alternatehistory.com

There was a movie I watched about a nuclear exchange called By Dawn's Early Light. In it, the Soviet Union and United States get into a brief nuclear war that leaves several million on both sides dead*, but both countries are still intact, there is no nuclear apocalypse, and humanity survives. If there was a Third World War during the Cold War, let's put the POD sometime around Able Archer, would this kind of exchange even be possible, or is it a pipe dream? Would any Third World War that brings in the nukes immediately lead into a catastrophic exchange, or would we, as a species, be better than that?

*There's also a small exchange between the USSR and China.
Top