Recently
people are blithely discussing the high possibility of Putin finally
realizing that Russia has lost the “war” with Ukraine, and
decides to start a nuclear war with the West out of anger and spite.
Then there are two possibilities
– One
is that one of his close friends allows
him to “spend more with his family”
and
the other is discussed in an essay that is copied below. I hope that
Bob Anderson allows me to post this since it is that important for
everyone to read.
Bob
Anderson
Advocate
for digital privacy for over 25 years
How
many people would survive (globally) the first 30 days after a full
on nuclear war/Armageddon?
Everything you read about nuclear war goes something like this…
It
will be unimaginably horrible. Everyone will die, or want to. The
End.
Well hang on, we can understand it better than that …
It will be the worst thing we’ve ever experienced, but the human
picture will not turn completely black. So let’s talk about the
aftermath, not only in the following days, but also in the months and
years to come.
As you read this, please bear in mind that these are generalizations
based on averages across a lot of research on the topic. This is not
a scientific paper replete with references, it’s a generalized
narrative … your dosage may vary.
Also, the initial part of this answer describes some pretty awful
things, bad enough that you might want to stop reading. However, I
urge you to press on, it does gradually get better.
First
though, by “full
on nuclear war / Armageddon”
I
take you to mean that everyone who has nuclear weapons uses them
according to their worst-case strategic war planning. The USA and
Russia attempt to wipe each other out, drawing in many NATO countries
including the UK and France. Israel lights up the middle east, and
Pakistan and India go all-out against one another. China goes after
Japan and others, and North Korea attempts to incinerate South Korea,
also lobbing a few at Japan just for good measure.
That’s a lot of bombs …
Just how many nuclear weapons are there?
Nine countries possess a total of approximately 14,655 nuclear
weapons and the capacity to deliver many of them to their intended
targets …
Country
— total warheads (Wikipedia)
United States — 6,450
Russia — 6,850
United Kingdom — 215
France — 300
China — 280
India — 140
Pakistan — 150
North Korea — 20
Israel — 250 (estimated)
It’s important to understand that most nuclear powers will hold a
significant fraction of their weapons in reserve for second and
possibly third strikes, so even in an all-out attack not all weapons
will be used. It’s also important to know that most countries have
more weapons in inventory than they have the capacity to deliver to
targets. Plus there will also be losses due to successful preemptive
and counter-strikes, and several other reasons why the actual number
of devices detonated will be less than the total number of devices
available, perhaps on the order of 60% of the total, or about 8,800.
Sadly, that means even after the launch of an all-out attack, the
threat of future nuclear annihilation will not disappear … perhaps
as many as 4,000 unused weapons will remain under the tattered
control of various governments and their military units. So even
after an “all-out” nuclear war, the sobering fact is that the
threat will not disappear. This will play a role in the years to
come.
A world turned upside down …
When
you look at the list of nuclear powers a striking fact jumps right
out: The vast majority of the weaponized states and their
targets are located in the northern hemisphere. That has profound
implications, as we’ll soon see …
In the northern hemisphere, within 30 days the casualty rates in
places like the USA, Western Europe, India, Pakistan, China and Japan
could approach 40% from direct blast effects, thousands of massive
fires, and the immediate social chaos.
However, in the southern hemisphere the casualty rates will be much
lower, perhaps about 5% in the first 30 days, primarily from the
erosion of social control systems as everyone scrambles to prepare
and protect themselves.
That asymmetry — the fact that the northern hemisphere has been
devastated while leaving most of the southern hemisphere nearly
untouched by blasts and fires — will rapidly lead to massive waves
of immigration coming from the north as survivors by the millions
attempt to flee the initial horrors.
It won’t save them …
Remember, just as it’s illegal for central and south Americans to
enter the USA without permission, the same is true in reverse. A wall
on our southern border would quickly become a prison as Mexico orders
its army, police forces and thousands of ordinary citizens
immediately to kill anyone attempting to breach it to enter Mexico
illegally. All pretense of fairness or international law would
disappear within hours.
Much the same would be true in the surviving parts of South-East
Asia, Indonesia, much of Africa, and places like New Zealand or New
Guinea. They would all defend their borders and themselves with
deadly force. It will be shoot-on-sight regardless of circumstance or
age - old people, kids, it wouldn’t matter.
30 days later …
After 30 days the global casualty rate will be on the order of about
20% of humanity, or roughly 1.5 billion people, mostly in the
northern hemisphere.
About half of them, 750 million worldwide, will die in the first few
hours of the direct effects. The other half, another 750 million,
will die from sickness and violence in the following few weeks. For
example, in all of the major target countries — places like the
USA, India, Italy or France, to name just a few — there will be no
doctors, no electricity, no police. There will be no law.
All the norms of society will disappear literally in a flash.
Snowflakes will melt instantly, it will be purely survival of the
vicious. And as bad as that is, it’s during the next few months
that things truly turn to shit …
The following months … Nuclear Winter
The nuclear blasts will be unspeakably horrible, but many people will
survive the initial onslaught. Instead, it’s the fires and smoke
that will eventually kill far more people through starvation and
disease than all the nuclear detonations combined.
Depending on yield, a single nuclear weapon detonated as an airburst
(most would be) will have a blast radius of 1–3 miles. Nothing
within that survives. The energy is so great and moves so fast that
you wouldn’t even feel it, you’ll be incinerated faster than your
nerves can signal your brain, leaving nothing but your shadow against
the concrete.
It’s at the circumference of each blast that things get truly
horrible … fires will ignite instantly in a full circle around each
blast over land. Anything combustible will ignite — buildings by
the thousands, trees, cars, gas tanks, everything that can burn. And
that’s just from one blast. Major metropolitan areas will be
sprinkled with detonations intentionally targeted so that the fires
they ignite merge into huge firestorms, by design.
Imagine everything from San Diego to Los Angeles all on fire at once,
stretching inland for 50 miles. Everything from Bangor Maine south to
Virginia burning. Much of southern England on fire. A third of Japan.
Half of India. Much of western Europe. Even places like Auckland, New
Zealand will be targeted just to deny military refuge. You get the
picture.
These fires will kill at least as many people as the initial blasts,
and there will be no one to put them out. They will burn for weeks
until they run out of fuel at natural boundaries like rivers or are
finally extinguished by weather.
World-wide the fires will inject enough smoke and ash into the
atmosphere to turn noon to twilight in the middle latitudes of the
northern hemisphere. No one knows how fast the atmosphere will
cleanse itself — estimates range from months to several years —
but what we do know is that it will cause the collapse of the food
chains we survive on, for years.
The northern oceans will likewise be devastated by the lack of
sunlight, which will kill off most of the plankton at the base of the
marine food chain.
What about the southern hemisphere?
There’s an atmospheric region circling the globe called the
tropical convergence zone which acts as something of a barrier
between the northern and southern hemispheres. Overall it will
prevent very roughly half of the smoke and particulate matter from
homogenizing south of the equator.
That will still be awful, but whereas in the north sunlight after 2
months may drop to 20% of normal, in the southern hemisphere it may
be quite a bit better, and by the time you reach the southern
temperate zones, it may be only a 40 or 50% reduction, not 80%. Bad,
yes, very bad, but with care some agriculture will still be possible,
albeit at seriously reduced yields.
Fisheries will likewise be less impacted, especially in the
southern-most oceans — they will still be able to produce a
significant amount of food. Nothing close to normal, maybe only 25%
of previous harvests. Badly injured, but not dead.
Millions in the southern hemisphere will still die, but hundreds of
millions will be able to squeeze by and survive.
How about radiation?
Few people assess the implications and effects of radiation
accurately. That’s understandable — it’s a complex topic that
has been so oversimplified by mass media that when you say the word
radiation, people’s minds jump instantly to mutant cockroaches the
size of alligators, or flesh-eating creatures emerging from glowing
green swamps.
The radioactive aftermath of a large nuclear war will be a very
serious problem, especially in the general areas of detonations and
for miles downwind. For most of the planet the background levels will
increase a hundredfold, cancer rates and birth defects will
skyrocket, and life expectancy will drop significantly. But unless
you were near enough to one of the explosions to receive a high dose,
it won’t kill you. At least not right away.
For
example, from 1945 to 1963 the United States detonated hundreds of
nuclear weapons in the deserts of the southwest (Wikipedia),
many close enough to Las Vegas that the tops of the mushroom clouds
were visible from the strip. Altogether, worldwide there have been
two thousand tests. (Side note: There’s a morbidly fascinating
YouTube video showing every nuclear bomb test on a map over time, it
runs for 14 minutes. Search YouTube for video “LLCF7vPanrY”.)
Yes, you read that correctly, we’ve already detonated a couple
thousand nukes, about a third of them as atmospheric explosions. The
difference is it was done over (or under) sand or water where nothing
can burn.
Of much greater concern will be whatever remains of the world’s
100+ nuclear power plants … it’s likely that they will be targets
themselves, further increasing the total background radiation and
definitely poisoning hundreds of square miles downwind of each. Even
the ones that remain intact will shut down, and then be subject to
gradual leaks of radiation for a long time as their containment
buildings degrade and neutron flux weakens the primary reactor
housings.
Even worse, almost all spent fuel for each reactor in most countries
has been stored on-site awaiting a more permanent solution. These are
still radioactive, and are kept in spent fuel storage ponds, safe
within deep swimming-pool-like structures filled with water. With no
one around to maintain them, the protective water will evaporate and
they too will slowly begin to leak radiation.
The cumulative effect from the bombs and leaking reactors will
increase the overall average radiation most survivors are exposed to
by a factor of 100, or more in many cases. Some isotopes decay very
fast, others are very long-lasting. The net effect will be greatly
increased cancer rates over the years and decades to come, and a
significant reduction in life expectancy, say by an average of 10 -
15 years.
What about survivalists (the ‘preppers’), how will they make
out?
A few of the very best-prepared will do okay, maybe about one
percent, but most will be as screwed as the rest of humanity, it will
just take a little longer.
The thing about most ‘preppers’ is, they tend to emphasize
preparedness in the areas of their personal fascinations in life,
while simultaneously neglecting things that don’t interest them.
I actually met a family of survivalists last year, and it was a
fascinating study in tunnel vision …
The head of the family is a weapons expert and a proud gun owner.
After I was sworn to secrecy, he and his two grown sons showed me
their ‘bug out’ facility. Chests puffed, they proudly displayed a
frightening collection of firearms and ammunition, and explained in
great detail how they had trained the entire family, kids included,
how to shoot anything approaching their facility, aiming withering
fire from various exposed portals of their mostly underground
deep-woods hideout.
But when I asked about respirators against the smoke, and emergency
oxygen tanks as the massive fire swept through the forest, all I got
was blank stares.
Likewise when they proudly showed me their 2,500 gallon water tank …
I asked if they had drilled a well, and how they planned to extract
and filter water once the tank ran dry. Nothing. The same when I
asked if they had a Geiger counter, or medical reference textbooks.
Nada. And the same when I asked if they knew how to set a broken leg,
or which antibiotic to use for a toothache, or a lung infection.
Finally, when I asked just how long they thought their little group
of 5 adults and 7 kids would have the stamina to hold out against
hundreds of survivors from ‘the big city’, who would also be
armed to the teeth, amidst nervous looks they again assured me of the
effectiveness of their arsenal.
And just to vent some of that building testosterone, they blasted off
a couple of hundred rounds in a frustrated ejaculation by gunpowder.
(Side note: let me make it clear that although I’m no expert, I’m
conversant, comfortable and capable with firearms, when properly
regulated they do have a place in civil society.)
The reality is that most survivalists use preparedness as a
justification to pursue personal obsessions in magnified ways. In
those specific areas they are well-prepared, but in vital but boring
things they are as ill-equipped as any of us.
Case in point — in areas requiring advanced skills, such as
medicine, energy or agriculture, they simply ignore all the problems
they can’t answer, as if no one will get sick or shot, machines
miraculously run forever and crops practically grow themselves.
That said, true survivalists know better. These are people who have
prepared comprehensively and deeply across the entire spectrum of
needs; people who realize that a dozen members is not enough, and
have created much larger groups with diverse skills. Unless a nuke
drops within 10 miles, they actually do stand a pretty good chance of
emerging a few years later.
And make no mistake, it will take several years for the sky to clear
enough for agriculture to resume without special assistance.
Recovery …
How many will make it past the first few years is anyone’s guess,
but here are some very round numbers expressed as 5-year survivor
percentages:
North America: 8%
Central America: 44%
South America: 55%
Western Europe: 12%
Eastern Europe (including Russia): 6%
Middle East: 19%
Africa: 42%
China: 27%
India: 22%
Southeast Asia: 40%
Australia / Oceania: 45%
Note that these are extremely approximate ‘guesstimates’.
Numerous factors could make the survival rates higher or much lower,
including time of year, how many warheads actually detonate,
variations in targeting philosophies (military, civilian, both),
human resiliency, national and personal preparedness, weather
conditions and a lot else.
For example, for North America the 5-year survival might be as high
as 10% or 12%, or as low as 1% or 2%. The numbers above are to
provide a sense of magnitude. They are nothing more than my best
guesses, taking into account current levels of industrialization,
social systems and a lot of other factors.
Disease alone will become a major killer, as will contaminated water.
With countless millions of unburied bodies — people, cows, cats,
you name it — a laundry list of deadly bacteria will make a massive
comeback. That bacterial blossom alone will kill a few hundred
million before eventually extinguishing itself after a couple years
(because the bodies decay to the point that they are no longer a
bacterial food source).
The bottom line …
Somewhere between 50% and 80% of humanity will die, and the bulk of
the world’s surviving population will inhabit the southern
hemisphere 5 years later. This will be beyond horrible, but it will
not be anywhere close to an extinction.
So what then?
Very gradually the remaining vestiges of governments and their
shredded military will begin to restore a crude sort of order. The
first bits of civil organization and recovery will occur within a
year, but there won’t be the resources to do much … governments
in most northern-hemisphere countries will be forced by cynical
pragmatism to wait until the number of survivors drops to something
they can manage.
Human ingenuity will counter some of these problems. For example even
if sunlight is only 50% of normal after 6 months, the clever use of
mirrors to illuminate greenhouses will help small but significant
bands of people to survive.
Everything will be under martial law for many years to come. It will
take a generation or two before people see any kind of municipal
restoration, even things as basic as running water or electricity,
let alone hospitals.
But recovery will come. Agriculture will return, science will not
forget how to make antibiotics, very little knowledge will be lost.
The nuclear power plants will be entombed. Children will be born,
educated, and new engineers and doctors will graduate. Manufacturing
will return. Eventually we’ll even see the internet reborn, and
yes, it will have cat videos. Gradually over the next 50 to 75 years
the world will mostly recover.
Unfortunately, it will continue to live under the threat of further
nuclear exchanges. Maybe, just maybe, then at last we can all agree
to get rid of the damn things, once and forever.
And finally …
No doubt this answer will trigger criticisms, questions and comments,
mostly about people’s specific circumstances. Let me anticipate
some of them …
Yes, it’s possible you will be in an area that suffers no direct
blast effects and does not burn. Yes, it’s possible you’ll be
able to scavenge successfully for enough years to survive. And yes,
it’s possible you’ll be able to defend yourself against the
starving hoards.
For all I know, you could survive 8 years on a thousand cases of
Campbell’s soup jam-packed in a tornado shelter.
Humans are astonishingly resourceful, some will make it through even
the most difficult circumstances. But in the northern hemisphere most
will not.
And that’s just the point … any of these exceptions are possible,
but none are likely. This narrative is about averages and aggregate
effects, not about specific circumstances. I welcome your comments.
Bob Anderson
