If a full scale nuclear exchange occurs, the probability of death does not come mostly from the nuclear blasts themselves, or even the nuclear fallout from those blasts. Rather it comes from the breakdown of critical infrastructure needed to produce food for a population. If every major city is destroyed at once, you almost certainly won’t survive a year even if you are nowhere near a blast zone. Your only chance is if you already have the means to farm sustainably without buying manufactured goods. Even most farmers these days can’t do this, at least not easily, because they need gas. Even if you are one of the few in a position to survive in this way, everyone who can’t will be gunning for you, because they don’t want to starve.
I don’t want to live through nuclear war. The worst parts have nothing to do with the explosions. The worst part comes after. It will essentially be a siege, everywhere in the world at once. People will eat each other.
American war planners have considered the food question. Here is Cresson H. Kearny writing in 1987:
Recovery from a massive nuclear attack would depend largely on sufficient food reserves being available to enable survivors to concentrate on restoring the essentials of mechanized farming. Enough housing would remain intact or could be built to provide adequate shelter for the first few crucial years; enough clothing and fabrics would be available. But if survivors were forced by hunger to expend their energies attempting primitive subsistence farming, many deaths from starvation would occur and the prospects for national recovery would be greatly reduced.
Americans’ greatest survival asset at the end of 1985 was about 17 billion bushels (about 850 billion pounds) of wheat, corn, grain sorghums, and soybeans in storage, mostly on farms. If 200 million Americans were to survive a limited nuclear attack and if only half of this stored food reserve could be delivered to the needy, each survivor would have adequate food for over 3 years, by Chinese nutritional standards.
The reason so much grain and soybeans was being stored in 1985 is because Americans in 1985 ate a lot of meat, and cows, pigs and chickens eat a lot of feed. Since Americans still eat a lot of meat, I expect there is a similar amount of grain and soybeans being stored today though I would prefer to verify that somehow.
Another quote from Kearny’s book (end of chapter 2):
Some maintain that after an atomic attack
America would degenerate into anarchy—an every-man-for-himself struggle for existence. They forget
the history of great human catastrophes and the self-sacrificing strengths most human beings are capable
of displaying. After a massive nuclear attack
starvation would afflict some areas, but America’s
grain-producing regions still would have an abundance of uncontaminated food. History indicates
that Americans in the food-rich areas would help the
starving. Like the heroic Russians who drove food
trucks to starving Leningrad through bursting Nazi
bombs and shells; many Americans would risk
radiation and other dangers to bring truckloads of
grain and other necessities to their starving countrymen. Surely, an essential part of psychological
preparations for surviving a modern war is a well-founded assurance that many citizens of a strong
society will struggle to help each other and will work
together with little regard for danger and loss.
Note that Kearny has war experience (working for the forerunner of the American CIA in China in 1944) in a country at war (with the Japanese and also with each other in the Chinese civil war that ended in 1949 with the victory of the Chinese Communist Party) in which millions of citizens were starving.
As a first approximation, if the food production falls to a level of X% of the required calories for the population, your probability of surviving is roughly X%.
Even a full counter-value nuclear exchange would not destroy all of our ability to produce food. Cities would be the primary targets, and they are net importers of food. Civilization might not even collapse with the removal of the 3000 largest cities in the western world.
As a first approximation, if the food production falls to a level of X% of the required calories for the population, your probability of surviving is roughly X%.
...but as a second approximation, post-large-scale nuclear war, if there is only 50% as much food as is required to feed everyone in a major city over a couple months, the ensuing violence and hoarding of the food will likely kill many more people than half. And I’m less sanguine than you about the survival of infrastructure needed to maintain the modern world without major cities, ports, power infrastructure, etc. Sure, there might be enough food overall, but if it’s in a different place than you, and there is no modern communications or transport, that doesn’t matter much. If you already live on a farm, great, but otherwise you’re likely to be in trouble.
As a first approximation, if the food production falls to a level of X% of the required calories for the population, your probability of surviving is roughly X%.
I mean, today food production is significantly more than 100% of the required calories for the population and many people are still food insecure
If a full scale nuclear exchange occurs, the probability of death does not come mostly from the nuclear blasts themselves, or even the nuclear fallout from those blasts. Rather it comes from the breakdown of critical infrastructure needed to produce food for a population. If every major city is destroyed at once, you almost certainly won’t survive a year even if you are nowhere near a blast zone. Your only chance is if you already have the means to farm sustainably without buying manufactured goods. Even most farmers these days can’t do this, at least not easily, because they need gas. Even if you are one of the few in a position to survive in this way, everyone who can’t will be gunning for you, because they don’t want to starve.
I don’t want to live through nuclear war. The worst parts have nothing to do with the explosions. The worst part comes after. It will essentially be a siege, everywhere in the world at once. People will eat each other.
American war planners have considered the food question. Here is Cresson H. Kearny writing in 1987:
The reason so much grain and soybeans was being stored in 1985 is because Americans in 1985 ate a lot of meat, and cows, pigs and chickens eat a lot of feed. Since Americans still eat a lot of meat, I expect there is a similar amount of grain and soybeans being stored today though I would prefer to verify that somehow.
Another quote from Kearny’s book (end of chapter 2):
Note that Kearny has war experience (working for the forerunner of the American CIA in China in 1944) in a country at war (with the Japanese and also with each other in the Chinese civil war that ended in 1949 with the victory of the Chinese Communist Party) in which millions of citizens were starving.
As a first approximation, if the food production falls to a level of X% of the required calories for the population, your probability of surviving is roughly X%.
Even a full counter-value nuclear exchange would not destroy all of our ability to produce food. Cities would be the primary targets, and they are net importers of food. Civilization might not even collapse with the removal of the 3000 largest cities in the western world.
...but as a second approximation, post-large-scale nuclear war, if there is only 50% as much food as is required to feed everyone in a major city over a couple months, the ensuing violence and hoarding of the food will likely kill many more people than half. And I’m less sanguine than you about the survival of infrastructure needed to maintain the modern world without major cities, ports, power infrastructure, etc. Sure, there might be enough food overall, but if it’s in a different place than you, and there is no modern communications or transport, that doesn’t matter much. If you already live on a farm, great, but otherwise you’re likely to be in trouble.
As a first approximation, if the food production falls to a level of X% of the required calories for the population, your probability of surviving is roughly X%.
I mean, today food production is significantly more than 100% of the required calories for the population and many people are still food insecure