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Yes, definitely.

84 (53.8%)

Probably.

32 (20.5%)

Maybe, maybe not.

15 (9.6%)

Probably not.

14 (9%)

No, definitely not.

6 (3.8%)

Don't know.

5 (3.2%)

Total Members Voted: 155

[Lord Shonus]

Civilization can both start and survive a global nuclear war. Fun fact; population centers are the lowest priority targets for strategic weapons.

You don't know that. Nuclear war plans are, for very good reason, classified. Besides that, outside of the remaining US land-based missiles, and maybe some Russian ones, most strategic warheads can't easily be aimed at anything else.

[Bauglir]

I believe the civilization-ending arguments rely on the radiation hazards, although I suspect even then wiping out humanity would require extremely convenient wind patterns and nukes launched to take them into account. We certainly can't end all life, especially since we're probably not going to be too keen on evaporating the ocean.

[Strife26]

Killing absoultely frickin everybody on earth would pretty tough, even at the height of the cold war (someone, somewhere'd be lucky enough to survive), but civilization ending isn't all that tough. Europe, Russia, China, and America take the most damage, but we're talking about a fuck-ton of radioactive dust that gets kicked up. Nuclear Winter is scary, you know?

[Lord Shonus]

Much less than popular culture would suggest. Only point targets (Silos and bunkers) would generate massive amounts of fallout. Area targets (Cities, airbases, troop concentrations) would not.

[thobal]

Civilization can both start and survive a global nuclear war. Fun fact; population centers are the lowest priority targets for strategic weapons.

You don't know that.

Ermmmm...


Nuclear Attack Planning Base - 1990
Federal Emergency Management Agency
April 1987


If you're an America, you can find you state and note all of little blots in places that arnt quite cities. Like in my home town, where the blot is centered over a pretty empty spot where there is not much except a huge research lab, the airport, and the marshaling yard. Plus, another on the coast where, to the best of my knowledge, there is nothing but a few fishing villages. Like, that one is a head scratch-er to me.

Nuclear war plans arent published, per se, but everyone knows where the targets are.

[Lord Shonus]

That is a map of what Americal Intelligence predicted the targets of a Soviet strike would be 21 years ago. Even if this does represent one Soviet attack plan, and still accuratelly denotes how Russian weapons are targeted today, it is only one such plan. Do note that you can't find the 2011 SIOP for US forces so easily.

[thobal]

Yeah, like I said, we don't know the plans, per se, but we can determine what the targets are. The world hasnt changed that much.

Marshaling yards, airports, fuel refineries, nuclear storage site, dams, bridges, ball bearing factories, food processing plants, heavy industry, ports, canals, electrical generation: These are the sort of counter value targets that are going to get hit. No one is going to bother targeting populations specifically because it's a waste of munitions. One doesn't need to destroy the enemy's desire to wage war: just their ability.

It's easy to guess what the general targeting would be, not so much which assets would be used to carry out the attack, but no nation would be foolhardy enough to use(or even risk) their entire nuclear arsenal in a single day.

[Nikov]

And to drive the nail on it, yes, all strategic warheads are accurate. Pushing up warhead accuracy has been the driving design goal of each generation of missiles, specifically because killing hardened launch sites requires hits within a few hundred feet. That's more than enough accuracy to hit, say, Senator Q. Public's vacation house in the Hamptons with 100% kill probability, so targeting naval yards, radar sites and research labs remains completely within the realm of possibility.

As I recall, targets are enemy command and control, enemy launch sites and warhead storage, enemy military bases or naval bases, enemy deployed military formations (fleets and divisions abroad) and enemy industrial centers. Population centers are only targeted when they overlap one of the others. Take a look at how many hits are anticipated in a few counties in Montana to how many hits will hit New Jersey for a sense of scale. Its practically a token gesture.

Meanwhile I have learned my county won't be targeted, even with the sprawling aluminum works and world's third largest coal power plant. Huzzah!

[DJ]

Hm, if Russians will target sites that Americans pick, why don't the Americans just pick out sites in the middle of nowhere, where damage will be minimal? I guess they could make some fake missile silos there so the Russkies don't get suspicious.

[thobal]

Because the targets the Americans "pick" are, you know, things that the Russians would be wise to destroy. It's not the Americas saying "hey Russia, blow up these points based on our say so." It's "based on what we know about Russia's capabilities and the theory of nuclear war, these are the targets the Russians would probably hit. If, for example, they were trying to destroy the United States."

There is no reason to destroy population centers merely because people happen to live there. Doing so merely expends ordinance for dubious gain. Why kill people directly when the destruction of your opponent's infrastructure will do it for you and provide the benefit of... oh, destroying your opponent's infrastructure.

This idea that the Russians or Americans would drop bombs on cities merely to kill people makes no sense. Doing so merely reduces one's offensive capacity(nuclear arms being "one-shot" weapons), while doing nothing to degrade the offensive capacity of one's opponent.
It might even be counterproductive, seeing as one's enemy will have a smaller population to devote resources towards supporting as well as increasing the survivor's desire for revenge.

[DJ]

I'm just saying that if enemies were so predictable the whole war business would be a lot easier.

[Leafsnail]

This idea that the Russians or Americans would drop bombs on cities merely to kill people makes no sense. Doing so merely reduces one's offensive capacity(nuclear arms being "one-shot" weapons), while doing nothing to degrade the offensive capacity of one's opponent.
It might even be counterproductive, seeing as one's enemy will have a smaller population to devote resources towards supporting as well as increasing the survivor's desire for revenge.

Uh... so, if the bomb magically doesn't destroy any resources (such as, say, the factories that tend to be in cities), the enemy will have a smaller population to devote resources to?  I'm having serious trouble with the logic here.

I mean... if you take England, levelling London would ruin the country's communications and virtually paralyse it.  There'd be mass confusion and so on...

[Cthulhu]

According to the nuke maps, I'm in the danger zone but could probably get somewhere safe there were sufficient warning.

[Nikov]

London is like, 1/10th of England's population though, isn't it?

[Karnewarrior]

According to the nuke maps, I'm in the danger zone but could probably get somewhere safe there were sufficient warning.

I'm in a similar position.

What I'm wondering is, what is so damn important about Tampa Bay that you have to drop seven Nukes on it? What part of russian policy during the 80's says "Glass Miami! Then the Capitalist scum will have no where to party hardy during their spring break! muhahahahaha!" *twizzles mustache*

Frankly three or four would probably do it. The state is so collectively retarded you wouldn't even have to activate the bomb, just set it down and wait for some dumbass to push the self destruct button.