It might not immediately destroy everything, but what is not clear from this illustration is if civilization could persist the radiotoxicity that would be around for a century or two.
How much persistent radio toxicity would result, and what would the probable distribution be?
The persistent radiotoxicity is actually pretty low. Remember, the general rule is that the more radioactive the substance, the shorter the half life, and the quicker it’s gone. The studies I’ve seen indicate that it would be safe to plant a vegetable garden at a groundburst ground zero after 3-5 years. There are certain concentration effects, though, that could cause some areas to remain dangerous for much longer.
It’s also heavily dependent on the targeting scheme used. Airbursts, like you use for destroying cities, produce very little fallout, since fallout is debris sucked up through the fireball where it is irradiated before being spewed out the top. Groundbursts, such as you would use for roads, powerplants, and military targets, produce lots of fallout and have a nasty downwind area.
The fallout area is highly dependent on meteorological conditions. For instance, if it’s raining then it will be small but intense while if it’s windy and clear it will be large but dilute.
This is just scratching the surface of a large and fascinating topic. To summarize: fusion bombs are pretty radiologically clean (especially in airburst mode), the radiation tends not to stick around (see: Hiroshima and Nagasaki, both hit by smaller but much dirtier bombs than we use now), and the post-attack radiation environment will be very unevenly dangerous. In terms of long term threats, disease and breakdown in the food supply are the predominant concerns.
Depending on the targeting scheme used, there could also be regional effects on climate, at least for a few months. Not enough to create a “nuclear winter”, but possibly enough to trigger some crop failures. Not the end of the world, but not pretty, either.
Yes, “nuclear autumn.” The oddest aspect was that high-altitude temperatures would be increased enormously – to as high as the 70s F. At ground level the temperatures would be moderated – warm winter and cold summer, but only up to a year out from the exchange. Months; more likely.
Note that all this is for a massive 1980′s WWIII exchange between NATO and USSR, wherein the majority of the globe’s nuclear arsenal would be expended and in which almost every country would catch a few, if only to keep them from taking advantage of the (former) great powers’ post-attack weakness. Under these criteria, 50% of the US population was expected to perish in the initial hours, with half the remainder dead within a few years due mostly to disease and starvation. Of course, this is only one of several game-theoretically possible ways that such a war might have played out.
Nowadays the arsenals are far, far smaller and the number of weapons ready to “go” at any time smaller yet. At most a few thousand warheads could be involved in the initial exchange between two of the current big 3 (US, China, Russia). Figure that 80% of those will actually make it to the target and initiate (optimistic – likely fewer for the Russians and more for the US). Between 5 and 15% of the remainder would go off target and initiate somewhere random.
This would wreck the countries involved quite thoroughly, but the initial population loss percentages aren’t likely to climb too far into the double-digits and large areas would probably be untouched. Most countries targeting schemes since the 70s seem to be balanced primarily towards counter-force, so most of those warheads will be expended trying to kill other warheads – targeted on missile fields, bomber bases, and the like. Of course, take all that with a grain of salt. The conditions under which such a war began would have the biggest say in its conduct.
For a while now I’ve had a pet analogy I use for describing the net effects, as currently best understood: modern great-power nuclear confrontation would inflict on the belligerents in only a few hours what the Eastern Front did to Germany and Russia over 4 years.
Of course, the moron governments we’ve had lately keep finding ways to cut the arsenal further and (with the exception of the USN’s SSBNs) the strategic services are seen as a career graveyard, greatly reducing their competence and responsiveness. This erodes the multistable deterrence that has to date prevented major wars. I suppose this is a “victim of your own success” issue.
Speaking of, I recommend the very interesting glasstone blog. It’s about contradicting the widespread superstition that nuclear wars are unsurvivable and debunking hardened dogma of exaggerated nuclear effects.
It drives me crazy when people get smug about duck and cover. Apparently they think that nuclear initiations have no effects beyond the radius of total destruction when in reality most of the area subjected to blast effects are going to suffer the equivalent of anything from an F-4 tornado to a strong windstorm, dependent on the distance to ground zero. Most of the area affected by the thermal pulse will not be instantly fried, but simply suffer a similarly varying intensity of fires.
Yet those same people don’t laugh at the futility of tornado or fire drills.
That reminds me, I was just listening to an interview with Tom Givens, where he mentioned that the local trauma hospital takes in 3,100 gunshot victims per year, with roughly 100 fatalities. Handgun wounds aren’t especially lethal, when they’re not well aimed.
Lucklucky: Since when did Afghanistan not initiate the conflict? Or Iran? Actually there are several times the US would have been justified to answer Iran’s aggression and did not.
Phil B: “It started giving more money to the Follow Through models that had not done well.” Or, as it is known in the trade, reinforcing failure. Had those funds been spent on schools and pupils that did well, then how much better would they have succeeded? Compare and contrast the results of spending $50,000 per pupil in an inner city school and $20,000 per pupil in a less “diverse” neighbourhood. But failure must not only be reinforced but rewarded with more cash.
Isegoria: Asking Grok about that claim was eye opening: The frequently repeated claim that the US “initiated 81% of 248 armed conflicts from 1945 to 2001” originates in a Chinese Society for Human Rights Studies report (circulated around 2022 amid US-China tensions). It is not based on transparent methodology matching UCDP, Correlates of War (COW), or similar standards, treats “initiated” expansively (including indirect involvement, proxies, or interventions in existing conflicts), and is widely regarded...
Bob Sykes: One is reminded that of the 250, or so, armed conflicts since 1945, 80% were started by the US, and almost always against countries at peace with us and our allies. Recent examples are Panama, Haiti (too numerous to count), Granada (a UK commonwealth member), Serbia, Somalia (still active after 34 years), Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq (twice), Syria, Yemen, Iran, Venezuela, Lebanon (by proxy), and Ukraine. The coup of 2014 that installed the current neonazi junta was our doing.
Isegoria: From The Screwtape Letters (Letter 27), by C.S. Lewis: And since we cannot deceive the whole human race all the time, it is most important thus to cut every generation off from all others; for where learning makes a free commerce between the ages there is always the danger that the characteristic errors of one may be corrected by the characteristic truths of another.
David Foster: CS Lewis said (quoting very loosely) that if you want to destroy and infantry unit, you cut it off from its adjacent units…if you want to destroy a generation, you cut it off from its adjacent generations.
McChuck: A mild fever for a day or two after an inoculation is nothing. It’s a normal response to your body fighting an infection — which is the entire point of the inoculation. The strokes, heart attacks, and blood clots after the mRNA Covid shots are of real concern — but of course they can’t possibly study those, because they “don’t exist”.
Ozornik: It’s funny to read it against this: “The CDC advised her to take her temperature”, posted here on October 14th, 2026 Both Marburg and Ebola are not airborn and require direct bodily contact to spread. Methinks the author of the book might be either one of the lowest form of human existence – a journalist, or might have monetary interest in scaremongering oblivious sheeple. Oh, wait.
Phileas Frogg: People who intend to sit atop hierarchies should acquire the skills for getting and remaining on top of hierarchies. The great delusion of modern education is that they’ll somehow accomplish this by being good at math or engineering. I didn’t realize until I was in my mid-20′s that networking is an art, a specific skillset that needs deliberate cultivation. The best part is that when you tell most people they don’t believe you and just keep on hammering on about...
PM: Phileas Frogg says: “The first country to fully re-embrace rule by warriors is going to be hellacious to deal with for a few years.” Which puts me very much in mind of the Russian Federation’s ongoing initiative to load their bureaucracy with returning veterans of the SMO.
Bruce: Characters in 19th Century novels are constantly “overworking” and then taking off a summer or an entire year from their jobs. Getting ‘tired and emotional’? or other euphemisms for ‘publicly drunk’? Lot of overdrinking at work in 19th century culture.
Phileas Frogg: The side with better PPP is always more militarily dangerous than the side with better GDP. We’re going to learn that hard lesson very soon, but what do you expect? We’re ruled by bankers and merchants, while Russia and China are ruled by spies and engineers. The first country to fully re-embrace rule by warriors is going to be hellacious to deal with for a few years.
Bob Sykes: The novels of Jane Austin, Charles Dickens, and Thomas Hardy, truly excellent as stories, also provide detailed descriptions of life in Britain during the 19th Century. Austin for the gentry, Dickens for the urban poor, and Hardy for the rural working class. Also, A.J.P. Taylor’s history of WWI has an analysis of the economic conditions in the run up to the War, and he concludes that working class was materially better off under wartime rationing than during the peace in the early 1900’s. The...
Jim: Traditionalists think that education should prioritize acquiring knowledge, that it should focus on ‘hard’ subjects like science, mathematics, and foreign languages, and that it should take place in a highly structured environment, where students’ time and behavior are tightly regulated. Progressives think that education should prioritize acquiring skills, that it should embrace ‘soft’ subjects beyond the supposed academic core, and that students should be given wide freedom in which to develop...
Steve Sailer: Characters in 19th Century novels are constantly “overworking” ; and then taking off a summer or an entire year from their jobs. That doesn’t happen that much anymore. It’s a little hard to grasp what that was about.
Dan Kurt: “Hely Hutchinson Almond, headmaster of Loretto School, who described his school’s priorities as ‘First – character, second…’” A late professor of modern history told me that the German military from the reforms in the early 19th century until its defeat in WW2 tried to select its officers under the chief criterion of one’s Character.
Bruce: “Does it ever occur to you that maybe all these idiots are lying?” — Ed Real, whom I trust on education stuff, maybe about someone else.
Bruce: “Alas, before Wolper could put his plan into action, the book began drawing criticism from Native American groups contending that it was an inaccurate portrayal of the Sioux.” Crab-bucket jealousy has ruined publishing for books about anything with an organized political entitlement class. Even writers of the right ethnicity get taken down if they are any good, like William Sanders.
Jim: And as for myself, I suspect that hard labor would do the lawyers, accountants, software developers, VC executives, bureaucrats, clergy, politicians, and so on a lot of good.
It might not immediately destroy everything, but what is not clear from this illustration is if civilization could persist the radiotoxicity that would be around for a century or two.
How much persistent radio toxicity would result, and what would the probable distribution be?
The persistent radiotoxicity is actually pretty low. Remember, the general rule is that the more radioactive the substance, the shorter the half life, and the quicker it’s gone. The studies I’ve seen indicate that it would be safe to plant a vegetable garden at a groundburst ground zero after 3-5 years. There are certain concentration effects, though, that could cause some areas to remain dangerous for much longer.
It’s also heavily dependent on the targeting scheme used. Airbursts, like you use for destroying cities, produce very little fallout, since fallout is debris sucked up through the fireball where it is irradiated before being spewed out the top. Groundbursts, such as you would use for roads, powerplants, and military targets, produce lots of fallout and have a nasty downwind area.
The fallout area is highly dependent on meteorological conditions. For instance, if it’s raining then it will be small but intense while if it’s windy and clear it will be large but dilute.
This is just scratching the surface of a large and fascinating topic. To summarize: fusion bombs are pretty radiologically clean (especially in airburst mode), the radiation tends not to stick around (see: Hiroshima and Nagasaki, both hit by smaller but much dirtier bombs than we use now), and the post-attack radiation environment will be very unevenly dangerous. In terms of long term threats, disease and breakdown in the food supply are the predominant concerns.
Depending on the targeting scheme used, there could also be regional effects on climate, at least for a few months. Not enough to create a “nuclear winter”, but possibly enough to trigger some crop failures. Not the end of the world, but not pretty, either.
Yes, “nuclear autumn.” The oddest aspect was that high-altitude temperatures would be increased enormously – to as high as the 70s F. At ground level the temperatures would be moderated – warm winter and cold summer, but only up to a year out from the exchange. Months; more likely.
Note that all this is for a massive 1980′s WWIII exchange between NATO and USSR, wherein the majority of the globe’s nuclear arsenal would be expended and in which almost every country would catch a few, if only to keep them from taking advantage of the (former) great powers’ post-attack weakness. Under these criteria, 50% of the US population was expected to perish in the initial hours, with half the remainder dead within a few years due mostly to disease and starvation. Of course, this is only one of several game-theoretically possible ways that such a war might have played out.
Nowadays the arsenals are far, far smaller and the number of weapons ready to “go” at any time smaller yet. At most a few thousand warheads could be involved in the initial exchange between two of the current big 3 (US, China, Russia). Figure that 80% of those will actually make it to the target and initiate (optimistic – likely fewer for the Russians and more for the US). Between 5 and 15% of the remainder would go off target and initiate somewhere random.
This would wreck the countries involved quite thoroughly, but the initial population loss percentages aren’t likely to climb too far into the double-digits and large areas would probably be untouched. Most countries targeting schemes since the 70s seem to be balanced primarily towards counter-force, so most of those warheads will be expended trying to kill other warheads – targeted on missile fields, bomber bases, and the like. Of course, take all that with a grain of salt. The conditions under which such a war began would have the biggest say in its conduct.
For a while now I’ve had a pet analogy I use for describing the net effects, as currently best understood: modern great-power nuclear confrontation would inflict on the belligerents in only a few hours what the Eastern Front did to Germany and Russia over 4 years.
Of course, the moron governments we’ve had lately keep finding ways to cut the arsenal further and (with the exception of the USN’s SSBNs) the strategic services are seen as a career graveyard, greatly reducing their competence and responsiveness. This erodes the multistable deterrence that has to date prevented major wars. I suppose this is a “victim of your own success” issue.
Speaking of, I recommend the very interesting glasstone blog. It’s about contradicting the widespread superstition that nuclear wars are unsurvivable and debunking hardened dogma of exaggerated nuclear effects.
Duck & cover makes sense after all!
It drives me crazy when people get smug about duck and cover. Apparently they think that nuclear initiations have no effects beyond the radius of total destruction when in reality most of the area subjected to blast effects are going to suffer the equivalent of anything from an F-4 tornado to a strong windstorm, dependent on the distance to ground zero. Most of the area affected by the thermal pulse will not be instantly fried, but simply suffer a similarly varying intensity of fires.
Yet those same people don’t laugh at the futility of tornado or fire drills.
It’s almost as if this smug attitude toward duck and cover had some ideological component…
I’m still amazed by the fact that the casualty rate at ground zero was not 100 percent.
If there’s one thing my readings have instilled in me, it is the understanding that people can be surprisingly hard to kill. We’re stretchy.
That reminds me, I was just listening to an interview with Tom Givens, where he mentioned that the local trauma hospital takes in 3,100 gunshot victims per year, with roughly 100 fatalities. Handgun wounds aren’t especially lethal, when they’re not well aimed.
Thank god that black people hold their guns sideways!