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Nukes cannot be used to end industrial civilization, either. Nuclear planners have always planned to use many ground bursts: on hardened targets like command b

Nukes cannot be used to end industrial civilization, either. Nuclear planners have always planned to use many ground bursts: on hardened targets like command bunkers, but also to destroy communications networks. Specifically, a "landing station" where transoceanic cables make landfall or wherever there used to be a 5ESS switch (the locations of which are publicly known) is a great place to hit with a ground burst to destroy much of the nation's non-wireless communications infrastructure. Estimates during the end of the Cold War are that about half of CONUS's area would be covered with lethal levels of fallout from these expected ground bursts. I guess if the Russians and Chinese were deliberately trying to cover as much area as possible with lethal levels of fallout (which they wouldn't because it is not an effective plan) they could cover 70 or 80% -- if they had as many nukes and means to "deliver" them intercontinentally as the Soviets did, which the Russians don't unless they've been hiding them from US inspectors, but I consider it very unlikely that they could've managed that. And bomb fallout is very different from radioactive contamination from accidents at nuclear power plants: basically no area continues to have lethal levels of bomb fallout 4 weeks after the last bomb explodes. The method for decontaminating your house is to get up on a ladder and wash down your roof with a garden hose, then wash down all driveways and sidewalks. So, again, nukes cannot be used to end industrial civilization. Note that this means that if the US ever nukes Russia with everything it has, Russia would bounce back and would again be a military threat (whether that takes 3 years or 15 years I don't know) so it makes little sense to nuke Russia unless the US is going to follow up with a long-term occupation of Russia's ports and maybe some key transportation hubs. The USSR knew it had no chance to occupy US ports or occupy a substantial portion of US territory: their plan for followup was to grab the rest of the European plain, which includes most of Germany and all of northern France to the border with Spain.

aguaviva 2y ago
And bomb fallout is very different from the radioactive contamination from accidents at nuclear power plants: basically no area continues to have lethal levels of bomb fallout 4 weeks after the last bomb explodes. The method for decontaminating your house is to get up on a ladder and wash down your roof with a garden hose, then wash down all driveways and sidewalks. Assuming they all have enough supplies to shelter in place for 4 weeks. Sure, they do. Oh, and where does all that runoff go?
- hollerith 2y ago
  Most of the runoff probably ends up far enough away from your house that it doesn't harm you. Again: its very different from power-plant contamination: its radioactivity is diminishing very quickly. If you were lucky enough that your home was not covered in lethal levels of fallout, then it is likely that all the land within miles of your home is similarly safe, so you can range around looking for water, and most people can survive without eating (or eating only what food they happened to have around at the time of the attack) for a few weeks. It wouldn't be pleasant, of course (and I sure would prefer to be in a fallout shelter pre-stocked with food and water when the attack happens) but the point is that many people would survive even in the countries that were attacked. There's probably enough food in the US right now (mostly intended to be fed to farm animals, mostly stored on farms) to feed half of the US population. 2 weeks after the attack, it starts to makes sense for altruistically-inclined people (particularly if they have a Geiger counter) to load such food (along with a mill with which to turn it into flour -- also a common item stored on farms) on a truck and take it to where hungry people are. Old people are a good fit for this task: if you are 60 years old, then the prospect of developing cancer in 20 or 30 years is not exactly pleasant, but not particularly scary either.
  - aguaviva 2y ago
    So you can range around looking for water Which most folks know how to do, of course. And we can be sure that when they encounter other groups of people at their favorite puddle, everyone will get along just fine. Most people can survive without eating (or eating only what food they happened to have around at the time of the attack) for a few weeks. And wouldn't be in the least motivated to leave their shelters. Howabout you try it first, and report back to us? Look, I'm not trying to be cute here. And we agree that it won't end global industry capacity (and even the countries directly affected would eventually spring back, as after WW2). I've also done my time in physics classes, and know about all that neat physics stuff. But your arguments sound very hand-wavy, and something tells me you're glossing over lots and lots of additional factors, and are basically trying to spin the situation as being far less of a calamity than it actually would be.
vundercind 2y ago
How bad it is very much depends on how long it takes to restore meaningful amounts of the power grid. If it’s north of 60 days, forget it, you’re losing 90+% of your population.
CamperBob2 2y ago
basically no area continues to have lethal levels of bomb fallout 4 weeks after the last bomb explodes While this may be true enough for 'conventional' nukes, there have been proposals to intentionally salt bombs with elements such as cobalt that can render large areas of territory unfit for habitation for many years. This isn't fiction or speculation, it's basically what MacArthur wanted to do in Korea.
bluGill 2y ago
I think enough people will die that we cannot sustain civialization. It takes a lot of people to get oil from a well to the pump and too many of them will be dead. You can keep things going in degraded form but eventually you can't make replacement parts for the refinery to a level of quality that allows for current output and so you lose trucks and tractors. Steel refineries need some weird subblies that you won't be able to source well enough. There are many different things that we need that nobody thinks of and all those are disrupted with loss of important people at once.

aguaviva 2y ago

And bomb fallout is very different from the radioactive contamination from accidents at nuclear power plants: basically no area continues to have lethal levels of bomb fallout 4 weeks after the last bomb explodes. The method for decontaminating your house is to get up on a ladder and wash down your roof with a garden hose, then wash down all driveways and sidewalks. Assuming they all have enough supplies to shelter in place for 4 weeks. Sure, they do. Oh, and where does all that runoff go?

hollerith 2y ago
Most of the runoff probably ends up far enough away from your house that it doesn't harm you. Again: its very different from power-plant contamination: its radioactivity is diminishing very quickly. If you were lucky enough that your home was not covered in lethal levels of fallout, then it is likely that all the land within miles of your home is similarly safe, so you can range around looking for water, and most people can survive without eating (or eating only what food they happened to have around at the time of the attack) for a few weeks. It wouldn't be pleasant, of course (and I sure would prefer to be in a fallout shelter pre-stocked with food and water when the attack happens) but the point is that many people would survive even in the countries that were attacked. There's probably enough food in the US right now (mostly intended to be fed to farm animals, mostly stored on farms) to feed half of the US population. 2 weeks after the attack, it starts to makes sense for altruistically-inclined people (particularly if they have a Geiger counter) to load such food (along with a mill with which to turn it into flour -- also a common item stored on farms) on a truck and take it to where hungry people are. Old people are a good fit for this task: if you are 60 years old, then the prospect of developing cancer in 20 or 30 years is not exactly pleasant, but not particularly scary either.
- aguaviva 2y ago
  So you can range around looking for water Which most folks know how to do, of course. And we can be sure that when they encounter other groups of people at their favorite puddle, everyone will get along just fine. Most people can survive without eating (or eating only what food they happened to have around at the time of the attack) for a few weeks. And wouldn't be in the least motivated to leave their shelters. Howabout you try it first, and report back to us? Look, I'm not trying to be cute here. And we agree that it won't end global industry capacity (and even the countries directly affected would eventually spring back, as after WW2). I've also done my time in physics classes, and know about all that neat physics stuff. But your arguments sound very hand-wavy, and something tells me you're glossing over lots and lots of additional factors, and are basically trying to spin the situation as being far less of a calamity than it actually would be.

vundercind 2y ago

How bad it is very much depends on how long it takes to restore meaningful amounts of the power grid. If it’s north of 60 days, forget it, you’re losing 90+% of your population.

CamperBob2 2y ago

basically no area continues to have lethal levels of bomb fallout 4 weeks after the last bomb explodes While this may be true enough for 'conventional' nukes, there have been proposals to intentionally salt bombs with elements such as cobalt that can render large areas of territory unfit for habitation for many years. This isn't fiction or speculation, it's basically what MacArthur wanted to do in Korea.

bluGill 2y ago

I think enough people will die that we cannot sustain civialization. It takes a lot of people to get oil from a well to the pump and too many of them will be dead. You can keep things going in degraded form but eventually you can't make replacement parts for the refinery to a level of quality that allows for current output and so you lose trucks and tractors. Steel refineries need some weird subblies that you won't be able to source well enough. There are many different things that we need that nobody thinks of and all those are disrupted with loss of important people at once.