Conditions in South America after 1983 global nuclear war

A thing I can surely say is that all US sponsored dictatorships collapse. Argentina already had democratized and on Brazil the free elections for governors and mayors already had happened. What is interesting is that the new Argentinian government now can retake the falklands without expecting a british answer, I imagine Galtieri angry punching the walls of his apartment for losing power for invading a year earlier.
 
Thanks for the clarification. I know nuclear winter is far from a proven thing, but would there be some degree of cooling in the Global South for at least a few months?

I know I need to do a lot of research too for that time on the economies (and cultures) of South America (ex. how much food/supplies they had to import etc) because the collapse of international trade would probably hurt them and lead to famines and instability, leaving behind power vacuums for others to fill, I'd imagine, talking out of my rear.
In normal times South America would be self sufficient in food. But after a WW3 there will be problems in transportation, depending on what kind of oil industry remains and whether logistical hubs were nuked
 
A thing I can surely say is that all US sponsored dictatorships collapse. Argentina already had democratized and on Brazil the free elections for governors and mayors already had happened. What is interesting is that the new Argentinian government now can retake the falklands without expecting a british answer, I imagine Galtieri angry punching the walls of his apartment for losing power for invading a year earlier.
In Protect and Survive on here they did and then ate a couple of British submarine launched nukes when the British found out the Falkland’s had been taken.
 
Thanks for the clarification. I know nuclear winter is far from a proven thing, but would there be some degree of cooling in the Global South for at least a few months?

I know I need to do a lot of research too for that time on the economies (and cultures) of South America (ex. how much food/supplies they had to import etc) because the collapse of international trade would probably hurt them and lead to famines and instability, leaving behind power vacuums for others to fill, I'd imagine, talking out of my rear.

In normal times South America would be self sufficient in food. But after a WW3 there will be problems in transportation, depending on what kind of oil industry remains and whether logistical hubs were nuked

Well as is said most of south america is food self sufficent, and a net food exporter, even in the Eighties(source) as a region, individual cases by country have a lot of variation, plus a lot of the Government sponsored and Owned Industrial capacity was not yet destroyed by the privatization campaign of the nineties, As example Argentina was producing Tanks in this decade(TAM), Chile was producng small arms and RPG´s style weapons in his FAMAE, Brasil Was making Supersonic Airplanes,none of wich is a "ligth" industry.
Argentina(YPF) and Brasil(Petrobras) have a really important oil industries and refineries that, again before the privatization process, were producing a lot of the internal consuming gas, Chile Have a important Refining Capacity with ENAP, Peru have Petroperu, Colombia Ecopetrol, Venzuela have PDVSA, Even Uruguay ahvea little refinery capacity in the ANCAP, the transport is a no issue as most of it is done by Sea, and there are important new shipbuilding shipyard works in Chile, Brasil, Argentina, and Peru, Plus a important repair and modernization shipyards in Uruguay, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela an Bolivia( this is not a joke is for their River patrol navy), so transportation and oil is also a no issue, at least in the short time
 
Well as is said most of south america is food self sufficent, and a net food exporter, even in the Eighties(source) as a region, individual cases by country have a lot of variation, plus a lot of the Government sponsored and Owned Industrial capacity was not yet destroyed by the privatization campaign of the nineties, As example Argentina was producing Tanks in this decade(TAM), Chile was producng small arms and RPG´s style weapons in his FAMAE, Brasil Was making Supersonic Airplanes,none of wich is a "ligth" industry.
Argentina(YPF) and Brasil(Petrobras) have a really important oil industries and refineries that, again before the privatization process, were producing a lot of the internal consuming gas, Chile Have a important Refining Capacity with ENAP, Peru have Petroperu, Colombia Ecopetrol, Venzuela have PDVSA, Even Uruguay ahvea little refinery capacity in the ANCAP, the transport is a no issue as most of it is done by Sea, and there are important new shipbuilding shipyard works in Chile, Brasil, Argentina, and Peru, Plus a important repair and modernization shipyards in Uruguay, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela an Bolivia( this is not a joke is for their River patrol navy), so transportation and oil is also a no issue, at least in the short time
In peacetime, yes. But maybe the war will end with Venezuelan POL facilities nuked and maybe the Soviets will spare 2-3 icbms to Argentina and Brazil. So if Mar del Plata and Buenos Aires are gone, Argentina looses its shipbuilding facilities, two of its largest ports, the only railroad hub in the country and has to deal with the humanitarian crisis of having two cities (one with more than 25% of the country population) nuked. Farmers won't starve, but Argentina's capacity to transport foodstuff and move fuel around would have taken a serious hit.
 
In peacetime, yes. But maybe the war will end with Venezuelan POL facilities nuked and maybe the Soviets will spare 2-3 icbms to Argentina and Brazil. So if Mar del Plata and Buenos Aires are gone, Argentina looses its shipbuilding facilities, two of its largest ports, the only railroad hub in the country and has to deal with the humanitarian crisis of having two cities (one with more than 25% of the country population) nuked. Farmers won't starve, but Argentina's capacity to transport foodstuff and move fuel around would have taken a serious hit.
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Yeah sure this are Peace time figures, but we need to know what we have before we decide what we destroy and what not, and from there speculate, and the fact we lose Argentina, and possible Uruguay, don´t change the fact that the pacific coast of America is mostly unscathed, and in a good position to rebuild.
 
No matter what, only a relatively few Soviet nukes will hit South America. Given how Venezuela is a major exporter of oil to the USA, hitting those facilities would be done to help keep any US recovery down. Very likely the Caribbean Island oil facilities, which are either Commonwealth or Dutch and therefore "NATO" would be hit. Possibly you might see a few strikes on major naval bases in South America to cut down any potential power projection postwar. As has been stated here, and in similar scenarios, the number of delivery systems that could reach these targets is limited and the Soviets will want to use them elsewhere for the most part, or save them for reserve. North of the equator, major issues with fallout, south of the equator less so the further south you go.

Effects will vary greatly depending on whether or not a central government survives, any hits on a given country, and fallout levels. For sure there will be food shortages and famine in some places. Overall anything that South America imports won't be coming. To some extent local industries can take up the slack over time, but not always. High tech manufacture will be an issue - what happens when the machines used to make semiconductors need spare parts and so forth. Various chemicals used for drugs and other manufactures may be imported, and no local facilities to make them so an entirely new industry needs to be built from the ground up. Recovery to the level of the day before the war will take quite some time, and will be spotty.

Expecting military dictatorships to fall absent their outside sponsors, US or otherwise, is a pipe dream. It is more likely to see strongmen or warlordism arise which and where depending on how bad things get. The communist "liberation movements" are going to be just as much in disfavor as the US is in the wake of WWIII.
 
Expecting military dictatorships to fall absent their outside sponsors, US or otherwise, is a pipe dream. It is more likely to see strongmen or warlordism arise which and where depending on how bad things get. The communist "liberation movements" are going to be just as much in disfavor as the US is in the wake of WWIII.

For the US sponsored dictatorships to continue is almost impossible, but I'm not saying that this would prevent local dictatorships to rise, just to make my point.
 
My other choice was Australia/New Zealand. But one of the main characters is an American and I'm finding it hard to justify them reaching Australia (or an American industrialist (main human villain) leading any regime there. Perhaps the surviving Australian government could be a puppet regime with him leading from the shadows?) after a global nuclear exchange. Could Australia support itself such as growing enough crops to feed itself? I read an article recently:

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...ets-did-not-target-cities-20120805-23ny1.html

More than three decades after it was written, the Australian government has finally declassified its most secret study of the potential impact on Australia of a nuclear war between the US and the former Soviet Union.

Unlike the apocalyptic scenario in author Nevil Shute's novel On the Beach, the Office of National Assessments largely dismissed any danger to the nation from global radioactive fallout or stratospheric distribution of smoke from burning cities.

The office questioned if Australian cities would be targets for Soviet missiles, suggesting the US's southern hemisphere ally would be a ''low priority'' in a global nuclear exchange.

''In the aftermath of strategic nuclear war, there would be massive economic, demographic and political change in the northern hemisphere, which would pose much more serious problems for Australia than radioactive fallout,'' the office told the then prime minister, Malcolm Fraser, in December 1980.

[...]

Nevertheless, the office argued that ''in the scale of horrors usually associated with nuclear war, the direct physical effects on Australia of an attack on the joint defence facilities would not be catastrophic; apart, possibly, from Adelaide, the main Australian cities would not be significantly affected''.

Direct attacks on Australian cities were acknowledged as a possibility but the intelligence agency's view was that the Soviet Union ''would probably see Australian cities as low-priority nuclear targets''.

The veteran Australian nuclear disarmament campaigner Helen Caldicott was highly critical, saying the agency had ''severely downplayed'' the threat to Australian cities and the risks of global radioactive fallout.
 
Neat. What sort of entity is he? A demon, a god? Is he involved in the army of white supremacists?

I haven't really decided yet. It's a fanfiction (yes, I know) and I don't think it was clear in canon exactly what it was. I suppose the closest would be a demon. He's a necromancer, I know that. I suppose he could qualify as a "lesser god". He wanted to destroy the inhabitants of magical universe but the human protag defeated him. Banished to another universe, he plotted his return.

How he's involved in the army of white supremacists I haven't decided yet. I thought about him somehow directly communicating with them, promising them great power, in an attempt to trick them into releasing him with an artifact, the Gem of Creation, that has the power to warp reality so he can finish the job he started millennia ago.

The leader of the faction, a former American industrialist, (whom I'm naming Scott Freeman) would get the upper hand on the being in an attempt to become a god.

This guy's a true believer in Nietzsche's Ubermench. He blames "slave-morality" in the context of the Cold War for the nuclear holocaust and seeks to become essentially the God-Emperor of Mankind from Warhammer 40k. Even worse, he views free will as the root of humanity's flaws, and given the opportunity, will snuff it out. He's a high-functioning, charismatic, narcissistic sociopath who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals.

The protags, human and otherwise, would need to battle him to save themselves and all they care about, using the magical powers they have gained and learned how to use, in the case of the humans.

By the way, your plot sounds really good! You should write it out. I'd gladly beta it for you.
 
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If the UK takes the hits a full out nuclear war between NATO and the WP would do, the Argentines could land a troop of boy scouts with BB guns to retake the Falklands. Only if circumstances had a large UK contingent there by chance would the Argentines have any problems.
 
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