3 ms·

Possibly pretty survivable in the short term as long as a nuclear warhead doesn't go off very close to where you are. Just because you're in a major city doesn

by elihu 4y ago

Possibly pretty survivable in the short term as long as a nuclear warhead doesn't go off very close to where you are. Just because you're in a major city doesn't necessarily mean you're a high priority target. (In nuclear war, there are what is called a "counter-force" strategy where you target military bases, and a "counter-value" strategy where you target things with the highest value to the defender like cities.) In the short-to-medium term the issue becomes: can you stay underground for the next week or so until the sky stops emitting gamma rays? Cement and dirt are both good barriers, but you'll need food and water eventually. I'd also wonder if the air might become unbreathably bad or too hot due to everything burning.

tablespoon 4y ago
> Possibly pretty survivable in the short term as long as a nuclear warhead doesn't go off very close to where you are. Just because you're in a major city doesn't necessarily mean you're a high priority target. (In nuclear war, there are what is called a "counter-force" strategy where you target military bases, and a "counter-value" strategy where you target things with the highest value to the defender like cities.) Though counter-force requires so many warheads, that if you're doing that it wouldn't be hard to do counter-value as well. I read somewhere that a single sub's worth of warheads is enough to implement a credible counter-value strategy.
- elihu 4y ago
  Yeah, it depends on what your objective is really. Killing a lot of people is easy with nuclear weapons, but it doesn't necessarily equate to "winning". The impression I get as a non-expert in this area is that the only countries with a big enough arsenal to plausibly do counter-force are the U.S. (along with its NATO allies) and Russia. China doesn't have enough for counter-force so we assume their strategy is counter-value and it's mostly there as a deterrent because they'd expect to get obliterated as well. It seems kind of weird to expect Russia to conduct a nuclear war in a manner that's relatively humane, but I suppose there's also the possibility that in a nuclear confrontation with the U.S. they wouldn't want their own cities to get nuked either so maybe there's a sort of "let's not be the first to do counter-value" dynamic at play. Really, there's no way to know what's going to happen until it happens, and we can hope it never does. Best case for survivability in a nuclear war is probably just: don't live near a military base or near anything important. Most rural land is relatively safe, since there just aren't enough nukes in the world to evenly blanket a large country. Nuclear winter though might kind of doom everyone through food shortages if there's a full counter-value exchange, even if the cities are spared.
  - tablespoon 4y ago
    > ...but I suppose there's also the possibility that in a nuclear confrontation with the U.S. they wouldn't want their own cities to get nuked either so maybe there's a sort of "let's not be the first to do counter-value" dynamic at play. I'm not sure if that's valid reasoning because 1) nuclear targeting decisions are some of the most closely-guarded secrets and 2) if you could be subject to a counter-force attack there's probably little opportunity to "wait and see" what your enemy attacks before you launch yourself. Though I might be clouded by thinking in terms of the classic missles-in-silos nuclear war. I suppose some subs might survive (but I'm sure a component of any nuclear war would be to try to sink those first), and they've got stuff like constantly flying mobile command posts. So maybe the subs have instructions to hold back a few missiles pending further orders from the last general sitting on that plane.

by elihu 4y ago

tablespoon 4y ago

> Possibly pretty survivable in the short term as long as a nuclear warhead doesn't go off very close to where you are. Just because you're in a major city doesn't necessarily mean you're a high priority target. (In nuclear war, there are what is called a "counter-force" strategy where you target military bases, and a "counter-value" strategy where you target things with the highest value to the defender like cities.) Though counter-force requires so many warheads, that if you're doing that it wouldn't be hard to do counter-value as well. I read somewhere that a single sub's worth of warheads is enough to implement a credible counter-value strategy.

elihu 4y ago
Yeah, it depends on what your objective is really. Killing a lot of people is easy with nuclear weapons, but it doesn't necessarily equate to "winning". The impression I get as a non-expert in this area is that the only countries with a big enough arsenal to plausibly do counter-force are the U.S. (along with its NATO allies) and Russia. China doesn't have enough for counter-force so we assume their strategy is counter-value and it's mostly there as a deterrent because they'd expect to get obliterated as well. It seems kind of weird to expect Russia to conduct a nuclear war in a manner that's relatively humane, but I suppose there's also the possibility that in a nuclear confrontation with the U.S. they wouldn't want their own cities to get nuked either so maybe there's a sort of "let's not be the first to do counter-value" dynamic at play. Really, there's no way to know what's going to happen until it happens, and we can hope it never does. Best case for survivability in a nuclear war is probably just: don't live near a military base or near anything important. Most rural land is relatively safe, since there just aren't enough nukes in the world to evenly blanket a large country. Nuclear winter though might kind of doom everyone through food shortages if there's a full counter-value exchange, even if the cities are spared.
- tablespoon 4y ago
  > ...but I suppose there's also the possibility that in a nuclear confrontation with the U.S. they wouldn't want their own cities to get nuked either so maybe there's a sort of "let's not be the first to do counter-value" dynamic at play. I'm not sure if that's valid reasoning because 1) nuclear targeting decisions are some of the most closely-guarded secrets and 2) if you could be subject to a counter-force attack there's probably little opportunity to "wait and see" what your enemy attacks before you launch yourself. Though I might be clouded by thinking in terms of the classic missles-in-silos nuclear war. I suppose some subs might survive (but I'm sure a component of any nuclear war would be to try to sink those first), and they've got stuff like constantly flying mobile command posts. So maybe the subs have instructions to hold back a few missiles pending further orders from the last general sitting on that plane.