If the Cold War had turned hot, Soviet tanks had poured through the Fulda Gap and nuclear missiles were launched which side would most likely have won?
It would likely have been a Pyrrhic victory for the winning side. Which would have been the winning side, or would it be a meaningless distinction to the main countries involved?
The United States and it’s NATO allies would have won due to two reasons 1) the US/NATO economic capacity was far greater then that of the Soviets and the USSR simply would not be able to keep up with the US and 2)China would remain neutral and possibly attack the USSR.
After a full scale nuclear war? WHAT economic capacity?
The winner I expect would be the southern hemisphere, since the major and even mid-range powers in the north will be in ruins.
Well, according to the documentary WarGames…
Threads the 1984 bbc docu-drama about what a nuclear exchange would actually be like has been made freely available on youtube. Go watch it and then ask who would win such an exchange.
I’ve seen it and numerous other depictions of nuclear war, who would win such an exchange?
In that film you see England nuked back to the Steam Age. Did it win the war or not?
Nobody. Everybody loses.
LeMay aside, to win you need to achieve a stated objective. The stated objective of such an exchange was presumably for each side to protect its own political/economic system. Neither side wins by that standard since neither democratic capitalism nor totalitarian communism will exist in any recognisable form after the exchange.
“At the end of the war, if there are two Americans and one Russian, we win.”
Actual quote from Curtis LeMay, Air Force Chief of Staff
If I remember my future history correctly, Moses sorta wins…after fighting some filthy apes.
Please define winning.
The problem is that worldwide communication would break down, so nobody would know who was “winning.” Both sides would just keep launching missiles until they ran out, having no idea whether there was still anything left to annihilate.
Everybody loses.
The Enterprise and the UFP would have kicked the Empire’s butt.
Supposedly someone responded “One of the Americans had better be a woman.”
The good news: one of the Americans is a woman.
The bad news: she’s a lesbian.
The worse news: the man is gay.
OK, maybe those would cancel each other out, actually.
Let’s expand our scope from USA and Russia.
What areas of Earth are likely to have received least bombs and fallout? I suppose the southern hemisphere will be much better off. Have any plans leaked out about the breadth of strikes in a full blown nuclear war? Would the nuclear nations hit unrelated countries out of spite, just to drag everybody down to the same level, or will other countries mostly have to deal with the large amounts of fallout and subsequent ghoulification?
In any case there should be places that are relatively better off. I think they can be declared winners.
This spurted this little visualization in my head:
Colonel: Mr. President, 90% of the nation has been wiped out, we still have 12 nukes left. What do you propose to do?
President: Nuke Honduras, throw a few at Grenada, and a couple at Switzerland (damned nuetrals), if we’re f@#ked, we’re f*&king everyone else too.
I highly doubt that’d happen. 
I heard it said more than once that New Zealand would have been the best place to be in case of nuclear war. Nobody was aiming at it, kinda self sufficient for at least food and far enough away to escape the fall out. We even had some natural gas fields for fuel…
I would hope so too, but I don’t know which cities and military targets were prioritized. Didn’t most missiles at that time have preset targets, which they’d all light up when the point of no return is reached? I just had the assumption that most targets were decided in advance, if not, how would they determine targets when it breaks loose?
Would you nuke us here in Sweden? Otherwise I think I can handle some nuclear winter and a few tumors. 
I’m phoning Putin to put 'em on the list. Can’t have them sheep enjoying the fireworks and having a good time while all the rest of us will have to eat iguana-on-a-stick and fight off mutants.
Then New Zealand probably wins. It’s an isolated, largely self-sufficient, industrialised, southern Hemisphere nation of no strategic importance with a stable government and educated population. That makes it about the best positioned nation under this scenario.
The developing African, Oceanic and South American nations would likely have collapsed into anarchy as soon as foreign influence disappeared. Most of those nations are also not self sufficient. Apartheid South Africa would also have devolved into civil war or more likely been dragged into a regional war, which it was always skirting during the 80s anyway. Australia was the site of several US missile tracing bases, so it would have been nuked a few times at least. Most of those sites were in remote locations so damage would have been minimal, but this damage combined with the likely hoards of refugees from Indonesia would place Australia in worse position then NZ.
So NZ wins by virtue of being ignored.
Nobody wins. Not even Australia. Fucking kangaroos.