Arkhipov Votes to Nuke During Cuban Missile Crisis

What happens if Sub B-59 launches nuclear torpedo?

  • Minor escalation

    Votes: 6 3.8%
  • Major escalation but short of global catastrophe

    Votes: 84 53.2%
  • Escalation to total nuclear holocaust

    Votes: 68 43.0%

  • Total voters
    158
That game has no more basis in reality than the lunatic national strategies devised by the US and CCCP in 1963.



Major escalation is a matter of order of magnitude. When one thinks nuclear war, one must look to historical comparators more applicable than WW II which left at least one international core transportation / industrial hub intact. (Post WW II that would be the western hemisphere.). Since a presumed Russian strategy would be against the western coalition as a block, that means western Europe and the North American continent are hammered. We have never seen that historically. The closest event is the contiguous fall of the Roman Empire and the fall of the Jin Dynasty in China. Both are fifth century common era events followed by mass deaths and economic and political dislocations, but still do not describe the kind of chaos a small nuclear war would have on a global economy. There would be no mass population relocations and no political re-orderings except on the basis of existing survivor power centers, which incidentally would not include China, as that nation was to be targeted conjointly with Russia.

Anyway...

Both of those economic complexes are wiped out, Africa, starves and becomes a hotbed for internecine warfare as water wars break out (as they are about to do now) and the diseases kept barely in check now, are unleashed upon the hapless populations.

The only possible organized remnants who could maintain a reasonable 20th century level tech base post limited exchange would be the South American states. Rational conclusion? Portuguese becomes the new language of commerce and diplomacy. Brazil picks up the pieces.

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Depends on which part of Asia. If one lives near a port, one is dead. If one lives in the deserts, potable water becomes even more precious. Life already marginal for many human nomadic tribes becomes almost impossible. If one lives in Siberia and is not dead, then it is suddenly the 14th century all over again. Hunters will do okay, but everyone else dies. Western Russia? One presumes the same as western Europe. If one is not dead it is suddenly the 14th century for them too with disease rampant, no water, no food and way too many mouths to feed for what food, contaminated or otherwise, is left. Probably a harsh series of winters and hot zones that will last for centuries depending on what was nearby to be irradiated will be added to the situation.

Hobbes is the condition. Humanity will survive. It will take an estimated 500 years to recover.

Only thing is... The ability to scratch out easy resources that this civilization is built upon will be gone. If we go down, that is it for advanced technology as WE understand it. Things will be a lot harder for the post nuclear war survivors. Plastics for example will be extremely difficult for them to replicate. Just getting back to the 19th century with reliable mass produced steel in bulk will be another bolo.

Aluminum? Forget it. Unless someone can figure out a way to replicate our electrical technology without copper. (Irradiated. Strategic resources mines and refineries will of course be targeted; so goodbye oil, too.)
Basically resource wise humanity has picked off most of the low hanging fruit, the easily extracted coal, oil and minerals. Would the survivors have the resources to get at the resources they need to keep civilization going? One thing I would predict is a US/surviving NATO force taking control of much of the middle eastern oil and holding it basically forever. This is before north sea oil came online and before unconventional drilling opened up extra resources in the US, that oil will be taken and used as the possessor wants.
 
You mean History learners' completely unrelated statement to the situation in regarding the condition of the Continental US? Or Admiral Halsey's statement where they clearly stated that Europe takes a beating, and justifiably play down the threat of the ICBMs in the Soviet Union hitting the US? The point we were criticizing the Cuban Missile War Timeline over since it has numerous American cities being wiped out by ICBMs based in the USSR. And all cpip said was that the USSRs capabilities at the time were overrated, which is absolutely true, heck Kennedy ran on closing a missile gap that didn't even exist.


It's going to be a global catastrophe that sees more people dead than in any previous war, but it isn't an Able Archer War.
What is the prc going to do?
 
If the Cuban Missile Crisis results in a nuclear exchange between the USA and the USSR several things will happen with the PRC.
1. Expect them to get at least a few nuclear hits, probably from both sides.
2. The PRC has no nuclear forces, so they can't have any effect during this war.
3. Unless Mao goes absolutely batshit the PRC will loudly declare that they are neutral in this fight etc etc. When the fighting is over the PRC will take stock and see what low hanging fruit is out there and how badly they have been hurt. Hong Kong and Macau will probably be absorbed, maybe some of the ROC offshore islands. Eben without US support I doubt the PRC could take Taiwan. Depending upon the damage inflicted and where they might go for less, or more.
 
What is the prc going to do?
Get nuked by SAC to burn a path through to the USSR most likely

SIOP-63 had 5 options, inclusively escalating (IE option 2 includes 1, option 3 1,2&3 etc.)
  1. Destroy Soviet Nuclear Capability
  2. Destroy Soviet Military Sites away from cities
  3. Destroy All Soviet military sites
  4. Destroy Soviet Command and Control
  5. Destroy Everything in the communist Bloc
General Powers in command of SAC was vocally in favor of #5 and said that the Option to leave the PRC out would really impact the plan negatively, so there is a very good chance the PRC gets burned through. In the previous plan, SIOP-62 in effect until July 1962, there was only option 5 and Powers had wanted to keep it that way
 
Even if there is never an official order to nuke China (or North Korea or North Viet Nam), the breakdown in communications and the confusion caused by the war could still lead to those countries' getting nuked.
 
The back half of your statement is semantics. Ignoring the US and USSR for the moment, Paris, London, Brussels, Amsterdam, and much of West Germany gets nuked by the Soviets while we hit Prague, Gdansk, Warsaw, Budapest and a bunch of other spots in Poland and East Germany. The second destruction of Europe inside of 20 years is a global catastrophe in my opinion. I have a hard time envisioning a limited nuclear war in 1962 but that's part of my curiosity.
In what about Great Britain and their nukes you think they're not going to use them if they think they're going to lose them?
 
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