Political effects of nuclear destruction of a country?

Lateknight

Banned
What would be the political effects of a country being entirely destroyed by a nuclear war 50+ weapons . I'm not talking about a war between to nuclear powers but one were one is basically defenseless for example a North Korea or a Nazi Germany.
 
I think it depends a lot on when, where, and who. I mean, if Nazi Germany somehow knocks Russia out of the war, and the US and UK end up bombing them into submission in 1946, that's a lot different from if Evil McEvilston ends up POTUS in 1952 and preemptively nukes Russia, and so on.
 
First question: how big is the country?
A small city-state like Luxembourg or Singapore would be completely ruined (nuclear wasteland) with only the neighbours squabbling over the wreckage.

OTOH a large country like Russia or Australia would require dozens of A-bombs to devastate it's cities, but millions of farmers would struggle to survive between the targets.
 
I think it depends a lot on when, where, and who. I mean, if Nazi Germany somehow knocks Russia out of the war, and the US and UK end up bombing them into submission in 1946, that's a lot different from if Evil McEvilston ends up POTUS in 1952 and preemptively nukes Russia, and so on.

I'd definitely vote for a candidate with that name.
 
So would I, but only if he represented the Definitely Evil No-good Party and his running mate was Richard Nixon.

President Curtis LeMay, Vice President George Wallace, Secretary of State Edward Teller, Minister of Justice Joseph McCarthy,Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lyman Lemnitzer.

No need to invent anything when you can leverage the pros.
 
President Curtis LeMay, Vice President George Wallace, Secretary of State Edward Teller, Minister of Justice Joseph McCarthy,Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lyman Lemnitzer.

No need to invent anything when you can leverage the pros.

President LeMay would get in Air Force One, carpet-bomb the White House, and spend the rest of his term airborne. :p
 
President Curtis LeMay, Vice President George Wallace, Secretary of State Edward Teller, Minister of Justice Joseph McCarthy,Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lyman Lemnitzer.

No need to invent anything when you can leverage the pros.

Being a little unfair to Teller and LeMay there. Especially Teller.

ETA: Poor Teller... This is off-topic, but I feel a rant coming on, and we're way off topic already.

I mean, don't get me wrong, Teller was a massive jerkass. The whole business about credit for the H-bomb, for instance - no matter which version you settle on, he looks terrible. And his intellectual arrogance, commitment to technotopianism, and rabid anti-Communism led him to support technological projects that were deeply unfortunate (Plowshare, EXCALIBUR). But the image of Teller as a Strangelovian madman, eager to commit genocide, is just untrue. Fundamentally, what happened to Teller is that there was a certain niche in the liberal consciousness that needed filling, and he got shoe-horned into it, along with Herman Kahn. We needed a real-life Dr. Strangelove, a manifestation of our darkest suspicions of the military-industrial-scientific complex, and if we couldn't find one we would invent one. (At the same time, he also filled a niche in the conservative consciousness, which is why he was able to get away with so much for so long, but that's a separate issue.) So, like Kahn, he gets associated with these genocidal aspirations that bear only the most superficial resemblance to what he actually advocated.

No, if you want a Secretary of State for President Evil, you want General Thomas S Power - a man who Curtis LeMay referred to as "sadistic" and "mentally unstable".
 
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