Post Nuclear Holocaust World

Say the Cuban Missile Crisis goes horribly,horribly wrong, the US and the USSR nuke each other into oblivion.

What would the world look like....say 150 years after this happened?
 
Say the Cuban Missile Crisis goes horribly,horribly wrong, the US and the USSR nuke each other into oblivion.

What would the world look like....say 150 years after this happened?

Well, let's just say that it might dwarf even the worst (plausible, that is) predicted scenario of climate change or Apophis impact.....
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
The United States would be very badly off, but the number of Soviet nuclear weapons that would have been successfully delivered was small enough that a functioning government of some sort would probably have survived, as well as most of the population (at least at first).

The Soviet Union, by contrast, would have been utterly incinerated.
 
The United States would be very badly off, but the number of Soviet nuclear weapons that would have been successfully delivered was small enough that a functioning government of some sort would probably have survived, as well as most of the population (at least at first).

The Soviet Union, by contrast, would have been utterly incinerated.

This. The USSR had about 20-30 weapons capable of hitting the US compared to the US arsenal of several hundred.
 
Ouch. I Knew the USSR arsenal was smaller, but I didn't know it was THAT much smaller.

That's actually a lot better than they'd had about 2 years before when the number was 4 that might have worked.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis Western Europe is hit hard, the U.S. is hit less and manages to survive as a country, the USSR is annihilated. I could see them clobbering China too. The question is will this be enough to set off a nuclear winter.

In 150 years the center of the global economy is in South America and South Asia. The U.S. still exists in some form, but has high cancer rates and is viewed with hostility by much of the world. It also however remains the major military power as it holds a monopoly on military hardware in space and holds a massive advantage in nuclear weapons over any other country. Massive retaliation is central doctrine for the U.S. military.

If you want to destroy civilization have Able Archer go nuclear. The human race isn't coming back from that in less than a millenium. The world takes upwards of a million years to recover.
 
Ouch. I Knew the USSR arsenal was smaller, but I didn't know it was THAT much smaller.

Poor Russian bastards. Slaughtered in the tens of millions by Nazi scum and almost exterminated because of one leader's miscalculation, then incinerated and completely exterminated through the miscalculation of his successor. It'd make for great opera. These guys were so desperate that they were talking about delivering nukes into American port cities via submarine launched torpedo.
 
Here's a good source for what happens to areas that are entirely depopulated (perhaps due to radiation)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XDbcMND7fY

According to the series, 150 years is roughly the timeframe in which most steel buildings and masonry collapses. Even the nastiest radioactive contaminants have half lives of around 30 years, so you have a freakish outcome of still barely-recognizable ruins.

This is the sort of thing I was exploring in my EoD game; you wind up with a reborn Earth, with human colonists heading back to a bizarre twisted aftermath.

Of course, the nuclear damage wouldn't be serious enough for this to happen. Perhaps only the absolute worst areas, like Germany, would suffer this fate. Once the food crisis ends in 1 to 3 years, humanity's population will begin to rebound.

Anyway, watch the series to get an idea of what the world looks like.
 
Poor Russian bastards. Slaughtered in the tens of millions by Nazi scum and almost exterminated because of one leader's miscalculation, then incinerated and completely exterminated through the miscalculation of his successor. It'd make for great opera. These guys were so desperate that they were talking about delivering nukes into American port cities via submarine launched torpedo.

Eh? The cities might be wiped off the map but most of Rssia's population lived in small towns and villages at this stage.
 
That's actually a lot better than they'd had about 2 years before when the number was 4 that might have worked.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis Western Europe is hit hard, the U.S. is hit less and manages to survive as a country, the USSR is annihilated. I could see them clobbering China too. The question is will this be enough to set off a nuclear winter.

In 150 years the center of the global economy is in South America and South Asia. The U.S. still exists in some form, but has high cancer rates and is viewed with hostility by much of the world. It also however remains the major military power as it holds a monopoly on military hardware in space and holds a massive advantage in nuclear weapons over any other country. Massive retaliation is central doctrine for the U.S. military.

If you want to destroy civilization have Able Archer go nuclear. The human race isn't coming back from that in less than a millenium. The world takes upwards of a million years to recover.

I was under the impression that the idea of a nuclear winter was proved to be largely a myth, and that even at the height of the Cold War nuclear stockpiles weren't large enough to throw the amount of dust into the air needed to cause an Ice Age as Sagan described. My guess would be there is a mild global cooldown for about twenty years or so even with thousands of weapons used.


Actually never mind, after reading the wikipedia entry looks like we'd be in for Little Ice Age Part Deux. Millenium might be much though.
 
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to clarified some points in this TL

the USSR got 1962 had handfull of ICBM SLBM and Bomber, from only a small fraction will reach the USA and hit it.
most part will be used on Central Europe Hitting NATO installation, Nation military bases mostly with Tactical nukes

under "Single Integrated Operational Plan" the USA would have wipe out the USSR from face of the Earth:
alone on Moscow they would drop 100 MEGATONS of all kind of nukes. every major target had to be hit minimum three times
The Fallout from US nukes on USSR and East Europe and soviet nukes launch to west Europe, the wind will push radioactivity to the east.
cover the high populate west part of USSR under a deathly shroud.

the SIOP-63 envision several wave of attack on enemy on East block, USSR, and China.
If those could strike back, then a second maybe a third attack wave would launch using total 2/3 of US stockpile (2130 warheads), the last 1/3 would be used as "strategic reserve"

there will be Climate change do nuclear war, some like federalist believe it gonna be like Volcanic Winter like "year without a summer"
while other like me believe the will be short and brutal reduction of temperature describe in Nuclear winter studies.
both scenarios the survivors will face famine and deadly sickness by radiation or disease (even Bioweapon use )
in the end there will around 10 million soviet survivors but scattered allover the vast now empty land of USSR.

at first USA would look like the winner, on second look it face total social collapse !
Chaos, anarchy, Panik in States while the Officials hiding in there bunkers. economy collapse because no trade or import of oil.
the leaders would send the national guards & army in for restore law and order, but would they follow orders in time like these ?

the situation in Europe will be fare worst, by the use of hundreds of even thousand small tactical nukes at long the both Germanys benelux and North France
Paris will be wipe from face of earth by soviet nukes, to get the NATO HQ who was center in Paris during cuban missile war
here Nation like Germany or France are complete destroy, no-mans lands were Chaos and anarchy rules.

the Rest of World would transform into "African Third World countries", because the breakdown of world trade or Oil import.
they try to keep the remaining infrastructure or hardware running by repairing them over and over again, because unable to get new ones.

it will take decades until civilization recover...
 
Would the USSR become a total wasteland (irradiated wilderness with a few isolated settlements) or would some regions manage to pull together a functioning goverment in the years to come?

LOTS of refugees streaming south to warmer latitudes, from France to Siberia. The surviving nations would have to deal with this for years to come (apart from epic shortages in fuel and food).

A post-nuclear apocalypse culture? Would probably be grim and depressed for a while. Sad songs, nostalgia, black humor. The hardships would certainly lead to increase in extremism, both religious and nationalism. That is apart from the militarized state, suspended civil liberties.
 
to clarified some points in this TL


at first USA would look like the winner, on second look it face total social collapse !
Chaos, anarchy, Panik in States while the Officials hiding in there bunkers. economy collapse because no trade or import of oil.
the leaders would send the national guards & army in for restore law and order, but would they follow orders in time like these ?


Snipped
it will take decades until civilization recover...

The US would be producing enough oil for it's needs and who else would the rest of the world trade with, maybe how would they say no to the US would be a better wat to phrase it?
 
The US would be producing enough oil for it's needs and who else would the rest of the world trade with, maybe how would they say no to the US would be a better wat to phrase it?

but is this enough for US ? i mean in 1960s they used Oil for everything:
Home Heating, cooking, light, power electrical generators, power cars etc.
and even they have enough will reach it there ultimate consumers ?

about Chaos, anarchy, Panik in States
look what happen to new orleans habitant after Hurricane Katrina past true.
here the public order collapse fast, because police officer went home to protect there family.
 
Katrina aftermath became a clusterfuck largely due to the incompetent federal response to the disaster. It is entirely possible to place much of the blame on the top level failures in Bush Administration decision making rather than any perceived ineptitude of disaster relief systems in force on the ground. At any rate, Civil Defense at the height of the Cold War isn't necessarily a total joke.
 
150 years into the future of a TL where the Cuban Missile Crisis resulted in nuclear war (for example taking the Cuban Missile War TL of Amerigo Vespucci as a general model), the US and Europe will be fully recovered.
Regarding the former USSR, parts occupied by other nations will have recovered to complete normalcy, even if they (might) not yet be first world. Theses areas are also areas with a greater percentage of ethnic minorities due to being more rural and/or peripheral.
The bulk of the USSR will be either a collection of successor states or a merger of those, with a lower population than before the war (but on the way to recovery), and less developed than Europe.
China's growth will depend on the kind of reforms it decides to do later ITTL.
India will progress to become a superpower by early XXII century.
Japan will be fully recovered, and along with parts of Latin American and Asia and a few nations in Africa will be first world.
 
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A hot Cuban Missile Crisis probably hits Germany the hardest as a culture and society. There simply wouldn't be much left.

While Russia and the other SSRs would be hard-hit, it's an awfully big place and its society and culture would survive, albeit with massive damage.

I suspect the US would be, by now, nearly fully recovered after 50 years, though I'm not saying we wouldn't have gotten our hair mussed in the process.

...Bonus points for those who got the Dr. Strangelove reference in the preceding paragraph from General Buck Turgidson...

The scary scenario is anything happening in the 1970s/1980s. Far more warheads and better delivery systems make for a much more catastrophic scenario.
 
Europe - Gone

USA - Hit as hard as possible, but in the early 60s this probably wouldn't totally destroy them as a functioning nation

USSR - Cities and all military installations completely gone, no government left, Moscow an unrecognisable flatland fluctuating between ashgray swamp and ashgrey ice as the seasons change. Red army perishes in western Europe as short range missiles and gravity bombs just hit anything that's worth targeting. Much of the more remote areas would probably be unchanged.

From here it all depends how bad USA was hit and how badly China and Japan were hit.

Best case Scenario probably Washington, New York and whatever the next 20 biggest cities gone. China sits it out. Japan is ignored or only gets one or two, not on Tokyo (unlikely). Australia, New Zealand and Canada not hit (Canada unlikely to get away completely)

Anyway, if you can get the above, you have a rising India, China and the "West" re-locates to Canada and Australia. Depending on how well liberal democracy can get on without USA / Europe with a rising China would be interesting to see, but in time you may get another cold war between China and everyone else.
 
Say the Cuban Missile Crisis goes horribly,horribly wrong, the US and the USSR nuke each other into oblivion.

What would the world look like....say 150 years after this happened?

The word would be back were it was 150 years after the event and technolgy would have started to move forward again decades after the event.

There simply are not enough deliverable nuclear warheads to achieve a level of destruction sufficient enough to really wipe out civilisation or even the West as a functionning entity. This has been said countless times in the various Protect and Survive threads. But sadly it is so much more convenient to sprout irrational stupidities like "OMG Nuclear War will kill everyone and reduce the survivors to three headed mutants!"

Humanity will be set back and some nations will suffer grevious losses. But there is a surprinsibly large degree of dispersion of skills and infrastructure in the West. Who will care post nuclear war if fundamentally useless things like Facebook, Twitter, Hollywood, the Jerry Springer Show and television networks stop operating. In the grim accounting of the post war world, their value would pale in comparison to the value to the value of surviving craftsmen, engineers and technicians.
 
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