I'm not sure which bit you think is untrue?
I was just emphasising that Trump's so parochial and entitled and whiny about "American rights" that he does not think outside of a business model analysing costs to the broader benefits of belonging to something as powerful as NATO.
Perhaps you would all be rubbing sticks together to make fire, if there were a soviet nuclear attack on China (if you don't understand the logic, search for "nuclear winter"). If the USSR had attacked USA, no-one in the 48 states would have survived (I'm not sure about Alaska, and Hawaii definitely had a chance to lesser damage, depending on the attack scheme, of course).
This said, it is likely that not only radar protected you from an attack, but also the discovery of the fact that even if no single missile would be fired back, the result of an attack on the enemy would be rather close to M.A.D.
A slight diversion - but I'll bring it back to the main point you raise above about nuclear winter.
My other side-hobby is debating environmental doomers online. I was in a doomer email list back in the day, and a young 19 year old renewable energy student decided the peak oil doomers were right, and that civilisation had no hope. He was convinced he was going to watch everyone he loved starve to death in an agricultural collapse as the oil wars started and our lack of oil prevented modern agriculture, and so hung himself. I was not one of the leaders of this particular email list, and hold that leader responsible. I was discussing the threats, but looking for the answers. I fully acknowledge the threats from climate change, deforestation, ecocide, biosphere destruction, and resource constraints - the whole catastrophe. The doomers are asking the right
questions, but then seem to
CELEBRATE the inevitability of ecocide and the collapse of civilisation. It's a cult-like group, with their own secular, scientific sounding 'prophets' of doom, etc. Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die! I think half the movement is made up of burned out middle-aged men cynical after a divorce, and so they have a 'tree-change'.
Anyway, the point?
I HEAR YOU!
This is the main scenario where it all could fall away. It's dark stuff, and I have trouble portraying any long-term hope for young people that the future might even have a civilisation.
The first hours of a full scale nuclear war kill about 360 million people. That’s mind boggling enough.
But the real damage is to the climate, as the nuclear winter rolls in. Bunkers in the northern hemisphere need 5 to 10 YEARS of food stored away! Not weeks. Not
months -
years. So at least 5 BILLION people starve to death!
Kurzgesagt “In a nutshell” sums it up
See Robock and Xia June 2023
Opinion: How fear of nuclear winter has helped save the world, so far
CALORIES VS ROAD WARRIORS
But that's just the mathematics of calories. What about the realpolitik of starvation and collapse? The chaos of armed gangs shooting you and your family for a few cans of baked beans?
What does a country look like after they have decided which quarter of the population must starve? What if it is half? What if it is three-quarters? 80%? 90%? What is left after the chaos and breakdown of society and 'road-warriors' (see Mad Max) have finished their grim work?
Now that we have considered societal breakdown, I guess the only countries you really want to already be in after a FULL SCALE nuclear war are Australia and Argentina - anything coded deep green. If it's light green, you've already in a world of pain in a country that's had to decide which quarter starves. Yellow takes you up to half - and dark brown? Forget it. Only a few percent survive on calories alone! Map from this link.
Opinion: How fear of nuclear winter has helped save the world, so far
I reckon a few good writers - like Australia’s John Birmingham - could do a great Netflix series covering key crisis in the first few months after. What military rationing does the Australian government get into? Do we end up like "Fedra" from "Last of Us"? Are refugees fleeing down through Indonesia and PNG? Boats from China and the US and anywhere? Would we try to feed them as well, or get
a bit gunboat in how we deal with refugees? What political protest movements would spring up?
THEN, in 5 to 10 years, the race with Argentina to salvage and re-inhabit and claim the best land and kit from around the world as the mini-ice age gradually recedes.
But the main point? In the 1980's America screened "The Day After" - the most watched single TV event in history to that point. It so disturbed Ronald Reagan that he changed tactics with the USSR. They started a dialogue that gradually ended the Cold War.
Hopefully such a series would promote a broader discussion about the dangers of not just the billion that might die after a nuclear war, but the 5 to 6 to 7 billion that die of starvation and chaos as the sun goes dark!
