In the United States maybe six major areas have hope to rebuild order somewhat quickly, or at least fare better than the rest [with likely capitols]:
-Oregon/northern CA, [probably run out of Eugene]
-Southern Idaho/northernmost Utah/Wyoming, [Twin Falls or Pocatello]
-Central Appalachia (Eastern KY, Western VA, most of WV, eastern NC, parts of Tennessee away from TVA sites and major cities), [Several possibilities]
-Northern Maine/New Hampshire/ Vermont, [Montpelier]
-Western Texas/eastern New Mexico, [several possibilities] and
-Central/Western/Southern Kansas, rural Oklahoma, Arkansas, and southern Missouri [Springfield MO]
There are isolated areas that might also survive or even thrive but not on more than a very local scale and everything north of 40 degrees east of the Rockies will be bathed in the glow of eastern-bound radiation if not thoroughly nuked. Warlord states may rise and fall but some state government *might* survive as a rallying point for rebuilding a federal government. Ultimately a generation will grow up thin, angry, tough, and probably near Socialist-sympathetic just because they have to share. Depression survivors will quickly relearn survival skills and the Baby Boomers and early Gen Xers will adapt as well. Expect horses and shoe leather to be the main vehicles of trade, fears of possible denegeration into neo-feudalism are founded (maybe even starting the process in some places) but ultimately the memory of what a powerful coutnry existed will motivate the survivors to try to rebuild it if only in their own version of it.
Each 'Provisional United States' equivalent will likely have a variant of the old Constitution somewhere but by 2000 expect a few areas to be lifting themselves into the 1960s with isolated 1970s tech (likely medicine and weapons). Areas of the country will not return in force for half a century but the southern and western parts of the country might have trains and buses between them by 2003 under the right circumstances. If the country reunites, expect a capitol west of the Mississippi this time, perhaps between the necropolis formerly known Omaha and the blast crater formerly known as Kansas City. It is possible for a mid-sized city to survive as the rallying point somewhere depending on how the bombs fall as well.
-Oregon/northern CA, [probably run out of Eugene]
-Southern Idaho/northernmost Utah/Wyoming, [Twin Falls or Pocatello]
-Central Appalachia (Eastern KY, Western VA, most of WV, eastern NC, parts of Tennessee away from TVA sites and major cities), [Several possibilities]
-Northern Maine/New Hampshire/ Vermont, [Montpelier]
-Western Texas/eastern New Mexico, [several possibilities] and
-Central/Western/Southern Kansas, rural Oklahoma, Arkansas, and southern Missouri [Springfield MO]
There are isolated areas that might also survive or even thrive but not on more than a very local scale and everything north of 40 degrees east of the Rockies will be bathed in the glow of eastern-bound radiation if not thoroughly nuked. Warlord states may rise and fall but some state government *might* survive as a rallying point for rebuilding a federal government. Ultimately a generation will grow up thin, angry, tough, and probably near Socialist-sympathetic just because they have to share. Depression survivors will quickly relearn survival skills and the Baby Boomers and early Gen Xers will adapt as well. Expect horses and shoe leather to be the main vehicles of trade, fears of possible denegeration into neo-feudalism are founded (maybe even starting the process in some places) but ultimately the memory of what a powerful coutnry existed will motivate the survivors to try to rebuild it if only in their own version of it.
Each 'Provisional United States' equivalent will likely have a variant of the old Constitution somewhere but by 2000 expect a few areas to be lifting themselves into the 1960s with isolated 1970s tech (likely medicine and weapons). Areas of the country will not return in force for half a century but the southern and western parts of the country might have trains and buses between them by 2003 under the right circumstances. If the country reunites, expect a capitol west of the Mississippi this time, perhaps between the necropolis formerly known Omaha and the blast crater formerly known as Kansas City. It is possible for a mid-sized city to survive as the rallying point somewhere depending on how the bombs fall as well.