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>They don’t provide an enclave where civilization can regroup and rebuild collectively. Your model of nuclear war is flawed, which is understandable given the

>They don’t provide an enclave where civilization can regroup and rebuild collectively. Your model of nuclear war is flawed, which is understandable given the immense amount of misinformation out there. If Russia and China launched every nuke they have at the US, about half of Americans would survive even without any use of fallout shelters. Most vehicles would "survive" (continue to operate or fail in ways that are easy to fix even under the new, degraded conditions in the country). At any given time, the US has enough food stored (mostly in the form of grains and soybeans intended to be fed to livestock) to keep the survivors alive for 3 years. In contrast, you seem to think that most people in attacked countries would die. Either that or you think most of the survivors would degenerate into a distinctly uncivilized mode of living, which is also unlikely IMHO. I can elaborate on this point if there is interest. My prediction is that the period of social chaos lasts only as long as it take for the radiation from the fallout to diminish to non-lethal levels, which is about 3 weeks after the last weapons exploded. (Less than half of the area of the US would be covered by lethal concentrations of fallout in the first place: fallout shelters are a good idea because there is no location guaranteed not to receive lethal levels of fallout: it literally depends on which way the winds are blowing.) The big unknown in an all-out nuclear war is nuclear winter, which might end up causing most of the deaths, i.e., after the silos full of livestock feed are used up, but IMHO it is unlikely that nuclear winter would be that severe. In summary: nuclear war will not cause a collapse of civilization or societal order, at least not one sustained for more than a few weeks or possibly a few months.

candiddevmike 2y ago
I don't think half of Americans would still be alive a year after the bombs fell.
xyzzy123 2y ago
Seems quite difficult to predict what would happen at a psychological level. Think what 9/11 did to the American psyche, that was 3k deaths, about the same as die every year from accidental food poisoning and < 1/10 the number of people who die in car crashes every year. I'm not sure but I also wonder if you are under-estimating the overall supply chain complexity that underpins modern urban living. There might be 3 years of soybean supply in the US under ideal circumstances, but how do you distribute that to people when communications, roads, pipelines, electrical generation, fuel refining, private & commercial vehicles etc are all damaged at the same time? Plus the supply chain required to keep those things running? Not to mention record-keeping and the political fabric itself.
- op00to 2y ago
  For most Americans, 9/11 changed nothing. Hell, for most in NYC 9/11 changed very little in daily life after the initial attack.
- nostrademons 2y ago
  9/11 didn't do much to the American psyche. It did a lot to American discourse. But discourse != psyche, and most ordinary people just went about their business the way they did before 9/11 while rolling their eyes (privately) at the new government policies.
  - xyzzy123 2y ago
    It seemed to have a pretty big impact on domestic and foreign policy. Perhaps homeland security, gitmo, TSA, expanded NSA powers and the global war on terror were just "on trend" and inevitable? I find it hard to tell. When people feel threatened there's typically a drive towards authoritarianism and top-down control, a desire for a sense of security and certainty. I find it hard to predict how this would play out vs the US's unique cultural takes on freedom.
    - nostrademons 2y ago
      Again, there's a big difference between "the government" and "the people". The government used 9/11 as an excuse to push through a bunch of surveillance-state policies. The people acquiesced at the time because, well, wartime & terrorism, but they didn't necessarily like it. One of the things it actually did was drive a wedge between the government and the people, fueling mistrust between different groups. And so here we are 20+ years later with a former president who was elected on the premise of "draining the swamp", openly feuded with the surveillance state during his time in office, and is now a convicted felon running for president again.
wozniacki 2y ago
Please elaborate on the likelihood that China (if not Russia) has shown the willingness to go all out and wage a nuclear war, whether or not Chinas hand is forced by Russia. The Chinese despite appearances and false bravado have never really demonstrated their resolve to indiscriminately kill millions of foreigners ( say Americans and Brits for example )- now have they? Don't war strategists have a pulse for these things? Some experts in the past decade have said the reason we deal with President Xi despite setbacks is because whoever will replace Xi is bound to be more ruthless and bloodthirsty than Xi. Is this true? Could you elaborate on this?

candiddevmike 2y ago

I don't think half of Americans would still be alive a year after the bombs fell.

xyzzy123 2y ago

Seems quite difficult to predict what would happen at a psychological level. Think what 9/11 did to the American psyche, that was 3k deaths, about the same as die every year from accidental food poisoning and < 1/10 the number of people who die in car crashes every year. I'm not sure but I also wonder if you are under-estimating the overall supply chain complexity that underpins modern urban living. There might be 3 years of soybean supply in the US under ideal circumstances, but how do you distribute that to people when communications, roads, pipelines, electrical generation, fuel refining, private & commercial vehicles etc are all damaged at the same time? Plus the supply chain required to keep those things running? Not to mention record-keeping and the political fabric itself.

op00to 2y ago
For most Americans, 9/11 changed nothing. Hell, for most in NYC 9/11 changed very little in daily life after the initial attack.
nostrademons 2y ago
9/11 didn't do much to the American psyche. It did a lot to American discourse. But discourse != psyche, and most ordinary people just went about their business the way they did before 9/11 while rolling their eyes (privately) at the new government policies.
- xyzzy123 2y ago
  It seemed to have a pretty big impact on domestic and foreign policy. Perhaps homeland security, gitmo, TSA, expanded NSA powers and the global war on terror were just "on trend" and inevitable? I find it hard to tell. When people feel threatened there's typically a drive towards authoritarianism and top-down control, a desire for a sense of security and certainty. I find it hard to predict how this would play out vs the US's unique cultural takes on freedom.
  - nostrademons 2y ago
    Again, there's a big difference between "the government" and "the people". The government used 9/11 as an excuse to push through a bunch of surveillance-state policies. The people acquiesced at the time because, well, wartime & terrorism, but they didn't necessarily like it. One of the things it actually did was drive a wedge between the government and the people, fueling mistrust between different groups. And so here we are 20+ years later with a former president who was elected on the premise of "draining the swamp", openly feuded with the surveillance state during his time in office, and is now a convicted felon running for president again.

wozniacki 2y ago

Please elaborate on the likelihood that China (if not Russia) has shown the willingness to go all out and wage a nuclear war, whether or not Chinas hand is forced by Russia. The Chinese despite appearances and false bravado have never really demonstrated their resolve to indiscriminately kill millions of foreigners ( say Americans and Brits for example )- now have they? Don't war strategists have a pulse for these things? Some experts in the past decade have said the reason we deal with President Xi despite setbacks is because whoever will replace Xi is bound to be more ruthless and bloodthirsty than Xi. Is this true? Could you elaborate on this?