"the long term effects based on nuclear winter etc. are arguable" Not really at this point, e.g. the TAPPS study has been thoroughly debunked (details on reque

"the long term effects based on nuclear winter etc. are arguable" Not really at this point, e.g. the TAPPS study has been thoroughly debunked (details on request), LLNL 3D modeling says at worst a "nuclear fall", which I note would be much on the order of or less severe than many historical volcanic events (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer). All the way down to the life histories of those exposed to radiation by Hiroshima and Nagasaki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki#Hibakusha https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_a... As for the latter point, would not e.g. the US, reduced to about a Civil War level of population etc., trade tasty technological things, and/or food with the U.K. and any other county easily accessed by ship? The death rate would certainly be a lot higher in the crowded and food importing U.K., but Threads sounds way too dystopic. I'm going by the Wikipedia summary, but it didn't sound like it had even Bronze Age levels of trade with other countries. One neat thing I've read as of late is that the tin for all the bronze used in the western half or more of the Mediterranean came from Britain. Apparently the Iron Age happened in part because of apparent disruption of that trade, iron weapons of that era weren't as good as the bronze state of the art, but they were cheaper. So e.g. a Roman solider would have an iron sword while his centurion and higher were more likely to have bronze.