This is fallout, and while some fallout will be creating with an airburst it is a fraction of that of a ground burst. Since ground burst targets will be of a hardened millitary nature and not cities, there would be far less radioactive fallout than is portrayed in popular culture...if you live near a missile base though...sorry hard luck!
Our missile fields are located in the dead middle of our agricultural heartland. Do the math.
Also, cities do contain targets that would get groundbursts. Airports, for instance. Any major city is going to get a mix of ground and air-bursts in an overlapping pattern.
Unfortunatly the people of Hiroshima and Nagisaki never knew any of this, and it might be estimated that a 3rd of all deaths were a result of exposure to the 'black rain' that fell after the detonations. While these early bombs weren't ground bursts, they would be nothing like the carefully calculated airbursts that might be seen in a 'cold war gone hot' in the 1980s.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki each recieved one bomb (a poorly delivered one in Nagasaki's case) bomb at <25 kilotons, while any cold war strategic target will recieve at least two warheads of 100 kilotons or more. The situations are not entirely comparable.
Also, education on radiation in the post-war world, while better, is no where near so comprehensive that everyone knows what you have outlined.
Britian in many respects could expect a fairly rapid return to 'normality' since its island nature will allow for boats to take the place of wrecked infrastructure. Refugees won't be able to flood in from other parts of europe, and the lack of police and civilian firearms place a much greater proportion of people as equals.
Boats need fuel, fuel in post-nuclear Britain is going to be extremely scarce.
If the people of the cities can be kept from flooding into the countryside regions and 'pillageing' then 'authority' can insure that agricultural industry can be maintained since it will not have been the targets of the nuclear stikes (unless a sadistic nation was trying to commit genocide). If the agricultural industry can be maintained, food sources can be maintained, therefore within a fairly short amount of time rations will be able to be set up and redistributed to the city regions.
To quote an aide to General Leslie Groves after he demanded the first atomic test to be covered-up: "General, can't you give us an easier task? Like making the Mississippi disappear?"
The loss of public order over the vast majority of the country is garunteed. Food distribution will break down because any food that isn't destroyed or contaminated is likely to be stolen or (more likely) rot in the storehouse since the vehicles and fuel needed to transport it is unavailable.
As can be seen with recent tsunami in Japan, with relative order maintained even widespread destruction across the country can be repaired within a matter of months.
Of course, not all of Japan was affected, as would be the case in a nuclear war, but it shows how maintained order aids the recovery process.
Order was able to be maintained precisely
because not all of Japan was affected. Communications with the affected areas were either re-established within minutes/hours or was never broken in the first place. That is not the case
If we contrast the Japanese tsunami with the Boxing day quake in 2004, vast communities all along Indonesia, Bangladesh and India have still not recovered. This is down to essentially a lack of general reconstruction planning and inaccess to modern equipment for reconstruction. However even here if we compare relative recovery, people were able to pick themselves up and deal with their losses and economic output today is about the same as it would have been without the quake and tsunami here. This shows that even if hundreds of thousands of people die, there are still those left with the knowledge to rebuild.
In all cases outlined, communication was maintained and copious amounts of outside assistance to the affected areas, both natoinal and international, came about in a matter of days. Triage was never implemented on a national scale because resources and comms never became that scarce.
In a post-global nuclear war scenario, resources
are that scarce, international assistance is a pipedream, and the Government will need months, minimum, to re-establish contact with areas of the country it has lost control.
In fact if we think about percentages, using the data from the atomic bombings during WWII,
Which is inapplicable to a all-out nuclear exchange. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were struck by only one very low-yield warheads and were still able to recieve outside assistance from the rest of the nation within a few-days and assistance from the rest of the world pretty much the first few hours after Japan surrendered.
A post-global nuclear war city will not have that.
only about 20-25% of the cities populations were killed by the bombs themselves. Which is a far cry from 90% of the population
Nobody said 90% of the
entire population would die. Merely specific parts of it, most of whom are people who tend live near high-priority countervalue targets. These are people who are generally the best informed on the minute quirks of radioactive fallout and serious medical emergencies, like doctors and phycisists.
In terms of the first few months, the death toll in the United States will be roughly one hundred million (give or take ten million), out of a total population (in 1985) of 240 million (rounded up), that is ~40% of the population. For comparison Europe lost an estimated 45-50% of its population to the black death. Of course, European society at the time was massively agrarian and decentralized already, European peasantry was used to hardship, and the death toll was spread out over a four year period so there was only a partial collapse of social order.
Compare that to todays (or the 80's) heavily industrialized, centralized, and comfort-inclined American population and then add in we are talking a devestation that occurs in a matter of months.
At least some period of anarchy is garunteed and there will be plenty of social and (to a much lesser extent) technological regression*.
*When I say technological regression, I'm not saying 'back to the medieval ages!' stuff, although its going to seem like it for the average American. What I'm talking about is a kind of cannabilization and jury-rigging of current technology to fit new needs using scarcer resources. Like putting a steam engine in a car because gasoline is too scarce.
