WOULD ALL OUT NUCLEAR WAR USHER IN "THE AGE OF COCKROACHES"?
Skinowski,
You have been my COVID physician-hero in these horrible COVID years. , So far as I know we disagree on no domestic political issue. But we disagree on the Ukraine War. Why? I think it results from differing views on the effects of nuclear war.
Don't misunderstand me. All out nuclear war would result in many, many millions of deaths. But proportionally, it may no worse than WWI or II, or the terrible 1919 -1939 years in central Europe, Spain, Russia, China and Turkey ...unknown to Americans today. (E.g., read "Bloodlands" by Timothy Snyder).
If I believed your premise of Armageddon, I might accept your basic argument, to wit, that all, and any, risk of "provoking" Putin is unacceptable. After all, if a grenade-holding maniac asks me to jump, yes, I will jump.
I challenged you several weeks ago on this issue, but perhaps relying on "accepted wisdom", you ignored the opportunity.
I've spent a number of hours trying to research what nuclear war might look like and will give you a thumbnail sketch...now, for the time being.
HIROSHIMA & NAGASAKI
Estimates vary widely about the total deaths caused by these two bombings - because only the allies, much later ,on were in a position to make estimates - but a mean figure for both is roughly 300,000, including not just those killed on the first day, but those dying later from wounds, malnutrition, lack of care, etc.. Even though the Nagasaki bomb was twice as powerful (22.5 KT of TNT vs. 12.2), the Hiroshima deaths were twice as great from this much smaller bomb. This is because a firestorm (like that in Hamburg) was created in the mostly wooden, bamboo and paper, nature of Hiroshima buildings. Nagasaki lies in an oval valley, but no firestorm resulted, perhaps because there was a slight overcast.
IN BOTH CITIES, THE JAPANESE HAD NO WARNING... OR ANY IDEA WHAT THEY FACED
American B-29 bombers at the time were bombing with impunity. The Japanese were so short of aviation fuel that they were sending tens of thousands of women and children to gather pine needles(!) to distil into fuel. The fleets of our B-29s bombed Tokyo and other cities (including Nagasaki, but not Hiroshima) without interference as the Japanese were saving their planes and petrol for the invasion to come. Japanese radar picked up the bombers coming for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but because they there were only a handful, they assumed that these were only "harmless" reconnaissance flights. The arms factories continued to turn out arms and, in Hiroshima, 1600 Japanese soldiers were doing calisthenics when the bomb hit! All of these soldiers instantly died. In both cities, most of the deaths were the result of the burns their exposed bodies suffered, and, because of the blast.
MANY THOUSANDS OF CIVILIANS IN BOTH CITIES WHO WERE 1 TO 2 KILOMETERS FROM GROUND ZERO SURVIVED TO OLD AGE
The female survivor closest to ground zero was only 580 feet away, in an ordinary concrete reinforced basement !! All authorities agree that shelters like this really do work. The Japanese didn't know.
Close records were kept of the thousands of Japanese who were between 1 and 2 kilometers away. Researchers were interested in what, if any, were long term effects. A large study of such survivors was published in 2015....and in the case of Hiroshima, but not Nagasaki, found a correlation between proximity and diabetes. The discrepancy between the cities,, researchers speculated, might have been the result of ethnicity or diet.'
Very few deaths in either city were attributed to radiation. Both bombs were exploded at approximately 1600 feet, and thus the "fireball" did not touch, or radiate, the soil at ground zero. It did not create a crater. There was no significant long term problem with radiation. Again, the devastation seen in pictures, was the result of the firestorm. Roughly the same number of deaths resulted from the Hamburg firestorm.
If a bomb were exploded at ground level, it would create a large crater, plus radioactive soil, but the blast and burn effects (85% of the force of the nuke) would be significantly limited. I have recently traveled by air over Colorado, Nebraska, etc. The country is vast. Query: With reasonable precautions, would 10,000 nukes dropped over a year long period just in the state of Colorado kill even half of the population? I would guess not.
ANECDOTE ON HUMAN NATURE
After the explosion at Hiroshima, a Japanese doctor was treating the wounded at a nearby hospital. He relates that the mood of everyone was black and gloomy, everyone being underfed, families separated and depressing war news for months. Suddenly everyone in the hospital was all smiles, laughter and jokes. Why? A rumor had passed through the hospital that the Japanese had just managed to drop a similar bomb on an American city!
TAKEAWAY
It is wrong to extrapolate the casualties of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to a future nuclear war. No more so than to argue that dropping a nuke on herds of sheep, out in the open, is a good predictor of human casualties in the future.
Human beings are as tough as cockroaches, and human nature being what it IS (you and I agree on this, I believe), they will go on fomenting wars. (Read Clausewitz: ' War is the continuation of politics by other means' and there are an infinite variety of wars, steps leading into wars (and out of wars) depending on the motives of the principal actors.) |
