# What if nuclear war happens, but you're far from any target sites? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 2, 2017, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338 "2017-12-02T14:06:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![ZurBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/71e660/32.png) [@ZurBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZurBob)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338/41 "2017-12-03T14:29:17Z")
Exactly. Any squabble concerning urban horde VS farm survival must take into account the kind of farmer-type referred to. Corporate farms heavily dependent upon urban resources would certainly fail soon, whereas the rural small farms and hilljacks that surround them tend to be more self-sufficient and resourceful… Able to hang in there longer than their urban counterparts who are dependent on defunct corporate farms. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338/42 "2017-12-03T14:36:11Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Do you imagine that large cities are somehow less dependent on modern transportation? > > Who do you think starves first in this scenario: the farmer and his neighbors or the urban apartment dwellers? In the massive wargasm scenario the two groups are screwed in different ways. There \*are \*rural dwellers who are far from cities, already have gardens producing a varied supply of food, already own a sufficiently varied and sufficiently large flock/herd of critters that they can both eat some and have them reproduce sustainably. And who live where there’s natural surface water such that they don’t need an electrically driven pump to raise water. And have a sufficient supply of natural wood fuel within walking distance to meet their annual heating needs. But there are not many of these people. They will die slowly of some eventual disease, injury, or old age. Or more quickly when a horde invades their space. The vast majority of commercial farmers in the Plains or Florida or CA central valley are not like the above. They lack many of those prereqs. As \*\*AK84 \*\*said. They’ll last a few weeks on their own, but not much longer. If nothing else, they tend to be closer to major population centers than the first category. Which means the larger hordes get to them earlier. City/suburban survivors won’t last even that long. Whether they get it from prompt radiation, high fallout, or rioting and mass looting doesn’t much matter. Some small fraction of folks will hide successfully until the headcount shrinks to negligible. Then they’ll be foraging in the wreckage. These folks \*may \*have a similar lifespan to the far ruralians. \*If \*they’re quick learners and can learn to garden, etc., faster than the surviving scraps of city-stuff falls apart, rots, etc. Most of the very few survivors will not be a quick study at this; it’ll be a negligible percentage of the cities’ pre-attack population. But it won’t be zero. I do question the folks who think any nuke fired by a second or third tier power at one of their peers will necessarily result in the major powers joining the fray within hours or days. Ultimately, IMO the majors only need to be in a hurry to launch if they believe they are under a crippling attack on their nuclear systems. I also believe that if the leadership is thoughtful (big if in some cases), the wisdom of sitting on high alert waiting a couple days to watch the dust settle (literally) before deciding how / where / whether to join hostilities will be obvious. Some quick phone calls between the majors to the effect of “I’m at full alert but just watching. Don’t you try to take advantage of this mess \*today \*and I won’t either. We’ll talk tomorrow.” can go a long way to keeping a nuclear skirmish contained. Understanding that for the second or third tier powers involved, “contained” may not mean much; they’ll be in it up to their glowing eyeballs. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338/43 "2017-12-03T15:31:23Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > the novel On the Beach is about Australia after a nuclear war. They were not hit but they know the radiation is drifting their way to wipe them out. I’ve read/watched a lot of post-nuclear fiction, and of all of it’s this book that haunts me the most. “Threads” is in a dead heat. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338/44 "2017-12-03T15:32:53Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > I > I do question the folks who think any nuke fired by a second or third tier power at one of their peers will necessarily result in the major powers joining the fray within hours or days. > > Ultimately, IMO the majors only need to be in a hurry to launch if they believe they are under a crippling attack on their nuclear systems. I also believe that if the leadership is thoughtful (big if in some cases), the wisdom of sitting on high alert waiting a couple days to watch the dust settle (literally) before deciding how / where / whether to join hostilities will be obvious. > > Some quick phone calls between the majors to the effect of “I’m at full alert but just watching. Don’t you try to take advantage of this mess \*today \*and I won’t either. We’ll talk tomorrow.” can go a long way to keeping a nuclear skirmish contained. > > Understanding that for the second or third tier powers involved, “contained” may not mean much; they’ll be in it up to their glowing eyeballs. I don’t say that’s it a certainty. I said that’s it a possibility. The fact of such possibility makes Great Powers very interested in ensuring there is never a nuclear war to contain in the first place. Complicating that scenario is when a Great Power has itself suffered major strikes on its cities (say China from India). Faced with “strike now” from the military leadership and reports of apocalyptic devastation in the hit cities, just how resistant to pressure will Great Powers be? Don’t know if you have ever read _Guns of August_. Great Powers did exactly what you said, but the march to war was inexorable. \*Just a dozen or so hits in on China’s major metropolitan areas will be Mongol level of devastation, plus Chinese industry tends to be concentrated around the major metropolitan areas, unlike US Industry. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338/45 "2017-12-03T15:40:04Z")
> [@Heracles](#): > > Yes, they would be. [This article](http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2017/02/welcome-americas-nuclear-sponge/135135/) calls these rural areas with silos the “Nuclear Sponge” because many incoming nukes will necessarily strike there, thus reducing damage in the more populous areas. The nuclear sponge concept only works in the context of having redundant “decoy” silos that it was proposed that missiles be dispersed among and periodically shuttled between. Otherwise, the USSR/Russia is not warhead-limited to any useful extent. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338/46 "2017-12-03T15:48:45Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > If you assume a collapse of the modern economies, people in cities will be starving _en masse_ in 3 weeks. And will be streaming out on foot in their tens of millions to forage = pillage the countryside .Which is why as far as post-apocalyptic scenarios go, EMP and/or nuclear war have about the worst survivors/resources ratio, while pandemic (IF you’re one of the lucky survivors) is one of the least awful. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338/47 "2017-12-03T15:57:52Z")
> [@UltraVires](#): > > Really? Name one movie, TV series, or book where city people invade, say, West Virginia and get in a war with the locals over hunting game after the “end” of the world. [One Second After](https://www.amazon.com/Second-After-John-Matherson-Novel/dp/0765327252)? In which the inhabitants of a mostly protected rural valley blockade the two entrances in/out and turn refugees away at gunpoint. And then have to fight a to-the-death battle with a cannibal horde of former city dwellers. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338/48 "2017-12-03T16:02:12Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > The farmer. Who lives in a much less populated place. Most of whose produce is sold and whose actual food consists of grocery store food like ours. Who can no longer transport produce to market? Who no longer has electricity to run tube wells and pumps. Or fuel to run farm machinery. Or the ability to get new seeds, fertiliser and pesticides? Or feed for animals. > > The urban apartment dweller, if he survives, probably because the nuke targeting his city malfunctioned, will have people nearby with whom he can barter stuff. Unlike the farmer who might have to walk miles to the neighbouring farm. > > Both of the guys are fucked. But fucked in different ways. I dunno, if you’re willing to go back to basics, how much grain does ONE rural silo hold? That could probably feed a small community of a few hundred people for a year. The only thing I don’t know about is if the grain in silos is treated with fungicide/pesticide and would be have to be processed or not. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338/49 "2017-12-03T16:03:37Z")
@ **AK84**. Granted that if India hits China with even one they’re going to get hit back fairly soon. 24 hours’ reprieve would be generous. The potentially containable sorts of scenarios I’m imagining are, e.g. India and Pakistan attack each other and no one else. No weapon ends up in or right near a 3rd-party border, disputed or otherwise. That or Iran / Israel are one of the very few scenarios where none of the major powers maintain publicly-acknowledged forces in the belligerent countries that will serve, for good or ill, as tripwires that can’t be ignored. A few or few hundred citizens on vacation or ex-pat businesspeople aren’t (or rationally shouldn’t be) a big enough provocation to cause a major to join the nuclear fray. Likewise the usual cohort of \*sub rosa \*special forces operatives, embassy personal, etc. They’re expendable. As before, this possibility is cold comfort to the Indians and Pakistanis. What a strange game. The only way to win is not to play. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338/50 "2017-12-03T16:17:36Z")
Anyway, to finally get to the OP: My casual research into this very subject led me to start a thread earlier, [Inconsistent fallout maps](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=820817). A lot of rural areas will suffer dangerous fallout levels hundreds of miles downwind of major targets. For North America, the map linked below may be taken as a “typical” scenario in a major (w. Russia or China) nuclear exchange: [![](http://modernsurvivalblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/nuclear-fallout-1-week-later.jpg) ](http://modernsurvivalblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/nuclear-fallout-1-week-later.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338/51 "2017-12-03T16:42:09Z")
Take a look at [Windy.com](http://Windy.com). Look at the wind patterns and movement. Now assume a little fallout is in that wind and follow the wind (move the date scale at the bottom) and see where the fallout is heading. Imagine a bomb in Pongyang. Within 2 days, it’s covered SK, Japan and the Philippines. Then right across the Pacific to the Gulf of Alaska, British Columbia and the US. You can see the wind blowing across the USA headed East. Think about that next time trump tweets about getting even with NK. Nuclear weapons are never the answer. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338/52 "2017-12-03T17:21:33Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > Take a look at [Windy.com](http://Windy.com). Look at the wind patterns and movement. Now assume a little fallout is in that wind and follow the wind (move the date scale at the bottom) and see where the fallout is heading. Imagine a bomb in Pongyang. Within 2 days, it’s covered SK, Japan and the Philippines. Then right across the Pacific to the Gulf of Alaska, British Columbia and the US. You can see the wind blowing across the USA headed East. Think about that next time trump tweets about getting even with NK. Nuclear weapons are never the answer. Well eventually that wind circles the entire northern hemisphere. Realistically it’s a matter of how long the radioactivity takes to spread (the very worst decays in a few days to a couple of weeks) and how diluted it is. No, nuking Pongyang isn’t going to make people in the USA race for fallout shelters. The regional impact in the Pacific Rim is significant however. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338/53 "2017-12-03T17:21:34Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > It depends on the farmer. Most farmers will be hit pretty hard, but there will also be some who will be almost unaffected. I’m thinking especially of Amish and Mennonite communities who have deliberately made efforts to be independent and isolated from the rest of the world. This is the answer. Judging from the maps, there will be large areas of land that can still be farmed. Farmers who have consciously practiced independence from the modern supply grid will be OK, if they are in one of those large areas of lands. But really, as far as the mythic yeoman farmer of old, there aren’t many around. For the most part, farms are now like factories, and farmers are factory workers. When the balloon goes up, the factory inputs will stop arriving, and operations will cease almost immediately. The factory farmers will spend a few weeks eating seed corn, trying to train dogs to pull a plow, then eating the dogs, then eating each other. I expect every small town will have a quick and bloody war over control of the local gas station. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338/54 "2017-12-03T22:18:42Z")
Oh, and speaking of religious communities, there are some folks (including many Mormons) who keep a year or more worth of food stockpiled. That’ll considerably ease the learning curve for those folks to become fully self-sufficient, and carry them through to when most of the rampaging hordes have starved out. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338/55 "2017-12-03T22:26:10Z")
The Amish would probably be OK but they will probably be far too close to major targets and then hoards of refugees. ---
**Author:** ![BuckChongo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@BuckChongo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BuckChongo)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338/56 "2017-12-03T22:27:05Z")
Good book is _Nuclear War: What’s In It For You_ ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338/57 "2017-12-03T22:31:49Z")
> [@BuckChongo](#): > > Good book is _Nuclear War: What’s In It For You_ I live near a Navy supply base; not that far as the wind blows from Manhattan and really not too far from Philly. If a major Nuclear War happens, I’m pretty sure surviving the aftermath won’t be my problem. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338/58 "2017-12-03T23:32:30Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > I live near a Navy supply base; not that far as the wind blows from Manhattan and really not too far from Philly. If a major Nuclear War happens, I’m pretty sure surviving the aftermath won’t be my problem. Yep. There’s a reason I live fairly close to Philly. I’m utterly incapable of surviving the aftermath, so I want to be sure I never feel a thing. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2017, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338/59 "2017-12-03T23:32:53Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > The Amish would probably be OK but they will probably be far too close to major targets and then hoards of refugees. Actually the Amish could hoard all those refugees as meat on the hoof. As long as the horde of them didn’t get too large. Don’t own a bigger herd / horde than you can feed has always been good advice. Even during an apocalypse. But up to that point, hoard all you can gather. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![by-tor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/by-tor/32/266_2.png) [@by-tor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/by-tor)\ **Post date:** [December 4, 2017, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338/60 "2017-12-04T01:24:18Z")
Please don’t forget the massive ozone loss in your calculations: [http://www.pnas.org/content/105/14/5307.abstract](http://www.pnas.org/content/105/14/5307.abstract) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-nuclear-war-happens-but-youre-far-from-any-target-sites/803338.md?page=4)