Nuclear war: Cause, outcome, survivability

[Nemmerle]

During a nuclear attack I wouldn't even bother shooting for the president. At that point his importance is effectively zero. Presidents are generally not great generals or tacticians, they are good - sometimes mediocre, at politics and getting votes. Neither of which matter in a nuclear war.

[Jackthehammer]

cause: Human weaknesses

Surviving.. well, that kinda depends on the scale of the problem.. I was watching this series on Discovery channel yesterday about the Chernobyl disaster, and it turned out they got it under control just intime.. If the radioactive magna in the exploded reactor remains were to burn through the floor, it wouldve triggered a chain reaction causing an nuclear explosion so great that it probably wouldve destroyed europe in such a way that it wouldve become unhabitable.. Thank God for russian reliability eh..

[Joe Bonham]

Most of the so called "nuclear winter" theory is fraud. Such a cataclysm would require the detonations of hundreds of thousands of bombs. No war would realistically require that many missiles (There aren't that many targets - all of the cities, armies, fleets, and missile silos would be vaporized long before we reached the level needed for the nuclear winter). A real war like that would probably involve only a minority of the earth's surface.


I will go a step further - nukes have BROUGHT peace - not threatened it. Just look at all of the examples.

-The Allies and the USSR never dared fight out of fear of nuclear war

-When both India and Pakistan developed nukes, the intensity of the war degenerated into mere border skirmishes - both sides are terrified of nuclear escalation

-Israel aquired nukes. The various terrorists, dictators, and other war criminals scaled down their attacks out of fear of reprisal (The Jews remember the holocaust - I doubt they would plan to die alone this time ). Now the war is fought on the guerrilla scale - none of the Arab states are directly involved any more.

But now things are started to get more complicated - since now thanks to improved technology - pretty soon any fool could build his own nuke - another sign of the decline of the nation state's monopoly on warfare.

Expect some pretty scary moments in the future.

[Yannick]

Depends on the Nuclear War. If it's I launch nuke at you, and you launch nike at me, then we realise our stupidity, then no. But if it turns to full scale war, then maybe. I think winds will end up getting to everyone in the end though.

[USMA2010]

Originally Posted by Nemmerle

During a nuclear attack I wouldn't even bother shooting for the president. At that point his importance is effectively zero. Presidents are generally not great generals or tacticians, they are good - sometimes mediocre, at politics and getting votes. Neither of which matter in a nuclear war.

The president, or the acting president, is the only person who has access the nuclear launch codes of the United States. Some guy in Montana can't just let fly with his ICBMs because someone said some SS-25s are coming.

[Joe Bonham]

Even he can't do it on his own. If I remember correctly, you need two people to order a launch.

(But if someone started throwing nukes at us, I doubt anybody would wait for permission to strike back. )

[IR15H]

Originally Posted by SpectreGunner

Anyways by survival I meant that the human race was still around and had a breeding population.

If a (highly unlikely) full scale nuclear war was to occur I doubt it'd completely wipe out mankind, it could sure fuck up the economy though.

[peterk]

Of course hmanity would survive - in fact most of us would survive. The only people affected in a full scale Nuclear war would be those in major cities. If you are in the country you are fine. The area affected by a nuke is rater small (only about 10 miles around it) the world is rather big and as soon as all the launch sites have been attacked it would be all over.

[MrFancypants]

Originally Posted by peterk

Of course hmanity would survive - in fact most of us would survive. The only people affected in a full scale Nuclear war would be those in major cities. If you are in the country you are fine. The area affected by a nuke is rater small (only about 10 miles around it) the world is rather big and as soon as all the launch sites have been attacked it would be all over.

You didn't consider radioactive fallout and the collapse of society.

Even if "normal" nuclear weapons explode they create a lot of fallout which causes diseases for years to come. But there is also the possiblity to outfit nukes with thorium or strontium and thereby artificially increasing the fallout to the point where a country becomes uninhabitable.

I think the results can be summed up quite well by this quote:
"I don't know what WWIIII will be fought with, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones".

[Joe Bonham]

Unless someone upstairs was phycotic, only a relatively small number of nukes would be detonated - enough to take out the enemy's ability to strike back, as well as destroying their military capability. Like Peterk said, most of the population of the earth would be fine. Only the people in the countries involved would have a problem.