What percentage of the US/Soviet nuclear stockpile was intended for non US/Soviet targets?

In the last two decades of the Cold War what percentage of the US/Soviet nuclear stockpile was intended for non Soviet/US targets?

10%? 20%?

By non US/Soviet targets I mean targets that aren't on American or Soviet soil so NATO, the Warsaw Pact, Africa, the Middle East, Asia etc.
 
I couldn't give you a number, but particularly for the Soviets it would be a LOT. The Soviets had to face 3 non US nuclear armed adversaries and major industrialised alliance systems in Europe and East Asia, it would take a lot of nukes to deal with West Germany and Japan for starters.
 
In the last two decades of the Cold War what percentage of the US/Soviet nuclear stockpile was intended for non Soviet/US targets?

10%? 20%?

By non US/Soviet targets I mean targets that aren't on American or Soviet soil so NATO, the Warsaw Pact, Africa, the Middle East, Asia etc.

Well the Soviet stockpile was incredibly large in the 80's, giving them the ability to target a huge score of targets including many in Europe and Japan. So many in fact that it hardly matter where they would be dropped, if the entire stockpile was used and all the warheads worked and weren't stopped both the US, Japan and Europe would practically cease to exist. I doubt they had targets in the Middle-East or Asia besides South Korea and Japan. They didn't have targets in Africa. I'd say, its about 60% of their warheads for the US and 40% for the rest.

The US stockpile was probably mostly directed at the Soviet Union itself but if they were to use all of them, the Warsaw pact will also be hit as bad as possible. Of course, the area they need to hit outside of the USSR is quite small compared to what the Soviet would have to hit, so a smaller part of the warheads will be used for this, but then again the US had about 10,000 less of them. I'd say 80% for the USSR and 20% for the rest.

Of course, dropping 25,000 warheads on the US would be kinda overkill, but 60% of the first launched missiles. Same goes for the US, 80% of the first launch missiles will hit the Soviet Union.
 
In 1985, the Soviet Union had about 39,000 warheads. At most, perhaps 8000 of these could reach the US (this is a guesstimate based on the number of ICBMs, SLBMs and long-range bombers and an attempt to factor in MIRVed missiles; I'm too lazy to do the math). The rest were tactical warheads or on platforms which gave them the range to reach targets in Asia or Europe. So, maybe 20% of their stockpile would have been used on US targets.

The US was different; it had both a bomber, ICBM and SLBM capability which could reach the Soviet Union, but also a number of warheads based in Europe which could also do so. In 1985, there were 21,000 warheads. I won't hazard a guess on the percentage, but it would have been a lot higher than 20.
 

Ak-84

Banned
The main USSR targets outside NATO/ Five Eyes would be in China, Japan, Korea, Israel and Pakistan. Maybe S Africa.
Can't really think who the US would bomb.
 

CalBear

Moderator
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No one can say with any certainty. There are obvious targets across NATO and the Pact along with, especially in the case of the U.S./NATO critical bases outside the European Plain (Yokosuka NB, USFK nuclear storage facilities, RAF Akrotiri, etc) as well as probable economic targets across the Middle East, but the "newest" targeting list that has been made public dates to mid-1950s SAC, with absolutely nothing from the USSR.
 
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