Most realistic scenario for a world post a nuclear war

[Mitchell Hundred]

Assuming that during the hottest period of the cold war in the early 60's there was indeed a nuclear war between the US and USSR. Based on how both nations were prepared to duke it out in that scenario what would the world look like in the aftermath of that?

Would it truly be a full post-apocalyptic landscape or would things still go on with some familiarity to us today?

 

[Grey Wolf]

Most people want to remain loyal to an over-arcing nation. I think that in the US you would see federal camps like new cities in safe areas, and people retain their pre-war statehoods to vote in representatives from vanished states

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

 

[TFSmith121]

All out? Andi in the early 1960s?

Assuming that during the hottest period of the cold war in the early 60's there was indeed a nuclear war between the US and USSR. Based on how both nations were prepared to duke it out in that scenario what would the world look like in the aftermath of that? Would it truly be a full post-apocalyptic landscape or would things still go on with some familiarity to us today?

In the early 1960s, and all out?

Eurasia is devastated; the differential between the deliverable US arsenal and the Soviet arsenal is huge. The Soviets, presumably, will destroy most of Western Europe and whatever else of NATO and the Allies they can reach around the perimeter of the USSR, including using all of their NBC resources...

North America would suffer heavily (in a Missiles of October scenario, especially), but the US still dominates what's left of the world, both militarily and economically, although it is much more multipolar than before - think after the Cold War, but with Russia, the EU, and (possibly) China, Japan, and Korea removed from the map, to a greater or lesser degree.

The areas with substantial internal resources, the ability to absorb the damage they sustain, and capable of dealing with disruptions in global trade are:

• North America (even though a secondary theater of the war)
• South America
• Australasia (with the exception of POL)
• South Asia (with the exception of POL)
• Southern Africa (with the exception of POL)
• Western Africa (with the exception of technology)
• SE Asia (limited POL and technology access)
• Eastern Africa (POL access, but limited tehcnology access)
• Southwest Asia (POL, but limited technology access and likely to be a tertiary theater of the east-west war)
• Eastern/northeastern Asia (likely to be a secondary theater of the east-west war)
• Europe/Eurasia/Western Asia (the primary theater of the east-west war)

South America is in the US sphere; Africa decolonializes rapidly and then has to deal with those realities; South Asia, especially India, if it escapes the nuclear exchange, can probably do well; SEA is troubled, and China, Japan, and Korea are in deep trouble, from fall-out, refugee flows, and general instability, along with (presumably) absorbing some heavy blows from the nuclear exchange.

Interesting point is POL; the US is a major producer, and presumably can get what is available from Mexico and the Caribbean; the Arab states and Iran are probably going to suffer in the east-west exchange, and their most likely market postwar is India; South Africa, West Africa, and Argentina and Brazil can probably keep trade going, including technology for West African oil. Australia will have to grab what it can in Indonesia, or transition very quickly to synthetic fuels.

It would make for a very multi-polar world.

Best,

 

[Anaxagoras]

In the early 1960s, the USSR would basically be reduced to a radioactive parking lot. Assuming a short ground conflict in Western Europe that rapidly escalates to the use of tactical nuclear weapons, the same would pretty much be the same for Western Europe. The United States would be terribly damaged, but might maintain some measure of order.

 

[Charles RB]

I google and according to historian and AU writer Eric G Swedin:

http://www.historyanswers.co.uk/his...issile-crisis-had-escalated-into-nuclear-war/

I think the US would have survived the war. Now I’m only talking about 1962; if this war had happened several years later then the US would not have survived as a viable entity, because one of the consequences of the Cuban Missile Crisis was that the Soviets enormously increased their strategic forces and within a decade were on parity with the US.

...

Soviet forces had about 100 tactical nukes, and I think that once [Cuba had been destroyed] the Soviet Union, in order to maintain their international prestige, would have wanted to retaliate... Their number of strategic weapons was dramatically less than the Americans had and they would see the need to go for it, because they’re not going to get any blows if they don’t [attack] immediately.

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/149233

Canada and the United States had strong fighter defenses, and Soviet missile-carrying submarines were all in port, so the United States would probably only be hit by less than thirty nuclear weapons. That is horrific, but not a civilization killer ... Western Europe would be devastated by numerous shorter-range Soviet missiles and in return, the Soviet Union would be obliterated by over a thousand American nuclear weapons. The American war plan for nuclear war was politically inflexible, not taking into account that a global war might not include all communist nations, so in following the plan, China and other communist nations would also be hit hard by the Americans.

In 1962, the long-term effects of a global nuclear war would have been minimized because almost all of the nuclear explosions would have been air bursts in order to increase immediate damage and reduce fallout. For instance, the Soviets had no motivation for maximizing the fallout from their strikes on Western Europe, because the jet stream would have just brought that fallout to their own nation

So it's not a full-on apocalyptic landscape and there's not too much fallout worldwide, but the European continent is gone. (Maybe Ireland survives and is then flooded with hungry refugees) So's Cuba. China's still around but only due to sheer size, North Korea and North Vietnam are going to collapse.

I wouldn't want to be an American or Russian tourist after all that either.

 

[Anaxagoras]

What would the state of the United Kingdom have been in the event of a 1962 war?

 

[Charles RB]

What would the state of the United Kingdom have been in the event of a 1962 war?

You know when you grill bacon too much and it gets all black & crispy and you have to chuck it away?

 

[Thon Taddeo]

What would the state of the United Kingdom have been in the event of a 1962 war?

Here's a map Thande made showing potential targets in the Cuban Missile War Timeline. It is not a pretty picture.

 

[Charles RB]

The nuclear symbol looks like an oh-no face. Appropriate.

 

[water123]

One important point is that IOTL is not On The Beach. Nuclear weapons generally do not leave little Chernobyls wherever they are detonated. Nuclear fallout is generally recognized as nuclear energy that is not used, so it is pretty dumb for a nuclear bomb to be so inneficient that it contaminates an area. Not to mention people moved back into ground zero at Hiroshima and Nagasaki nearly immediately.

Basically, as long as no one blows up a nuclear power plant, there won't be any "death zones" or other ridiculousness.

 

[CalBear]

At peak number of weapons? That wasn't in the 1960s, it was in 1986 (~65,000, excluding those in India, Israel, Pakistan and South Africa)

Peak in the 1960s was in 1967. The Soviets had just under 9,000 warheads, the PRC had ~20, and NATO had 30,000+, virtually all of them being American.

Depending on the scenario, in 1967 the Warsaw Pact and selected allies (chiefly Cuba and the DPRK, with the PRC being possible) are hit by somewhere between 9-10,000 weapons in a full out, no holds barred, exchange. around 2/3 of those are used in counter-force strikes. Every city over 100,000 in the WP is obliterated, Cuba ceases to exist as a civilized state as does the DPRK, and the PRC may catch as many as 500 weapons (the U.S. was not really clear on the fact that the PRC and USSR were not exactly on good terms). Western states are going to absorb around 4,000 weapons, again 2/3 of those, perhaps a bit more, are counter-force. That leaves 1,300 weapons, assume half in Western Europe, the rest in the U.S. With the exception of a few obvious U.S. allies, mainly Australia, Japan and the ROK, the strikes there being at military targets. Australia likely is hit by as few as six warheads.

Around half of the total stockpile for both sides are lost in counter-force attacks, technical failure of either the delivery vehicle or the weapon itself, or are not strategic or tactical long range in nature (torpedo warheads, depth charges, mines, etc). There would also be a small number undergoing maintenance and unavailable.

The Eastern half of Europe, Soviet Asia, and sections of the U.S. are simply uninhabitable due to fallout, frank weapon effects and loss of infrastructure. West Germany is seriously pounded, the UK takes serious damage with major cities wiped out, along with considerable section of the infrastructure, probably enough to cause an utter collapse, France somewhat less than the UK and the rest of NATO being damaged mainly near military bases and strategic assets (oil facilities, major ports, etc.)

The U.S. would actually end the exchange with a useful "2nd strike" or enduring deterrent. The question is if there would be a central government left. Most of the Southern Hemisphere would be more or less untouched (this assumes no use if biological weapons, which, based on the small amount of open source, seems unlikely but is also outside the OP question).

Exchange at max inventory is very different, at least in global impact. There is sufficient overkill built in that strategic assets that either side might be able to take advantage of are going to be hit. This include locations across the Southern Hemisphere, anywhere the USN or Soviet navy could possibly find dock space is gone, every major oil terminal and oil field on the planet is at least targets if not hit. It would be a surprise if any city over 500,000 survives anywhere on Earth. Soviet engineered bio-weapon usage is a virtual certainty both human pathogens and agents designed to destroy crops.

tl;dr: In the 1960s the Southern Hemisphere survives with minor overall damage. In a full 1985 exchange Mad Max is a best case scenario.

 

[Anaxagoras]

Even as few as thirty successful nuclear strikes on the United States is enough to devastate the country, though. It's not just a question of how many people die in the immediate exchange. If key transportation hubs and oil refining locations are taken out, it severely reduces the ability to engage in major agriculture and move food from the productive parts of the country to the places where the population is massed. Medical facilities will be quickly overwhelmed by the sheer number of casualties, which means basic medical care will disappear in many parts of the country. Moreover, we will see an immediate and massive exodus of people from the major cities out of fear of a future strike (the fact that such a strike would probably not be forthcoming wouldn't matter).

I've often considered writing a novel set in a post-nuclear world (set in either Britain or the United States), but I get too depressed after a few day's research.

 

[Lost Freeway]

One important point is that IOTL is not On The Beach. Nuclear weapons generally do not leave little Chernobyls wherever they are detonated. Nuclear fallout is generally recognized as nuclear energy that is not used, so it is pretty dumb for a nuclear bomb to be so inneficient that it contaminates an area. Not to mention people moved back into ground zero at Hiroshima and Nagasaki nearly immediately.

Basically, as long as no one blows up a nuclear power plant, there won't be any "death zones" or other ridiculousness.

IIRC, the reason that the radiation in On The Beach lingered so long was that the Americans and Soviets used salted bombs, which leave much more persistent radiation than ordinary nukes.

 

[Mitchell Hundred]

I guess this topic is about a large scale nuclear war and its aftermath at any time in history where such event could have occurred.

I've just been under the assumption the closest to such an event was during the Cuban Missile crisis.

 

[alexcoppo]

Board nuclear fetishists will keep relishing their sick fantasies of a splendent 'Murica in a de-communistized world utopia; everybody else refer to this page for a healthy dose of nightmare fuel.

 

[Jurgen Wullenwever]

Board nuclear fetishists will keep relishing their sick fantasies of a splendent 'Murica in a de-communistized world utopia; everybody else refer to this page for a healthy dose of nightmare fuel.

Does the atom winter apply to all those "instant sunshine over Germany in WW2"-threads as well?
That sounds interesting ...

 

[Riain]

Due to the partial test ban treaty and some 'cutting edge' design risk about half of the US high end nuke arsenal in the mid 60s wouldn't even go off, but the lower end should be pretty reliable.

That means that the battlefields of Europe and East Asia are totally knackered but peripheral targets and those requiring the fanciest weapons to hit like deep USA/USSR only get half destroyed. So the USA/USSR might get off reasonably lightly in comparison to other areas, still bad but not totally knackered.

 

[Julius Vogel]

Board nuclear fetishists will keep relishing their sick fantasies of a splendent 'Murica in a de-communistized world utopia; everybody else refer to this page for a healthy dose of nightmare fuel.

That is pretty grim reading.

Does this discussion boil down again to the fact that we don't really have a sophisticated or accurate understanding as to who the Soviets would bombard outside of the core target areas?

I can't see the Soviets really touching anyone in the Southern Hemisphere in an early 60s scenario - lack of weapons or delivery systems.

So it would likely be several years of can those countries survive harsh winters and crop collapse.

 

[willbell]

If key transportation hubs and oil refining locations are taken out, it severely reduces the ability to engage in major agriculture and move food from the productive parts of the country to the places where the population is massed.

The thing is though that the places where the population is massed are the areas that were annihilated in the nuclear war.

 

[TFSmith121]

It is grim reading, but consider the realities of the early

That is pretty grim reading.

Does this discussion boil down again to the fact that we don't really have a sophisticated or accurate understanding as to who the Soviets would bombard outside of the core target areas?

I can't see the Soviets really touching anyone in the Southern Hemisphere in an early 60s scenario - lack of weapons or delivery systems.

So it would likely be several years of can those countries survive harsh winters and crop collapse.

It is pretty grim, but consider the realities of the early '60s arsenals (fission and fusion weapons), delivery systems, and reliability.

The US Arsenal included about 27,300 weapons, the USSR about 3300, and the U.K. about 200 in 1962, almost entirely fission weapons; the Physicians for Social Responsibility study appears to be based on "current" (2007) arsenals, which are not what was on hand in 1962.

Best,