Lore:
Because of [REDACTED] the USA, Britain, France, and Russia got into a huge nuclear exchange in 2023. This rippled out into Korea, China, Japan, and Israel. Finally rippling out into India and Pakistan whose militaries agreed to distract China by firing dud missiles at each other rather than ending life on their subcontinent. The reason for all of this happening is [REDACTED] so trust me it all makes sense and none of it unrealistic.
The United Nations fled to... still not sure thinking Abuja Nigeria, and continued their global operations. West Africa benefited from the new absence of a french government. Indonesia, Bangladesh, etc had most sweatshops shut down (the only market was australia, no more US or Europe market) Several doom cults the world over went a little nuts in the face of, well, doom. There was a few American refugee crisis in countries bordering the Caribbean Sea, notably Cuba and Venezuela who both had outbreaks of "commie smashing" militias in refugee camps.
In Asia: Myanmars' military dictatorship was ousted and the nation collapsed, Karen militias in the east began jumping over the Thai border at times, the Thai began cracking down on those they thought were helping these militias (the local Karen population) and many Karen on the Thai side of the border joined Karen nationalist militias, returning the favor to the local Thai population by rounding them up and (usually) sending them eastward in caravans or whatever, so this region of Thailand was effectively converted to being Karen-dominated, this influx of Thai refugees angry at the government for not stopping this would agitate locals to the outbreak of many protests against the Thai government, culminating in regions outright declaring independence. Malaysia would invade a Malay majority region in the South of Thailand hoping to regain some respect and its standing among its neighbours (and would succeed) because it had recently lost Sabah and Sarawak. In the case of India, the destruction of Delhi and the death of much of India's government would drive regions concerned over Hindu nationalism to break away, muslim areas near the Bangladesh border rose up in open rebellion against the Interim Indian government, Christians in Eastern India would do the same, and the Sikh province of Punjab would declare its independence. Gujarat would do the same as it was located on the border between the only two remaining nuclear powers in the world and Gandhinagar had been targeted during the nuclear exchange (broken arrowed or smth idk). Naxalite militias in the Gondi region of Chhattisgarh declared independence after winning some decisive battle, many regions of Southern India fought for increased autonomy and there were a few regions in which no deal was met. Goa, Odisha, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. Tula Nada (within Karnataka) would declare its independence after "not being represented in negotiations." In northeastern India, the assorted rebels would win and the region would be broken up, however many of India's neighbours modern day enjoy a comfortable peace with India, both Hindi and Hindu nationalism have been low as of late. This is how India was able to assert itself over both the conflict in Baluchistan, and the breakaway state to its north of Tibet. Most other breakaways in the region simply took advantage of the chaos, or their national governments were in chaos and overwhelmed with other issues allowing regions i.e. Aceh or the Muslim region of Mindanao to declare self-governance.
Finally, the Middle East experienced a bit of a political renaissance, as American & Russian bombings stopped, while many US-affiliated arab leaders were targetted by russian nuclear weapons, same with the reverse of that. In the ruins of Saudi Arabia however many possible heirs would establish local warlord states, a couple of them Wahabist, a couple plain old Sunni warlords, Yemen is not that clean I just couldn't be bothered to think about it.
