Nuclear War — Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is not symmetrical
The logic of the inside the beltway power set is that all-out nuclear war is unthinkable for all nations because of mutually assured destruction (MAD). Therefore in the real world it’s off the table, and not a real threat. Consequently, in today’s world, the “intelligent people” don’t take any proposition of all-out nuclear war seriously, nor take seriously any person that suggests it is a real possibility. Because full-on nuclear war doesn’t really exist, the elite, who really understand these things, proceed on that basis. Everyone else is a naive fool. This is why they will play chicken to the end, believing that nobody can make the all-out war decision. They are wrong. Dead wrong.
This beltway logic is the foundation of the strategy used to grind down Russia’s conventional military using Ukraine’s population as cannon-fodder. However, a nation that has a weak conventional military has little choice but nuclear weapons — if they have them.
This logic is also the foundation of the limited nuclear engagement concept that may be firming into doctrine. This is why the USA’s pharisees can contemplate Europe being wrecked by nuclear warfare, while in their fantasy the USA stays untouched. Too bad, so sad for Europe in the worst case.
Not possible, but a pre-emptive first strike might be? The question has not been, “Should the USA conduct a first-strike?” The question has been, “Can we do this and be safe enough?” So far, that answer is no. But in 2015, a pre-emptive first-strike on Russia was urged and got serious hearing. I believe that as a direct result, in 2016, Russia conducted the largest civil defense exercise in history, with 40–60 million people.
Reality bites last. I have been in a family’s underground nuclear bomb shelter locker some years back. It was a matter of course, picking up some provisions. Many families stored food in their nuclear bomb shelter cubicles. The corridor was like a mining tunnel. This locker was a room about 10’ x 12’ with an 8’ ceiling. Thousands of such shelters were left over from the Cold War, and since then, Russia must have improved the facilities somewhat.
A fair number of Russians live in literal fortresses built in the Cold War that double as apartments, with walls a meter or more thick designed to take artillery fire. Those buildings should be able to survive an air-burst directly overhead, and people well sealed inside could survive. Others live in more ordinary apartments built of reinforced concrete. Few Russians live in wood houses with asphalt roofing as the USA does.
In an all-out nuclear war, Russians would probably mostly get into shelter, somewhere reasonably safe. I cannot say if they would all have food stores to live on. I can say they would bear up. Russians have also been through the Mad Max years of the Yeltsin administration when 80% of the economy disappeared, and 4 million Russians died in 5 years of homicide, suicide, and starvation, while executing shock treatment per Western advisers. Russia came back from that, and Russia came back from WW2 and the Holodomor in which families killed members to feed the rest. Russians are not a coddled people.
Americans would experience severe firestorms in the suburbs after the immediate heat, radiation, and shock wave from the explosion. Those firestorms would be like the LA or Santa Rosa fires on steroids. There would be some fallout, but most of it would be lofted into the stratosphere where it would stay for a few years, coming down when the radioactivity was mostly gone. High yield warheads punch through into the stratosphere. Just one year aloft would be enough to eliminate most of the radioactivity. Half-lives of the ultra-hot radionuclides are short, measured in hours, days, and weeks. Those can deliver deadly doses of emitted radiation.
It is this lofting of material into the stratosphere that is the reason for nuclear winter. You can’t have both nuclear winter and very heavy fallout. The heavy fallout at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an outcome of the relatively low yield warheads of 12 and 21 kilotons of TNT, which did not reach high enough with its mushroom cloud. The effect of that fallout was mostly that people survived. Fallout washes and brushes off. Shaving hair gets it away from the body. The radionuclides that get into food over time is not documented to be a serious problem with the exception of the first 90 days. For the first 90 days, radioactive iodine milk products are a problem, but aging for 90 days takes care of most of it.
The direct and indirect effects on the USA of missiles destroying all cities above 95,000 people (484 targeted cities) would leave 75.3 million alive the next day. 1000 cities would leave 39 million alive the following day, virtually all of them would be in rural areas and towns under 47,000 people. Could half of those left on the morning after survive to see the following year?
What nobody knows in the USA is whether the cold-war doctrine of follow-up of an all-out nuclear war with ICBMs loaded with biological weapons is in place. This USSR doctrine was intended to decimate survivors a few weeks later. And super-contamination may be possible from blowing up nuclear missiles that didn’t leave their silos.
It is unlikely that the United States would remain its own master after a loss like this. Russia would be terribly damaged, but this MAD does not appear symmetrical.
