Ireland After a Nuclear Exchange

But what about the rest of the supply chain? Assume after a major nuclear laydown you're on your own in terms of trade for a few years, with possibly some raw materials being available. That means you're dependent on one oil refinery (~100 miles north of Auckland), and that will be dependent on speciality metal products to keep going. The problem with small economies like New Zealand is simply that they cannot afford the duplication that you get in larger economies which in turn affords resilience to attack. Sure you've got multiple TV and Newspaper offices, but what about the printing, transmission and distribution chain? What about critical spares, and the ability to manufacture them if need be? In a lot of cases a small country would have a single supplier, and indeed in many would be totally dependent on imports.

Fair points.

Although I'd note that the Soviets would likely be well aware that Marsden Point Refinery largely relied on imported oil, it was not supplied (IIRC) by Taranaki. Surely they would assume that the international oil market will collapse post nuclear exchange, leaving Marsden Point mothballed for the foreseeable future. If I were them, I'd let us wither on the vine, for the reasons you've set out.

However, if I was minded, as Soviet Missile Values Champion to hit the supply chain and cripple NZ, I would instead target Motunui Synthetic Fuels Plant in the Taranaki, about 350 km from Auckland. Which isn't too dissimilar to the distance between say Newcastle and London.
 
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Switzerland was probably targeted by the Soviets as being too Western and not willing to comply with the Soviet doctrine & dogma...
likewise Sweden...
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Switzerland's biggest fear - since 1945 - has been Russian invasion. Remember that Russian Armies invaded as far west as Austria. Austria shares a common border with Switzerland.
Switzerland did not reduce military spending until after the Berlin Wall fell.
 
I'm pretty sure the Irish won't be in any shape to colonize anything.

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How quickly you forget that Irish colonized: Canada, Newfoundland, Australia and USA in the aftermath of the Great Potato Famine.
One of my ancestors led the Irish invasion of Canada when he stepped off a boat in Quebec City in 1840. He must have sent good news home, because within a decade, another ion starving refugees tried to flee to Quebec.

Many colonizing efforts are driven by climatic change and starvation: see repeated invasions of Europe by Germanic, Berber and Mongol hordes.
 
I'm pretty sure the Irish won't be in any shape to colonize anything.

What remains of the Irish military is going to be doing everything in its power to do two things:

-Keep public order.

-Make sure food is distributed to the best abilities of the government.

If the Irish government attempts anything else and endangers either of these two tasks, terrible things will happen.
 
Why? Why would the USSR destroy the world by bombing every nation?

Why would the USA? It's the same question.

Sorry? Are you saying that the US intended, in the event of a nuclear war, to bomb every non-allied nation?

It has the same answer, too: they didn't want to, but they felt that they needed to have the ability to, because if the other side had the ability to and they didn't, the other side would turn that power upon them; so they built up a weapon which they hoped they would never have to use, in order to keep themselves safe from the same weapon in the hands of their enemies.

You seem to be conflating having the ability to destroy every country with having a policy that in the event of war every country would be destroyed. The two are completely different things.

Both sides didn't really understand each other and were genuinely afraid that the other side might start an unprovoked attack; not just the Americans, also the Soviets were genuinely worried at some points that the Americans were plotting to launch a massive first strike.

Thus far, both sides haven't had to use it. Let's hope that that continues.

None of this speaks to why one or both powers intended to attack neutral nations, which is both the main idea of the thread and the question you quoted in your reply.

The superpowers had a policy to destory every country in a nuclear war so no nation could rise

...Cite for this?

What he said. Can anyone suggest reading on this Soviet policy? I've never seen it expressed outside of political arguments and AH.com.

So many intelligent people here believe it that I've taken it sort of for granted at times but, on the other hand, a lot of intelligent people here are doomsday fanboys.
 
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How quickly you forget that Irish colonized: Canada, Newfoundland, Australia and USA in the aftermath of the Great Potato Famine.
One of my ancestors led the Irish invasion of Canada when he stepped off a boat in Quebec City in 1840. He must have sent good news home, because within a decade, another ion starving refugees tried to flee to Quebec.

Many colonizing efforts are driven by climatic change and starvation: see repeated invasions of Europe by Germanic, Berber and Mongol hordes.

Fair enough. But.

The Mongol expansion (the Viking one too, actually) took place because of a long period of atypical good weather, not the reverse.
 
None of this speaks to why one or both powers intended to attack neutral nations, which is both the main idea of the thread and the question you quoted in your reply.
In the Soviet case at least, they understood that nuclear war wouldn't kill everybody, and they wanted to stay on top afterwards. See pdf27's post #23 in this thread.
What he said. Can anyone suggest reading on this Soviet policy? I've never seen it expressed outside of political arguments and AH.com.
No. This understanding comes from discussion with people who actually know what they're talking about. Such things aren't suited for publishing, but that doesn't make them untrue.
 
In the Soviet case at least, they understood that nuclear war wouldn't kill everybody, and they wanted to stay on top afterwards. See pdf27's post #23 in this thread.

No. This understanding comes from discussion with people who actually know what they're talking about. Such things aren't suited for publishing, but that doesn't make them untrue.

I've encountered the argument in pdf27's post many times. I believe I made clear my familiarity with the argument.

A few questions:

[1] What sort of people actually know what they're talking about?

[2] What is the mechanism that is preventing the conventional wisdom of this thread from appearing in print? There are a great many things unsuitable for publishing to be found on the shelves of the average bookshop.

[2] Who did you talk to that made you believe this, and who did they say they'd talk to that made you believe them? How many degrees of separation are acceptable to give in evidence?

At the end of the day, you're straight-facedly telling us that we should consider this a fact on slightly less basis than urban legends typically operate. At least "the cousin of the guy I went to scuba camp with" specifies something about the source.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of presence.
 
What sort of people actually know what they're talking about?
Experts in the field - in this case, strategic warfare.
[2] What is the mechanism that is preventing the conventional wisdom of this thread from appearing in print? There are a great many things unsuitable for publishing to be found on the shelves of the average bookshop.
The mechanism by which the defence community very rarely publishes anything. Security classification makes sure that much material cannot be published. What remains is either minor bits of trivia, or such an obscure area of study that a publisher wouldn't be able to make a profit. Maybe, in the age of the internet, they could - but even then you need to find someone interested in talking. The security point is drilled so well into people in the defence community that they will not talk about many things unless given explicit instructions - not merely permission, but instructions - to do so.

By comparison, many things on the shelves of a bookshop that shouldn't be are full of saleable falsehoods, urban myths and breathless commentary. Such things are wildly profitable since they sell very well.
Who did you talk to that made you believe this, and who did they say they'd talk to that made you believe them? How many degrees of separation are acceptable to give in evidence?
In this case, the authority is Stuart Slade, with whom I have one degree of separation online and two in the real world. Everything I've been able to independently verify of his claims checks out, which means I'm inclined to believe him. Not blindly, but I have a general presumption that he knows what he's talking about in his areas of expertise.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of presence.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of falsehood, either. This is not a court of law where we require proof beyond reasonable doubt.

Thinking critically about this particular situation, it is consistent with Soviet behaviour. They did not tolerate threats to their position - witness their behaviour in Hungary in 1957 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, and their internal security apparatus. They had significant civil defence apparatus, implying that they expected a nuclear war to be survivable, and their industrial defence stance suggests that they expected to be in a position to continue fighting after an exchange. Also, they retained nuclear delivery systems (for example, Echo I cruise missile submarines) well after they were obsolete against the defences of major countries.

So, where does nuking neutrals fit in? The Soviet Union expected to remain a viable, though weakened, state after a nuclear exchange. Neutral powers would be able to conserve their strength and present a threat to the Soviet Union. These powers did not have the same standard of defences as NATO and other Western allied powers, so could be attacked using assets that would otherwise be ineffective.

It's not the only interpretation of the facts. But it is consistent with them, and shouldn't be rejected on the grounds that it hasn't appeared in a mass-market paperback.
 
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How quickly you forget that Irish colonized: Canada, Newfoundland, Australia and USA in the aftermath of the Great Potato Famine.
One of my ancestors led the Irish invasion of Canada when he stepped off a boat in Quebec City in 1840. He must have sent good news home, because within a decade, another ion starving refugees tried to flee to Quebec.

Many colonizing efforts are driven by climatic change and starvation: see repeated invasions of Europe by Germanic, Berber and Mongol hordes.

On this principle, there'll be a lot more colonisation being done by more heavily nuked countries, such as from the island just across the Irish Sea...
 
Experts in the field - in this case, strategic warfare.

That's fine since you name one below.

I want to be clear that at no point have I said that the Soviets did not have such a policy, or even that they probably did not have such a policy. I don't know - I don't pretend to argue one way or the other. I mention this because I get the sense that I've given you the impression that I'm saying just that. I'm not.

What I am doing is arguing that an assertion of the existence of sources is insufficient for serious discussion in the medium of our discussion. We are a bunch of screen names on a discussion board - trust has to be built on some basis other than blanket statements. My objection was not of the conclusion of the conventional wisdom, but that it was both (in some ways) counterintuitive and justified on the basis of received wisdom. The two go together poorly.

The mechanism by which the defence community very rarely publishes anything. Security classification makes sure that much material cannot be published. What remains is either minor bits of trivia, or such an obscure area of study that a publisher wouldn't be able to make a profit. Maybe, in the age of the internet, they could - but even then you need to find someone interested in talking. The security point is drilled so well into people in the defence community that they will not talk about many things unless given explicit instructions - not merely permission, but instructions - to do so.

By comparison, many things on the shelves of a bookshop that shouldn't be are full of saleable falsehoods, urban myths and breathless commentary. Such things are wildly profitable since they sell very well.

You've hit on my point exactly, albeit from your own angle. This Soviet plan for the event of a late-Cold War nuclear exchange is conventional wisdom here, and by implication among tens or hundreds of thousands of people who are familiar with the idea, though most may know of it only second or third hand. This Soviet plan is also the sort of thing that would sell like crazy (to a certain market) if it were published in book form. It would sell well even if there were no hard evidence for its claims and even if the author was not in a position to know first-hand himself.

Because, as you say, bookshops are full of saleable falsehoods et al. I mean, how many different books are there about how Hitler almost won the war? They don't need evidence to make money. So given that someone could never have been in the military or a think tank advising it, yet still speak off the record to the same experts in the field we have access to - where are the books?

You answered why American and British experts with clearance haven't written books, but that's pretty straightforward. I wouldn't be surprised at that. The question of how this board can be full of people who all "know" this, but there are no books about it, is different. What has stopped one of the Protect and Survive authors - just for example - from writing an article about this on Wikipedia, or self-publishing an e-book? It's a gripping narrative - this is the stuff book deals are made of.

In this case, the authority is Stuart Slade, with whom I have one degree of separation online and two in the real world. Everything I've been able to independently verify of his claims checks out, which means I'm inclined to believe him. Not blindly, but I have a general presumption that he knows what he's talking about in his areas of expertise.

Fair enough, fair enough. Did he mention anything about the United States planning to blow up all the neutrals when the balloon went up? That was the implication by Perfidious Albion that I first questioned, which prompted your first reply to me. I've heard it about the Soviets before, but PA was the first person I've seen assert that the US would do the same.

How are Soviet sources regarding military plans, since the fall of the CCCP? I'm aware of a huge amount of documents that became available with the fall, but it'd be understandable if nuclear targeting details didn't quite slip through the cracks.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of falsehood, either. This is not a court of law where we require proof beyond reasonable doubt.

I agree completely with the first, but not with the second. I don't necessarily view the lack of evidence given to me as an indication that it is inherently false. All it indicates is a lack of evidence. However we can't have fact based discussions here without some minimum standard of proof. I am expressing the fact that this topic is unique in the combination - both great certainty of board members and a lack of specifics and evidence.

I think it's natural to seek either the same certainty you and others have, or - failing that - to remain doubtful about the veracity of all this. No?

Thinking critically about this particular situation, it is consistent with Soviet behaviour. They did not tolerate threats to their position - witness their behaviour in Hungary in 1957 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, and their internal security apparatus. They had significant civil defence apparatus, implying that they expected a nuclear war to be survivable, and their industrial defence stance suggests that they expected to be in a position to continue fighting after an exchange. Also, they retained nuclear delivery systems (for example, Echo I cruise missile submarines) well after they were obsolete against the defences of major countries.

I hadn't known that last. Interesting. And suggestive. Of course, nations do invest in and retain obsolete weapon systems - the US itself has had trouble with that since the '90s - but it is definitely a point in favor of the idea.

So, where does nuking neutrals fit in? The Soviet Union expected to remain a viable, though weakened, state after a nuclear exchange. Neutral powers would be able to conserve their strength and present a threat to the Soviet Union. These powers did not have the same standard of defences as NATO and other Western allied powers, so could be attacked using assets that would otherwise be ineffective.

It's not the only interpretation of the facts. But it is consistent with them, and shouldn't be rejected on the grounds that it hasn't appeared in a mass-market paperback.

Of course the Soviet Union was quite entwined in international trade, so they're bombing the same people who could be selling them reconstruction materials and untainted grain. And they would recognize that if Russia could survive a concentrated Anglo-Franco-American assault, Brazil would certainly survive Russia's leftover nuclear capabilities. It's an incredible gamble to count on the damage caused outlasting the memory of Russia's unprovoked attack.

You're right, though, that countries do sometimes make insane gambles. And anyway, it was if anything a plan - countries test limits in plans that most governments would shy from in practice. So the insanity isn't necessarily a strong argument against it.
 
Fair enough, fair enough. Did he mention anything about the United States planning to blow up all the neutrals when the balloon went up? That was the implication by Perfidious Albion that I first questioned, which prompted your first reply to me. I've heard it about the Soviets before, but PA was the first person I've seen assert that the US would do the same.
I've not heard the claim that the US would systematically attack all neutrals - it doesn't ring true with the Western conception of a nuclear exchange. The closest Slade has come to such a claim is to state that almost every country would get at least one warhead, some countries warheads from both sides, and that for most countries one warhead is all they need.
 
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