Iron_Captain wrote:

A country like Belarus had 1/3rd of its population killed in WW2, and all of its infrastructure destroyed. It got next to no help to rebuild because it was part of the Soviet Union so the West did not want to help

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
You know how there's still parts of Sweden where the flora and fauna is inedible by humans because of Chernobyl? That was more than 30 years ago halfway across Europe from here. This idea that the fallout isn't going to be so bad is kinda dangerous.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
WW2 is both the worst and the best example to prove/disprove the stockpile viability idea. Worst because a war lasting 5 years on a European scale like WW2 is incredibly unlikely now that so many major players have nuclear weapons, the time scale being completely unrealistic. The best because exactly, there was famine, in the 5th year of the war, no stockpile is going to last years. Look at the strategic oil stockpiles of the US for example, they represent just 5 months of imports. Most wars are neither as intensive or as long lasting as WW2 and when we talk about modern militaries (i.e. of rich countries who could afford to actually stockpile) fighting in a equipment capacity will be decided upon in weeks at best. Then you have to take into account that if it actually comes to an invasion your stockpiles are either going to be overrun or destroyed. What good would have food stockpiles had done in WW2 when the Nazi's could and did just take every scrap of food available in places? Like I said, places such as countries in Africa that really need food stockpiles are just to poor to afford them. The West really has no need for them as any war that would lead to actual famine is either going to end up in a nuclear exchange or surrender, as its become incredibly one sided for famine to take hold.

A full-out nuclear war is going to be many more times as intensive as WW2 was. All of the destruction of 5 years of WW2 could be done in a matter of minutes with nuclear weapons. So of course there will be famine.
Also, saying that fighting between modern militaries will be over in weeks at best is making a pretty controversial statement that is not really backed up by the realities of recent conflicts. It is the same thing they said before WW1. But that is an entirely different discussion.
And yeah, an invading army could take the stockpiles (a smart defender will destroy them first though). So what? An invading army will also be able to take your treasury and make use of your highways. So should the government stop saving money or building highways? That is a non-argument.

No, you claimed stockpiles would also be useful in wartime and famine. Now you combine war and nuclear war. I was separating war in the case of WW2 with nuclear war. And again, why stockpile for an event in which 99% of the people are going to die with no guarantee those stockpiles will actually survive or be useful to any survivors? WW2 was a terrible example in support of stockpiles as no stockpile would last 5+ years for an entire country anyway.

It doesn't need to last 5 years for an entire country. That is a strawman.

Its not a strawman, its the logical response to the example you said up as follows:

1. I said a famine in a Western country in the foreseeable future is highly unlikely as that would also mean global devastation of food production.
2. You countered by saying there was a famine in the Netherlands, a Western country, just 70 years ago.
3. I countered saying that this was in WW2, a war that will not be repeated for technological reasons. Any stockpile wouldn't have lasted until the fifth year of the war (when the famine occurred) because stocks won't last that long or the Nazis would have taken it to feed Germany and their army. Concluding that a famine in the fifth year of a World War is a terrible example to use as to why there need to be stockpiles.
4. Now you call me saying a stockpile wouldn't last five years in direct reference to your example a strawman.

I never said a stockpile needs to last for years, but in the case of your example it would have seeing as rationing was already quite heavy years before 45.

The famine only occurred in the last year of the war. That is the only year the stockpiles would have been needed. Yes, there was rationing in the other years, but people weren't dying of hunger. Stockpiles are only there for emergencies, so it is a strawman to say they would need to be used every single year of the war.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
We discussed the week thing before, suffice to say for modern military equipment with low production rate a winner will become sufficiently clear in the first few weeks.

This is off-topic, so let me just say that reality seems to disagree with you and leave it at that.

Reality can't disagree with me seeing as we have not had a well trained modern equipped military facing off against another in the last few decades. The best examples we have are second rate powers with armies lacking key essentials to conduct a swift decisive war. What in lost in the opening weeks can't be replaced for perhaps months, any sufficiently trained military would immediately capitalize on the advantage of winning the first strike. For example in the Iraq-Iran War, Iran won the equipment battle, but there army was so poorly led and trained it had no way to capitalize on this. Countries like Russia and the US aren't going to fail on capitalizing.

They will. Because in a war against a more or less equal opponent they will have suffered heavy losses of their own, leaving them short on the manpower and materiel they need to capitalise on every opportunity. Sure, the enemy may be in an even worse shape, but that doesn't automatically mean that the side who got the upper hand will be able to swiftly end it. Usually the pattern of a war goes like this: it usually starts with a few small skirmishes where both sides test the other, then there is a short period of very intense conflict where both sides commit their full strength, and then there is a period where the winning side mops up the losing side. Whether the 'mopping up' is over swiftly or lasts very long depends on how decisive the intense period of conflict was and on the will of the defender to continue resisting. If the defender has inflicted enough losses on the attacker the mopping up will be everything but quick. This pattern can be observed in every modern war from WW2 to the war in Iraq. Modern warfare can be over incredibly quickly. But it can also drag on for years.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
For famine to occur in wartime there are some pretty crazy terms that need to be met. 1. One side has such an overwhelming advantage it can enforce a famine on its opponent with impunity. 2. The starving opponent with no way of winning in reality as it can't even break the blockade refuses to give up in the face of all reason. 3. We assume any nuclear power would just let itself be starved out instead of pressing the button.

Actually, no. Famine in war usually occurs either because a country has converted most of its industrial power and manpower to wartime production, leaving the agricultural sector short of the people and machines it needs to meet demand, or because fighting on the territory of a country has destroyed a lot of infrastructure. Of course, it can also occur through blockades, which has been a common strategy in war since forever. There is plenty of examples in history why a blockade and starvation would not necessarily lead to surrender. Usually the defenders hope to hold on long enough for reinforcements to arrive so that the blockade may be broken. Your example assumes there will be no reinforcements.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
So what would be the point in continuing the war into famine when you obviously are losing? And again, if the enemy has such superiority that they can force famine upon you, why would they not just wait out for the stockpiles to disappear? Its an unrealistic scenario for the usefulness of stockpiles. WW1 is the perfect example actually, as the blockaded caused food shortages, you might say that wouldn't happen if they had stockpiles, but then what if they just continued the war for another year worth of blockading?

You want to continue the war because you are not necessarily losing. Buying yourself another year of time can be huge in war if you are waiting for allies to reinforce you or for more equipment to be made.

Incredibly unrealistic. Your people are starving to death and that is pretty clearly definable as losing. Also no, buying a year isn't huge, because while you have to build up equipment from zero your opponent is just producing more to supplement their already surviving stock with veteran personnel that survived the first round. The amount of equipment would only favor the side who won the first engagement more heavily. As they would have free range to bomb any and all production and military facilities, further reducing output relative to the side already winning. Plus an ally only joining in after a year when the side they support already got crushed seems like a very silly way of conducting international politic, its highly unlikely.

The funny thing about people is that they can be incredibly stubborn, especially in wartime. Starving to death or not, a war isn't over as long as the people still have the will to fight on. As to the rest of what you are saying, have you ever read the history of WW2? It has everything what you just called silly. An army losing the initial exchange and then rebuilding from scratch before actually defeating their opponent? Check. Happened twice actually. An ally joining in after their side got crushed? Check. This is in fact a very common point for allies to join in throughout history. A nation (or nobleman or tribe if you go back further) may be reluctant to join in the war at first, but when they see the side they favour is losing, they are likely to jump in to even the odds and prevent that loss.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
And the argument that the enemy could take your food in wartime is not a non-argument. Because in your WW2 example the Nazi's would have done exactly that to any food stockpile and you and I both know that. Food stockpiles in regular wartime have almost no strategic value beyond prolonging the inevitable.

It is a non-argument because the same argument can be made for every single piece of infrastructure a government builds.

It isn't for three reasons. One, all the other infrastructure actually contributes to the overall prosperity and economic growth of the country, hoarding food only costs money. Two, like I said if you are facing famine you're already clearly on the losing side, having a few food stockpiles won't make a difference besides avoiding total defeat for a few months more. Lastly, when the enemy overruns food stockpiles all that effort to build them up is just lost while possibly helping them. Either you already lost the war and these stockpiles just stave off total defeat or you get invaded and the occupier can just use those food stockpiles for their own goals. Its not realistic or comparable to other infrastructure projects that actually serve a purpose beyond the time when the world goes down in a nuclear fireball.

You keep assuming that only the losing side could face famine. That is simply untrue. And even if you are on the losing side, as long as you haven't been totally defeated and your territory taken over by the enemy, those stockpiles might be useful to help keep you in the fight for longer.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Yeah but you brought up radiation longevity which is why i mentioned them. Realistically there is no way to provide food for or long term medical supplies for after a global nuclear war. What few people would have survived are now left with an enormousness stock of excess food and medication with a shelf life that won't be that long. So best case scenario is that you feed some survivors while having spend billions if not trillions on supplies that are just going to decay away because 99% of the intended recipients are dead. That is if those stockpiles don't get hit first as tertiary targets. The problem of stockpiling is that you're doing it for a time when society has absolutely collapsed, with possibly no government infrastructure available anymore to get those surviving stockpiles anywhere they are needed. You would need an immense infrastructure just to ensure stockpiles can be accessible on food, an immense infrastructure that will easily collapse with the rest of society. So why not spend those billions or trillions on actual projects that are beneficial in the here and the now, instead of a possible future in which almost everyone is dead anyway. Its just a waste of money.

A government does not need to stockpile food for all of its citizens. The chance of that ever being needed is pretty much non-existent because either lots of people might die, or the catastrophe is not so big that everyone needs food and medical aid. They simply need to have enough stockpiles to feed large groups of people for a certain amount of time. The infrastructure needed to distribute food actually is not very big, especially not if you decentralise it and establish stockpiles on local levels (let's say municipality level).

So if the government is already just betting on the vast majority of its population dying, why even bother with the remaining survivors?

If that is your argument, then I can rest my case. No offense, but that comes across to me as sounding quite psychopathic. Why bother with the remaining survivors? Well, maybe because some people actually value human life and want so save as much people as possible?

Not really, its just being realistic. If you really want to save lives and as much people as possible there are far better things to invest money in in the here and now than hoping some people will survive a nuclear war that might never come.

And besides, if you really are concerned with saving as many people as possible you should be advocating for huge incredibly expensive bunker projects and such. But cost is always a limiting factor, and money spend on food stockpiles will likely just represent money wasted. That money can do far more good for more people in the here and now in my opinion.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
What if more people survive than expected? Etc etc. Its a very expensive project that might never pay off even in the event of nuclear war. If you start stockpiles you also realistically would start investing in people surviving. But then how many would you plan for in that case etc. Its possible, but likely just enormously wasteful.

Yes, it might be wasteful. But it might also prove to be invaluable. Like with the Delta Works, it is a consideration the government needs to make. How much money do we spend on protection from potential future disasters vs things that will be more immediately useful. I for one, am glad the Dutch government decided to build the Delta Works, and would also be glad if they took more measures to protect against other potential future disasters such as a nuclear war.

Seeing as how we have had dozens of major floods in the last few centuries and exactly zero nuclear wars in the Netherlands there is a significant difference between the Delta Works and nuclear survival expenses. Like I said, why not spend trillions on building a space ship in case of an asteroid strike? There are so many things that could end civilization as we know it yet preparing for them all would bankrupt society. Money is better spent elsewhere than as some sort of possibly useful feature for the 1% who actually survived.

Like a flood, a nuclear war is not all that unlikely though. There is a difference between preparing for absolutely everything and preparing for actually plausible future threats, like that once in a 100,000 years flood or a nuclear war. Do you really think the chances of a nuclear war are so much lower than a one in a 10,000 year flood?
And yes. Apart from stockpiles we would also need shelters and bunkers. We would need them to store the stockpiles and to actually make sure there will be people to use the stockpile. It does represent a cost, of course, but the costs could be spread out over many years. And wanting to spend everything on the here and now is just short-sighted. Being prepared for the future is important. We want to ensure there will be a future, even in case of nuclear war.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Also taking Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors into accounts is a bit misleading, because it was such a localized and isolated event. In the case of a global event almost everything the survivors will come into contact with will be contaminated, even the soil itself will be contaminated. So besides there being few survivors, now you're dealing with background radiation and genetic defects as a result that will likely have far reaching consequences on the overall future of the human race (miscarriage being the major one due to exposure). Plus that is taking into account that whoever survives will even have the capabilities to keep themselves alive for long enough to even start another generation.

Uh, no. Not everything will be contaminated. Contamination will only happen in the neighborhood of nuclear detonations. Nuclear detonations are only going to be at major population centres and military targets. Beyond that, background radiation will quickly decay to levels that aren't of much concern anymore. Rural areas won't get much contamination at all. Global background radiation would rise to levels that likely might be very concerning for us in a normal situation, but as I already said, having a somewhat higher risk of cancer or a somewhat higher chance that your future children will get genetic defects isn't really a concern if you just survived a nuclear war. You will be plenty happy you still have a life expectancy and that you still can get kids. As for keeping people alive long enough to establish a next generation, that is where the stockpiles come in again. A war would be very disruptive to normal food supplies, and stockpiles could keep people alive long enough until new food supplies are established.

Not really, contamination can spread over hundreds of kilometers, just look at contamination maps of Chernobyl or Fukushima. It depends on the weapon in question of course, but spread patterns depending on conditions can be quite significant. While those doses aren't deadly as is, they do contaminate food and water to a sufficient degree.

None of that is lethal, so none of that will be of concern in a nuclear war. Yes, there will be contamination, but if you just survived a nuclear war I doubt you will care about contaminated food killing you 60 years down the road when the alternative is a lack of food killing you in 2 weeks.

That depends on the severity of the buildup of contamination in the produce and how it builds up in the human body. Its a significant risk to any surviving population that we don't know much about. And again distribution comes in, many people might not even be able to reach those stockpiles even if they prove useful. But stockpiles run out and food production needs to take over, if those foodstuffs are severely contaminated they might kill in significantly less than 60 years. If everybody dies from contamination 5 years after the stockpile runs out that isn't helpful either. Problematically there isn't a lot of research on the viability of food production, one of the issues that needs resolving beforehand preferably.

The foodstuff isn't going to be contaminated because you keep it in nuclear shelters. Distribution isn't going to be a problem because those shelters could be built on a local level.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
Also you keep bringing in stockpiles for next generations, but realistically the shelf life for most medicine and food if it survives at all will be a decade, a bit more if your lucky. Its not going to feed your grand kids. Plus what kind of medication and how would you use it without doctors? Its great for people who live close by to such a stockpile, but distribution is going to be a serious issue. Plus what if those people have zero know how on how to get reliable food production started. Even most farmers nowadays are dependent on seeds provided by companies.

Like all infrastructure, stockpiles would need to be maintained. And no, after a nuclear war those stockpiles won't last long enough to feed your grandkids, but that isn't needed. A stockpile would just need to be able to provide for the people living in the local area to survive the initial period of chaos that would follow a nuclear strike, until the government can restore control and get a normal food supply running again. A nuclear war isn't going to destroy every single thing on earth. There will still be doctors, farms, seeds and everything. If you ever set foot outside of a city, you will notice that infrastructure for food production tends to be outside of cities. So unless someone were stupid enough to aim nukes at farmland instead of cities, food is not going to be an issue in the "post-apocalypse". At least, not in a place like Europe where all you need to do to get food is to put a seed in the ground and wait for a bit. Less fertile areas that are largely dependent on food import would suffer more.

Of course stockpiles need to be maintained, which is another expensive burden to creating them in the first place. But after the bombs drop all those people with the required knowledge of what is in a stockpile and what it does or even where it is might be dead.

You keep bringing up the government and normal food supply, but there is absolutely no guarantee at all that the government would survive in the first place (like in the Netherlands) or that restarting a normal food supply is even possible (with a host of possible problems). It won't destroy everything of course, but it would destroy enough. Those farmers are dependent on cities and infrastructure too. Farmers with animals depend on the existing infrastructure for animal food. Farmers with crops depend on others for seeds and fertilizer. Together they depend on the world for power, water, spare parts, fuel etc etc. Access to all those things will be lost. How easy is it to go back 200 years for those farmers? Same for doctors, they would lose all kinds of specialized equipment and locations, most dedicated medical facilities are located in urban areas. Its not just a matter of picking up the pieces in the countryside, losing the urban areas and the subsequent disruption of absolutely everything will have far reaching consequences they might not be able to overcome.

"All you need to do is put a seed in the ground" is a gross overstatement. Its more complicated than that with growing seasons, climate conditions and the fact that there is almost no crop diversity for a good part of modern farmers anymore. There is a host of issues with farming that people would just not be able to overcome without the knowhow. It might be overcome, but the questions is how many would overcome it?

Of course the government will survive. Even in the Netherlands the government has contingency plans for nuclear war and a lot of bunkers to hide in. Of all things, governments are in fact probably most likely to survive nuclear wars.
And farmers are only dependent on all that infrastructure because they produce crops for profit in an incredibly intensive manner. Without all that infrastructure they can still produce crops, just less and they won't be able to sell on the international market. But neither of that would be needed in the direct aftermath of a nuclear war. All that would be needed would be the farmland and a basic stock of crops and animals to start with. And yeah, farming is more complicated than just putting things in the ground, but it is not exactly knowledge that is rare, difficult or hard to come by. Essentially, the world would be thrown 200 years back yes. But we could survive 200 years ago, and the way how people survived back then isn't exactly arcane, secret knowledge. It would take effort for us to adapt, but it would be done.
You seem to assume that a nuclear war would be the end of the world, when there are no grounds to assume such.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
A. Smart is very subjective though, there are a lot of smart things that the government should invest in. Certainly there are more pressing matters to invest in. There are issues that will affect the full 100% of us in the future now, not issues that will affect the 1% when there no longer really is a future.
B. Actually, humans as in Homo Sapiens have no definitive proof of being around Europe for tens of thousands of years, its just assumed as no real definitive proof has been found except at the very edges . Anyway, these people survived because they were all aimed at survival under those conditions or farmers who provided for themselves. Saying people have survived thousands of years is like dropping a call center employee in the middle of the Amazon and going "its fine, people have been living here for thousands of years". The absolute vast majority of the Western population has no clue how to survive outside of our urbanized life, they don't know how to hunt or grow crops, no clue what is edible in the wild etc etc. And as I said above, we don't know if farmers could just pick up the pieces, let alone produce enough food to feed a surviving population.
C. Very debatable, any surviving government likely wouldn't have the capacity to actually control anyone like the national government did simply because they don't have any expertise in it. Setting up a new government won't make it a continuation of the old one, which is the key in some sense, because most governments see little in investing in a future they are no longer in. Still any shell government left will likely lack the resources, skilled people or expertise to actually get much done in the first few years or even decades. Warning times for a nuclear strike are incredibly short, in the Netherlands we might be talking about minutes at most, too late for most government personnel.

A. What is smart or not is indeed subjective.
B. As an archaeologist I can tell you there is LOADS of evidence for the presence of H. Sapiens in Europe over the past 10,000 years and even far longer back. H. Sapiens was already very widespread in Europe before 40,000 years ago, which is about the time H. Neanderthalensis disappeared (and we know European H. Sapiens had a lot of interactions and interbreeding with Neanderthals, because we can trace that back in the DNA of present-day European populations of H. Sapiens). Anyway, the call center employee in the Amazon isn't going to survive when on his own. But he won't be on his own. Not everyone knows how to hunt and gather or grow crops, but there are plenty of people that do. And one of the big reasons for our incredible success as a species is our unique capability to transfer information across individuals, groups and generations. That call center employee in the Amazon will survive because there will be people teaching him how to do so. And luckily for us, most environments aren't even nearly as hostile as the Amazon.
C. Any surviving government would be severely reduced in capability, yes. But they won't need the same kind of capability they needed before the strike. Directly after the strike, their priorities should be solely the establishment of communication with survivors, and making sure survivors have access to shelter, food and water. Things that would be easily do-able if the government planned ahead for this.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
As to shelters in metro networks, that actually solves a lot of the problems you mention. People will be able to travel through the tunnels to outside of the city, beyond the most heavily destroyed and irradiated areas. As to what you when you exit? Yeah, that is where those stockpiles would be handy. It would allow people to survive until food supplies have been restored, which would be the main priority of the government. Most infrastructure for the production of food exists in rural areas, so in the long term food should not be too much of an issue. It is really only the direct aftermath of the war that would be problematic, and that is why those stockpiles are so essential.

True, but most of those metro networks don't leave the cities, so people are still stuck in the city (depends on the amount of hits too). As for food supplies being restored, again how? Most Western agriculture is dependent on outside sources for parts, fuel, seeds etc. That whole system is going to break down and those farmers might not even be around anymore. How would you just restore food supplies with a large group of people who have no clue how? The government won't survive either in many cases, because they are in prime targets to hit and infrastructure collapse will prevent any designated survivors to have massive problems restoring anything if at all possible. Food stockpiles being useful are a very best case scenario. Sure you can do it, but its going to be incredibly expensive.

Metro networks that were designed as nuclear shelters do, and even those that do not often do lead to the outskirts of a city that would be unlikely to get hit very hard. As to how to restore food supplies? It is simple. The same way you rebuild any country after a destructive war. You will have lots of people that are left without job. You can use that manpower to compensate for machines that break down until international trade and infrastructure start coming back up again. Who knows, it might even actually boost the economy overall in the long term, just like with Germany or Japan after WW2.

Yes purpose build for sure, but not all purpose build have had that much thought put into it, it depends on the country.

Its not simple, this is far more devastating than a destructive war. Death toll alone would far outstrip the most destructive war in human history. Countries had help rebuilding after those destructive wars or had significant undamaged industrialized parts. That's highly unlikely to be the case after an all out nuclear exchange. Also lots of people? The urbanization rate in the West is 80+ percent. So best case scenario is that no more than 4/5ths of your population will die. Plus with the total collapse of infrastructure there is no immediate way to concentrate all those people, which might be a bad idea anyway food wise. It would take decades to rebuild a country after such an event and that would be the most optimistic expectation.

"it might even actually boost the economy overall in the long term"? You are wildly optimistic about this. There won't be much of an economy left after 80+ percent of your population as well as the vast majority of your economic centers get vaporized. Your veering into blind optimism on that part.

It would take decades, yes. But it could be done. The world would never be the same of course. As you say, the death toll would be massive. Countries after the war would be much smaller (in terms of population) and much more decentralised (because population centers were destroyed). But they would still be there. 1/5th of the population is still a lot of people. I suppose boosting the economy would be optimistic, given the fact that the economy after the war would be vastly smaller than before. But there would still be an economy, and lots of work to do for everyone.
A country like Belarus had 1/3rd of its population killed in WW2, and all of its infrastructure destroyed. It got next to no help to rebuild because it was part of the Soviet Union so the West did not want to help, and it got little help from the other parts of the Soviet Union because they were busy rebuilding their own stuff. Yet Belarus rebuilt itself. The aftermath of a nuclear war would look a lot like that, but on a smaller scale because there'd be less people left. Make no mistake, a nuclear war would be the end of the world as we know it. But it would not be the end of the world.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
You know how there's still parts of Sweden where the flora and fauna is inedible by humans because of Chernobyl? That was more than 30 years ago halfway across Europe from here. This idea that the fallout isn't going to be so bad is kinda dangerous.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

A country like Belarus had 1/3rd of its population killed in WW2, and all of its infrastructure destroyed. It got next to no help to rebuild because it was part of the Soviet Union so the West did not want to help

BS. Stalin refused offers of help. The Marshall plan explicitly offered to help the Soviet Union too; Stalin declined.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

I'm not going to bother with very long responss as this is going increasingly in circles so I will just make short comments on each section quickly:

- Those stockpiles would have long been taken by the Germans in 1945. They were already starving civilians on a large scale in 1941 in the East and taking everything not nailed down in Western and Eastern Europe. The expectation that food stockpiles would have helped is just unrealistic.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
- We have seen decisive knockout punches in the opening phases of almost every recent war involving a major power. Applying overwhelming force as quickly as possible is the key to winning the opening phase. Skirmishing first gives away the advantage of a knockout punch. Also it was never about the winning side quickly ending it. Its about the losing side's highly unlikely chance to recover and regroup with modern equipment. Sure the losing side could drag it out, but realistically its not going anywhere. Both Iraq wars were over the moment they began. Iran-Iraq War has serious issues as a template of a modern war between well trained armies. Plus even taking into account WW1 and 2, there was no relief for the losing side, once those blockades were set up it was steadily downhill for the Central and Axis powers.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
- Bringing up stubborn and WW2 is unrealistic in todays world. Equipment production isn't possible on such a massive scale anymore.
Using WW2 as a template for what a modern war looks like isn't relevant. War has changed significantly since and inventing parameters to achieve the preferred outcome doesn't change the fact that mass production is no longer possible. Once you get in that hole all the winner has to do is keep on shovelling. Plus if everyone starves to death which is you argument for stockpiles, why not wait that few extra months? People who starved to death usually aren't so stubborn. If a country is losing and starving stockpiles only delay the inevitable.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
- Again, keep you fighting longer for what? Modern military equipment isn't designed for mass production. Its all designed to win the first phase. Stockpiles do nothing but delay the inevitable.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
- Well seeing as we haven't had a nuclear war calculating the chances are a bit hard. But again, there are so many world ending events you should focus on then. And I'm not talking about spending all our money in the here and now, I'm advocating spending that money on future problems that don't assume 99% of the people are dead. There are more pressing future issues for the next generations that that money is much better spent on. You can keep talking about short-sighted, but I call investing huge amounts of public money on 1 future out of a possible 1000000 short sighted.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
- That really depends, the Dutch government is less well prepared than many people might think. Having abandoned most Cold War plans. As for those farmers, you have no idea about their actual capabilities without all that infrastructure. Just assuming they can continue on a smaller scale is a huge if. It isn't arcane or secret no, but its going to be a lot harder to learn when half the country is on fire and gone. Of course its not going to be the end of the world, but its going to be a lot harder than just dusting off and starting back up on a smaller scale. We have no clue how many farmers can actually make that shift or have sufficient seed stockpiles to just be able to do it alone.

- Loads? The oldest known skeleton in Europe is about 40k years old and at the edge of Europe. Current archeological theory that is up and coming says that it might have taken several thousands or even ten thousand for H Sapiens to establish themselves in Europe proper. Interesting discussion but drifting a bit far perhaps. Regardless, its true they have a group to survive in, but most people have exactly the same skills as that call center employee. How many experienced survivalists are there going to be on the average population? 1 out of a 1000 or 10000? They can't take care of all those people even if brought down to 1 in a 100 or even 50. Most people are going to be utterly useless beyond menial labor. The government to be able to do that right after a nuclear war would also need large or even huge amounts of stockliles of vehicles and equipment, staff and everything required at the ready. But unless all those people live in or really close to those bunkers they won't make it in time. So restoring government control alone is going to require a massive investment. Likely the government won't be in any position to provide immediate help to the survivors.

- Of course it could be done, but the comparison to Belarus is less relevant because the effects of a full out nuclear war would be far worse. Belarus still had functioning systems, a world to function in and the ability to ask for expert help. None of that is certain after a nuclear war, maybe you will get outside help and maybe you won't. But rebuilding will be far more time consuming and likely isn't going to bring you back to anywhere near the old level. It would be Belarus on steroids, with far more unforseeable problems.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
If there are limited nukes launched the solution is to evacuate completely. If all-out war happens then yeah, we're all gunna die. You have shelters? So what? Whatever supplies you have aren't going to outlast the radiation, and whatever sanity people have is unlikely to even last long enough to deplete the supplies. Ever consider that dying in the nuclear apocalypse is quite possibly the better option?

And I like how you say that the Soviet Union continued spending right up until the their economy collapsed, gee, some might say those two things were related.

oldravenman wrote:

7. It wasn't civil defense efforts that broke the Soviet bank. It was ever increasing military spending (due mostly in response to Reagan's revitalization of the armed forces, and the Soviet hysteria regarding the Strategic Defense Inititive), while being saddled with a poorly run socialist command economy.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
You know how there's still parts of Sweden where the flora and fauna is inedible by humans because of Chernobyl? That was more than 30 years ago halfway across Europe from here. This idea that the fallout isn't going to be so bad is kinda dangerous.

You're confusing health warnings saying "You shouldn't eat this stuff" as meaning they are lethal to consume. If you ate some of those plants or animals which are still contaminated by Chernobyl you'd survive. You'll probably come down with cancer in 20-40 years if you made a habit of it, but you could eat it and survive for a length of time which I would classify as being acceptable considering you're living in a post-apocalyptic world. Standards would be a bit low in that situation.

When we're talking about the long term survival of the human species... Yeah, its definitely in the "Not so bad" category. "Not so bad" doesn't mean no ill effects whatsoever. It means we could survive through it collectively.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
You know how there's still parts of Sweden where the flora and fauna is inedible by humans because of Chernobyl? That was more than 30 years ago halfway across Europe from here. This idea that the fallout isn't going to be so bad is kinda dangerous.

You're confusing health warnings saying "You shouldn't eat this stuff" as meaning they are lethal to consume. If you ate some of those plants or animals which are still contaminated by Chernobyl you'd survive. You'll probably come down with cancer in 20-40 years if you made a habit of it, but you could eat it and survive for a length of time which I would classify as being acceptable considering you're living in a post-apocalyptic world. Standards would be a bit low in that situation.

When we're talking about the long term survival of the human species... Yeah, its definitely in the "Not so bad" category. "Not so bad" doesn't mean no ill effects whatsoever. It means we could survive through it collectively.

I'm not confusing anything. What happens to humanity as a whole when all the food we eat increases the risk of cancer or stillbirths? Sure, people who survived the nuclear exchange could keep living for most of their lifespan, but the next generation, and the one after that? When all you have to eat contains heightened levels of carcinogenic substances it adds up, no?

 Grey Templar wrote:


Heightened levels? Yes. Levels which will ensure the sterilization of humanity? Not even close.

As has been mentioned in many many posts in this thread, a massive chunk of Earth will be pretty much untouched due to how a nuclear exchange will actually happen(all targets for nukes being targeted by far more than is technically necessary because of redundancy. The extremely short half-life of Fallout. The limited amount of fallout which will actually be generated. etc...).

 Grey Templar wrote:


Cancer is scary, but its a slow killer. Its not capable of wiping out a species because it is too slow at killing individual members of the population. You can reproduce successfully many times over before Cancer can kill you. Again, as mentioned there are people alive today who survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That was 73 years ago. Surviving that long after directly being exposed to a nuclear bomb I think really shows the error of your argument. And to a bomb that was far dirtier than modern nuclear weaponry no less.

 Desubot wrote:
Speaking of assumptions, gotta ask are nuclear power plants even a target for a full on MAD war?

 jhe90 wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Speaking of assumptions, gotta ask are nuclear power plants even a target for a full on MAD war?

Even a few they survived the first exchange. Minus power, support and staff one could easily meltdown after due to time and disator damage.

That's a big problem. So even after your gonna get a big radiation problem down the line.

 Desubot wrote:
Speaking of assumptions, gotta ask are nuclear power plants even a target for a full on MAD war?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:


Heightened levels? Yes. Levels which will ensure the sterilization of humanity? Not even close.

As has been mentioned in many many posts in this thread, a massive chunk of Earth will be pretty much untouched due to how a nuclear exchange will actually happen(all targets for nukes being targeted by far more than is technically necessary because of redundancy. The extremely short half-life of Fallout. The limited amount of fallout which will actually be generated. etc...).

What parts of the Earth though? I'm sure we'll all take extreme comfort in having the Sahara Desert being free of radiation. The area where most people actually live would be pretty fethed though. You're also assuming that there isn't going to be a bunch of additional fallout from nuclear power plants being hit, or that the wind doesn't happen to carry a bunch of radioactive clouds in the wrong direction.

 Grey Templar wrote:


Cancer is scary, but its a slow killer. Its not capable of wiping out a species because it is too slow at killing individual members of the population. You can reproduce successfully many times over before Cancer can kill you. Again, as mentioned there are people alive today who survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That was 73 years ago. Surviving that long after directly being exposed to a nuclear bomb I think really shows the error of your argument. And to a bomb that was far dirtier than modern nuclear weaponry no less.

That's a bit dishonest, to be frank; Little Boy and Fat Man were relatively dirty for their yield. Even assuming a yield of 300kt we're talking twenty times the blast yield of Hiroshima. You're also assuming that we're talking about a fission-fusion device, as opposed to a fission-fusion-fission device.

It's entirely possible that you're right and that humanity would survive, but there's an awful lot of assumptions being made that might not pan out, and I'd rather we didn't play the odds at all.

 jhe90 wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Speaking of assumptions, gotta ask are nuclear power plants even a target for a full on MAD war?

Even a few they survived the first exchange. Minus power, support and staff one could easily meltdown after due to time and disator damage.

That's a big problem. So even after your gonna get a big radiation problem down the line.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
You're also assuming that the exchange would be limited to your relatively clean weapons. If people start lobbing nukes at each other, odds are they'd fire everything they had and the kitchen sink, so let's just hope nobody's got any cobalt-enriched weapons, eh?

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Speaking of assumptions, gotta ask are nuclear power plants even a target for a full on MAD war?

I actually wouldn't think so.

The EMPs from tons of nukes going off will fry the electrical grid anyway. No need to directly attack nuclear power plants.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:


Heightened levels? Yes. Levels which will ensure the sterilization of humanity? Not even close.

As has been mentioned in many many posts in this thread, a massive chunk of Earth will be pretty much untouched due to how a nuclear exchange will actually happen(all targets for nukes being targeted by far more than is technically necessary because of redundancy. The extremely short half-life of Fallout. The limited amount of fallout which will actually be generated. etc...).

What parts of the Earth though? I'm sure we'll all take extreme comfort in having the Sahara Desert being free of radiation. The area where most people actually live would be pretty fethed though. You're also assuming that there isn't going to be a bunch of additional fallout from nuclear power plants being hit, or that the wind doesn't happen to carry a bunch of radioactive clouds in the wrong direction.

The parts of Earth not within the immediate blast zones of Nuclear targets. Plenty of that is areas of agricultural land.

Lets take California. Pretty much most of the central valley isn't going to suffer a direct nuclear strike. San Fran, LA, and Sacramento will get hit by multiple warheads, but the rest of the state has low population density so aside from any military bases it will get largely ignored. The same applies to the whole US.

Furthermore, when attacking a population center to simply cause casualties, you go for an airburst detonation and not a ground level. This type of detonation leaves relatively little fallout. Only hard targets like military bunkers are going to suffer ground level detonations, the kind that creates massive quantities of fallout.

So areas like the Sierra Nevada, Rockies, Central Valley of CA, forested areas of the Pacific Northwest, most of Alaska outside of major military bases and Anchorage and Juno. Almost the entire American Midwest outside of the capitol cities and of course the massive military complex in Colorado.

The East Coast isn't going to be as lucky since there are a lot of metropolitan areas very close together, but the west and central parts of the US have truly mindbogglingly huge amounts of space in between cities. You are from Europe so I can forgive you being somewhat unfamiliar with the concept since your continent is much more densely populated and doesn't have as much open space as we have over here.

 Grey Templar wrote:


Cancer is scary, but its a slow killer. Its not capable of wiping out a species because it is too slow at killing individual members of the population. You can reproduce successfully many times over before Cancer can kill you. Again, as mentioned there are people alive today who survived Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That was 73 years ago. Surviving that long after directly being exposed to a nuclear bomb I think really shows the error of your argument. And to a bomb that was far dirtier than modern nuclear weaponry no less.

That's a bit dishonest, to be frank; Little Boy and Fat Man were relatively dirty for their yield. Even assuming a yield of 300kt we're talking twenty times the blast yield of Hiroshima. You're also assuming that we're talking about a fission-fusion device, as opposed to a fission-fusion-fission device.

It's entirely possible that you're right and that humanity would survive, but there's an awful lot of assumptions being made that might not pan out, and I'd rather we didn't play the odds at all.

Its not dishonest at all. If anything, its the "WE"REALLGONNADIE!!!" crowd who uses dishonest arguments. They don't actually consider the total impact of radiation, or that you can actually survive even a high amount of exposure. They don't really understand the resiliency of the human body and what it can endure and still function(by which I mean thrive enough to create a new viable generation). They see something that would lower our lifespan by a chunk of 20-30 years and think that means we'd go extinct. Completely forgetting that for most of human history you'd have been lucky to live past 40.

And again, you are ignoring that modern bombs explode far cleaner than old ones. "Dirty for their yield" doesn't change the argument. It actually continues to prove mine. All a bigger bomb means is that it can kill more people with its initial blast, but fewer will die from the after effects of radiation and fallout.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jhe90 wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
Speaking of assumptions, gotta ask are nuclear power plants even a target for a full on MAD war?

Even a few they survived the first exchange. Minus power, support and staff one could easily meltdown after due to time and disator damage.

That's a big problem. So even after your gonna get a big radiation problem down the line.

Nope. With all the safety features that modern power plants have, a meltdown is impossible if even half of the safety features work.

The absolute worst that could happen is maybe in a few hundred or even thousand years, the physical structure has decayed to the point where the nuclear material starts leaking into the ground water.

Meltdowns only occur when the reactor keeps generating power without the cooling systems doing enough to keep it cool. This causes the reactor to melt/catchfire/explode.

Modern safety systems will automatically, with or without human input, halt the nuclear reaction and remove the catalyst fuel rods and put them into storage where they are benign as long as you don't go swimming in the pool. So until the concrete and steel structure itself decays, an earthquake cracks it, or some nutter blows it up, the reactor is going to be perfectly safe. And it would take a very very long time for a concrete and steel structure to actually fully break down just due to things like the wind and rain.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
You're also assuming that the exchange would be limited to your relatively clean weapons. If people start lobbing nukes at each other, odds are they'd fire everything they had and the kitchen sink, so let's just hope nobody's got any cobalt-enriched weapons, eh?

 jhe90 wrote:

Still. Well what did one earthquake do... Brought down a entire power plant and even with massive human intervention there'd a multi mile zone that's too hot for humanity to live in for maybe centuries.

One earthquake, one tsunami was all it took.

Even with a auto shut down say the fuel storage ponds rely on a x amount of water to stay cool and keep the rods inert. Minus people to maintain.. You think that system stay 100% online. Parts wear out. Batteries and fuel decays, circuits and hard drives need replacement.

Decades. Maybe not centuries. The systems will decay, depending on age, they may not be as reliable as you say or as backed up.

Also some waste sites, some fuel storage and such. I think the real danger would be there, maybe bot that week but years later they will fail.

 feeder wrote:
I think jhe90's point was that a total nuclear exchange will be rather worse for a power plant's overall stability than one earthquake.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 feeder wrote:
I think jhe90's point was that a total nuclear exchange will be rather worse for a power plant's overall stability than one earthquake.

That entirely depends on if the plant is in the actual blast zone or not. A lot of power plants will be just by proximity to other targets, but its doubtful they'll specifically be targeted. Any which are not within the blast zone are going to be fine from a structural stand point.

Power plants would be useful targets in a conventional war, but the EMP effects of nuclear weapons renders the point of hitting power plants moot. Why destroy energy generation when the energy grid is already going to be completely fried?

 Grey Templar wrote:

 feeder wrote:
I think jhe90's point was that a total nuclear exchange will be rather worse for a power plant's overall stability than one earthquake.

That entirely depends on if the plant is in the actual blast zone or not. A lot of power plants will be just by proximity to other targets, but its doubtful they'll specifically be targeted. Any which are not within the blast zone are going to be fine from a structural stand point.

Power plants would be useful targets in a conventional war, but the EMP effects of nuclear weapons renders the point of hitting power plants moot. Why destroy energy generation when the energy grid is already going to be completely fried?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 feeder wrote:
I think jhe90's point was that a total nuclear exchange will be rather worse for a power plant's overall stability than one earthquake.

That entirely depends on if the plant is in the actual blast zone or not. A lot of power plants will be just by proximity to other targets, but its doubtful they'll specifically be targeted. Any which are not within the blast zone are going to be fine from a structural stand point.

Power plants would be useful targets in a conventional war, but the EMP effects of nuclear weapons renders the point of hitting power plants moot. Why destroy energy generation when the energy grid is already going to be completely fried?

Because the radiation from a blown-up nuclear power plant would be very bad news for people trying to survive in the vicinity?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 feeder wrote:
I think jhe90's point was that a total nuclear exchange will be rather worse for a power plant's overall stability than one earthquake.

That entirely depends on if the plant is in the actual blast zone or not. A lot of power plants will be just by proximity to other targets, but its doubtful they'll specifically be targeted. Any which are not within the blast zone are going to be fine from a structural stand point.

Power plants would be useful targets in a conventional war, but the EMP effects of nuclear weapons renders the point of hitting power plants moot. Why destroy energy generation when the energy grid is already going to be completely fried?

Because the radiation from a blown-up nuclear power plant would be very bad news for people trying to survive in the vicinity?

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
If someone's dumb enough to start lobbing nuclear weapons I think we can discount rationality TBH.