone. Is anyone in the South manufacturing transistors ? . A big question for development will be how much of Japan survives. and if India and brazil can continue their licensed manufacturing without foreign inputs.

 

[marathag]

 

[CASSICTOR2]

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Those weapon will bring the apocalypse onto thw whole world

 

[Ravinoff]

One paradox about a post nuclear world. Since most of the world weapons manufacturers just got blown up, the surviving Southern nations are going to have to ask themselves "If I invade my neighbor, where will my replacement tanks and planes comes from ? " "Maybe I should keep them home to maintain order against my own population first"

Broadly technology as a whole will fall back. Microchip tech is probably gone. Is anyone in the South manufacturing transistors ? . A big question for development will be how much of Japan survives. and if India and brazil can continue their licensed manufacturing without foreign inputs.

That's a big one that's not addressed very often. I think the only time I've seen it touched on was in Warday by Whitley Strieber and James Kunetka, which is about the aftermath of a limited nuclear exchange between the US and USSR that doesn't involve the rest of the world (NATO gets a very dumb handwave, Soviets launch on the US because an SDI-type system is about to make their arsenal useless). Japan ends up as the linchpin of the global electronics industry as they're effectively the only ones left with the industrial base for it.

Another thing that book brings up that nobody ever seems to think of is the potential long-term contamination issues not coming from nuclear fallout effects. There's radiological problems presented by nuclear power stations - likely to be particularly ugly in the Warsaw Pact nations if the war is post-1975, since it's a fair guess that unattended or damaged RBMK plants are going to experience catastrophic (read: Chernobyl) failures. Industrial chemical stuff will also be causing a ton of issues depending specifically on where gets hit and how accurately. NYC is mentioned in both Warday and a quality zombie apocalypse book I read last month (Terminus, by Adam Baker), because in the event of a nuclear strike and the subsequent fires, things like the huge petrochem terminals on Staten Island and industrial facilities in New Jersey are going to burn for weeks if not months and soak the whole area in residual chemical contamination. That gets even worse in the '60s-'70s time period OP is talking about, there was crap like PCBs and asbestos everywhere back then.

 

[IanS]

And even if you don't want me to cite Threads, The Day After is a better look at what will happen to America after a nuclear war.

The topsoil of the entire US farmbelt would be irradiated, meaning crops can't grow, even without a nuclear winter (which is unlikely not to happen), causing famines, supply lines are gone, and the trees have absorbed so much radiation that burning firewood would release lethal levels.

And The Day After was said to be LESS bleak than Threads was.

 

[CASSICTOR2]

And even if you don't want me to cite Threads, The Day After is a better look at what will happen to America after a nuclear war.

The entire US farmbelt is irradiated

Yeah that's what I said earlier Everyone will pretty much experience Hiroshima across the world

 

[IanS]

Yeah that's what I said earlier Everyone will pretty much experience Hiroshima across the world

And there's no way anybody could rebuild from that