As a cohesive government, it would be about the same as the USA, with most of the country being destroyed, and the central government controlling a small area, and warlords, military administrations, or complete anarchy in the rest. Although Willie did say that Europe was worse off than North america so it may be different.
Seven Days to the River Rhine: the Third World War - a TL
- Thread starter Onkel Willie
- Start date
I don’t think illegal drugs would have been an issue in short term as was mentioned in post. The worst addicts probably die quickly from severe withdrawal while the rest would have nothing to pay or trade for them so I think that part is not very realistic in post war US. Maybe in Latin America but not in smoldering remains of USA .
If some central government of USSR survives Gang of Eight is not going to survive from that. Either Presidium will enforce them to resign from their office, army ousts them or just angry mob will lynch them.
I think Ontario (and to a lesser extent) Quebec are going to have a hard time in the aftermath just because of the lingering radiation from the United States. The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence system is going to be crazy radioactive for decades to come (Chicago, Cleveland, Toronto, most likely Detroit, Green Bay and Buffalo too) meaning that even small cities like Belleville and Kingston get irradiated. It remains to be seen if peninsular Ontario is even habitable as an entity in the aftermath, even if you evacuated the cities there was fallout in every direction.
The biggest cities in Canada are now Calgary and Winnipeg. Alberta and British Columbia might be the most populous provinces in the aftermath.
Realistically, Edmonton and Vancouver (to a lesser extent) probably saw lighter casualties just because so many people did evacuate and weren't surrounded by other nuclear explosions and fallout. I wouldn't be surprised if half or more of Edmonton survived. The only way you get 80% is if Ontario and Quebec are completely depopulated and Vancouver/Edmonton see no evacuations. The Maritimes have 10% by themselves and Sask/Manitoba have another 10%. I'd say over half and maybe as high as two thirds in the five years after the war.
Certainly not the Ruling figures of the pre-war times but at least a remnant with clear succession of the Soviet government will. Countries like the US and USSR are simply just too large and decentralized to wipe out the entire government and command structure in a single decapitation strike no matter what damage is done. The capability just wasn't (and isn't now) there.
How did the war go in the Nordic countries? Weas Switzerland, Yugoslavia affected by the war?
I would suppose that Iceland got at least one nuke (Keflavik) and Norway and Denmark got some too. Finland and Sweden might have escaped from direct hits but they can't escape consueqences.
Switzerland has not easy times. Even if mountains would stop most of fallout it is pretty helpless to stop millions of refutess literally from everywhere around of the country. And furthermore it has with some way secure that citizens have enough of fod and other base needs. I would expect there being really strickt rationing.
I find it hard to envisage a recovery; even without a nuclear winter, the global population is less than a billion in short order, and all of the easily-accessible resources have been used. A permanent regression to a medieval lifestyle, perhaps with the addition of small amounts of electricity, seems inevitable.
You have pretty pessimistic view. World population is not going drop under a billion. Yes, in 2023 world population is of course much lower than in OTL but still I would expect that being around 5 - 6 billion. Africa and lot of Asia wher eis most of that growth are more or less intact so that would keep population pretty high.
And world is not in medieval level not even that what was once Soviet Union. Lot of 1980's technology is still existing and there is people whom have lot of knowledge. Yes, things are pretty horrible and living conditions of Europe is really horrible but things probably can become better by 2023 altough technologically world is lesser advanced than OTL. Remember that such countries like Australia and New Zealand have suffered relatively few.
I wanna see what happens in Australia.
Also Threads was a cool mockumentary and I recommend it to anyone in this thread.
Another issue will be nuclear power plants. I believe there was something like 200 operational plants in the US, Europe, and Asia in the 80s. The possibility of more radiation leakage from damaged or unstaffed plants would just add to the misery.
On the other hand surviving/staffed plants in “secure” areas, could be beacons of hope of reestablishing order (anyone read “Lucifer’s Hammer”).
ric350
On the other hand surviving/staffed plants in “secure” areas, could be beacons of hope of reestablishing order (anyone read “Lucifer’s Hammer”).
ric350
Yeah, between the surface strikes and nuclear plant meltdowns (if they weren't struck during the exchange) we are going to wind up with dozens of Chernobyl-style wastelands worldwide.
Interesting that Berlin (and presumably its environs) survived. This means that both the FRG and GDR exist, and so does the Berlin Wall, at least for a short while.
Apart from China/North Korea, communism is deader than it was IOTL. In the Soviet Union, the KGB and CPSU will have lost all their power, and there is no more popular support for the USSR or even Russia for that matter. No Moscow means the empire it lorded over since the 1600s just falls apart. The surviving 100 million Soviet citizens probably get divided into a smattering of countries under the rule of local ethnic chiefs or ex-Soviet military commanders.
China is actually the biggest "winner" of this TL. It probably still has 500-600 million people of its prewar 1 billion after the nuclear strikes, famine, and diseases, which is, sadly, not an unprecedented scale of mass death in Chinese history. It seems that the military-industrial complexes of the "Third line" that Mao ordered built in the mountains of Sichuan and other inland provinces have survived. After the people with the bad fortune to die are gone, China will still be intact. With the US being in no position to exert geopolitical influence over Asia, very likely the CCP will reach out some olive branches to Taiwan, play peacemaker in Korea, and eventually pressure Taipei into a Hong Kong-like political arrangement. The PLA is likely to set up colonies in Mongolia and Siberia, especially the former Soviet Far East to develop the agriculture there.
It will certainly be interesting to see political developments in the 1990s and beyond as the PLA is going to be the primary force in the Chinese regime for at least a generation. My guess would be that aside from trying to stabilize China, They'll also demand large expenditures to procure whatever tech can be scavenged from the remains of the USSR and maybe even Japan and use it to build a massive and well-equipped military with which to engage in gunboat diplomacy in the Asia Pacific.
Japan meanwhile is going to see mass starvation, but on the other hand "only" a dozen cities have been destroyed and Kyoto still exists, so the government is still there and some semblance of order can be preserved. Also, Japan historically offered generous economic protections for the national agriculture industry, so that will reduce the impact of starvation to a significant degree.
Apart from China/North Korea, communism is deader than it was IOTL. In the Soviet Union, the KGB and CPSU will have lost all their power, and there is no more popular support for the USSR or even Russia for that matter. No Moscow means the empire it lorded over since the 1600s just falls apart. The surviving 100 million Soviet citizens probably get divided into a smattering of countries under the rule of local ethnic chiefs or ex-Soviet military commanders.
China is actually the biggest "winner" of this TL. It probably still has 500-600 million people of its prewar 1 billion after the nuclear strikes, famine, and diseases, which is, sadly, not an unprecedented scale of mass death in Chinese history. It seems that the military-industrial complexes of the "Third line" that Mao ordered built in the mountains of Sichuan and other inland provinces have survived. After the people with the bad fortune to die are gone, China will still be intact. With the US being in no position to exert geopolitical influence over Asia, very likely the CCP will reach out some olive branches to Taiwan, play peacemaker in Korea, and eventually pressure Taipei into a Hong Kong-like political arrangement. The PLA is likely to set up colonies in Mongolia and Siberia, especially the former Soviet Far East to develop the agriculture there.
It will certainly be interesting to see political developments in the 1990s and beyond as the PLA is going to be the primary force in the Chinese regime for at least a generation. My guess would be that aside from trying to stabilize China, They'll also demand large expenditures to procure whatever tech can be scavenged from the remains of the USSR and maybe even Japan and use it to build a massive and well-equipped military with which to engage in gunboat diplomacy in the Asia Pacific.
Japan meanwhile is going to see mass starvation, but on the other hand "only" a dozen cities have been destroyed and Kyoto still exists, so the government is still there and some semblance of order can be preserved. Also, Japan historically offered generous economic protections for the national agriculture industry, so that will reduce the impact of starvation to a significant degree.
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As a Louisianan who was born just south of New Orleans, I certainly got butterflied away, but it does leave me wondering what will have happened to the Old River Control Structure, just north of Baton Rouge and New Orleans and near(ish) to Alexandria.
If that fails, whether it was nuked or just by lack of upkeep as its likely to become abandoned, then there's nothing keeping the Mississippi River's main channel in place anymore causing it to shift to drain towards the Atchafalaya Basin and Morgan City instead of towards Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
So yeah, WW3 might have changed exactly where the Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico.
If that fails, whether it was nuked or just by lack of upkeep as its likely to become abandoned, then there's nothing keeping the Mississippi River's main channel in place anymore causing it to shift to drain towards the Atchafalaya Basin and Morgan City instead of towards Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
So yeah, WW3 might have changed exactly where the Mississippi River empties into the Gulf of Mexico.
DDR might had survived but another question is how long communist government will last. It has really dire conditions now. And West Germany probably has practically ceased from existing. It is now just big same as HRE but not even emperor around. This war has been even more disastrous for Germany than even Thirty Years War or WW2.
Agree. Reputation of communism is about same level as nazism. Probably even China, NK and other communist naiton will drop word "communism" and replace that with socialism. Probably even surviving communist parties in non-communist countries are going to take critical view over Soviet Union. The country will be eternally cursed. Russia probably falls to several smaller war lord cliques and probably some of them will declare themselves as tsars.
China has now indeed good chances to become even more important player. And it could too take Siberia easily. Or at least establish some puppet state.
This is going to be big national trauma for Japan. It had already hit by nukes on previous world war lesser than 40 years ago and now again. Japan anyway can survive but it is severely weakened.
My guess is that DDR is fighting for its own existence and Poland is basically ceased from existing since everything between Gdansk and Krakow are nuked. The country was already descending to civil war and now it is in complete chaos.
Switzerland has natural barriers and could prevent refugees from getting in if it really wanted to.
Any particular reason said warlords would proclaim themselves Tsars instead of just going with being Presidents-for-Life or styling themselves as Vozhds?