There isn't one. At least in my opinion, for several reasons: The only danger nukes pose is the threat of human extinction, with their massive yields, fallout and various other effects from large-scale deployments. However, as much as many people like to believe the leaders of the world are not stupid; Obama is not stupid, Putin is not stupid, whoever they got in China is not stupid, I could probably even say that Kim Jong-un is not stupid enough to set off a nuke since he knows what the retaliation will be like (NK probably only develops nukes to intimidate the south, not for actual use in war). If there would ever come that two major powers go at it (even if they do; please refer to my other thread "World War Tri") it would be entirely conventional or fought through proxies, not with nukes. Why? Because the people at the keys are smart people and they know that if they follow a command to launch they would doom humanity; I can bet they'd rather disobey direct orders than usher in the apocalypse. And another thing; no matter how far technology progresses the two key system will never be replaced with a computerized system, because that is practically A: Unnecessary and B: Foolhardy, because future generations will have seen movies like The Terminator and knows what could happen (even though AIs really don't have a reason to betray humanity, but that is a discussion for another day).

So my point is; as long as we have nukes and everyone can launch them we will never use them. Sure someone might give the order to launch but the subordinates would most likely not follow through. There is an urban legend/myth/fact/whatever that Obama, Putin, or Kim Jong have a button in the White House/Kremlin/Kim's mansion that launches all nukes at the same time, at the same target. I believe that to be false, but if anyone has evidence to contradict please say so.

The US dropped two A-bombs on Japan, which in my eyes was completely and utterly justified. Japan was unable to retaliate with such a force, to start, and I think that even if the US, USSR and other nearby powers invaded Japan at the same time they would not surrender. They had to see what complete destruction their enemies were capable of to even consider it, and even then the Japs surrenderd first after the US proved they had more than one bomb. The casualties for not using the nukes would have been much bigger and more catastrophical.

But those are my two cents. What are your thoughts on the dreaded A-bombs?

On another note I get really mesmerized looking at mushroom clouds unfolding; terrifying, yet somehow serene.

The nuclear bomb has 2 extremes, extremely good and extremely bad, the good you already said which is Mutual Asserted Destruction.

The bad is what if a hacker got though? what if someone were able to buy a small nuke from the black market? what if someone was able to buy those sitting at the launch button? what if someone in there decided to push the button?
All it takes is a simple nuke to hit somewhere and boom, humanity extinct.

Well, Nukes are both the best and the worst things we've ever created.

They're the best, because they keep the major powers from attacking each other - see Mutually Assured Destruction. They're also the worst, because they're the most destructive weapon ever built, and they produce fallout that can affect a far greater area than the blast radius.

The US Nuclear Arsenal is also hilariously mismanaged. They managed to *accidentally* arm a bomber with 2 nuclear cruise missiles, and then left it unattended on the runway for a couple of hours. The Silos are in horrible condition. There was this instance where they didn't realize that the silo door was open until they ordered some food *to the missile base* and the delivery guy informed them about the fact that the silo is open.

At the same time, Nuclear Weapons would currently be our only means of deflecting a threatening asteroid, and nuclear pulse propulsion, which consists of exploding nukes under your ship and lots of giant shock absorbers to ride the explosions, could take us to the stars.

And of course, nuclear power is the safest, cleanest energy source we currently have.

Not to mention dropping a bomb on Virginia, and it has yet to be found.

Here's a video for both of those

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y1ya-yF35g

I'm sure that wasn't a jape or man-bites-dog story at all.

While I still oppose the need for such weapons, I have changed my view somewhat. Yes, these serves as deterrents because these were born out of Cold-War paranoia but at the same time, living in a world in which we have the possibility to destroy ourselves with such weapons doesn't sit right with me, they are also expensive to maintain (see British Trident which we SHARE with the French and the Civic Nuclear Police) where we could put that money towards other stuff. It's too late to replace these at all today but we can at least greatly reduce the amount, as that treaty in place suggests we do. But at the same time... they do protect us but the level of protection what they give us, I question that.

I think Zhou Enlai's foreign policy sums it up nicely: "You don't touch me, I don't touch you, but if you touch me, I will touch you."




Perhaps, or they could be doing like what almost every nation is now doing nowadays and bearing the right to defend themselves. Like, whatever you may think, the annual Foal Eagle exercises are clearly a provocation and a preparation for war. I don't think Lil' Kim would ever give the order to fire a nuke, because after all he is in charge of a sovereign country that is at the very least is connected to the world and has interests. (Plus if he did, I'd be disappointed I wouldn't be able to see him walking around giving fantastic 'field guidance', yelling at officials whilst they jot down notes in their small notepads and looking fabulous in his Panama hat anymore.) It's people like ISIS however who most likely would since they don't have a state/country to call their own so they can just literally hide in tunnel networks.



I don't know about the Kremlin or the White House, but I am intrigued what's hidden in Pyongyang's Yanggakdo Hotel. http://www.businessinsider.com/yanggakdo-h...4?op=1&IR=T



Personally, I don't see it as justified, was it the only way though? Yes, probably. Back during 1945, I reckon the Americans weren't particularly focused on the aftermath but rather ending the war as soon as possible and it turns out dropping two A-bombs was the only way. I don't agree with the decision itself but I am unable to provide an argument as to why it was necessary because as I say, it was back during 1945 which obviously had different attitudes and mindsets. The effects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are still lingering, people are contracting cancer, defects and other illnesses because of the bomb. (A bit like Agent Orange being deployed in Vietnam which the US is only starting to clear up now)

McArthur for example wanted to drop yet more bombs during the Korean War (I think around the Yalu River area) to prevent Chinese reinforcements aiding the North Koreans. He got dismissed for that suggestion I hear, perhaps because of the aftermath in the aforementioned events? Who knows.


Perhaps, but a nuclear weapon also has the chance shatter said asteroid and make things 10x worser as these fragments could still threaten us, especially if said pieces come hurtling towards Earth. Advances in laser technology is probably the best solution for that situation.

Wouldn't say it's the safest, Chernobyl and Fukushima are prime reasons why such power needs to be halted for the time being.

I do believe those two incidents, as well as Three Mile Island and others, were freak accidents which when we compare to the amount of reactors we have is very unlikely to happen regularly, at least with normal supervision and maintenance.

Fukushima actually showed just how safe nuclear power is, despite the utter lunacy of building it close to the sea in a tsunami-threatened region. It contained the core despite being hit by an Earthquake and a Tsunami it wasn't built for. Furthermore, the radiation released by every nuclear accident ever combined is less than what Coal power plants release in a year. Nuclear kills less people per kwh produced than any other energy source.

Nuclear energy is going to be a prime power source in the future. It's simply because you need a fairly small amount of nuclear material to get a lot of energy. Any other power source is ridiculous compared to it. You need millions of tons of coal, or billions of gallons of water for an effect of just a few pounds of deuterium or uranium. Problem with safety doesn't really has to do with nuclear energy itself, but with human factor. Just like someone of you said, building the plant in such a unstable area is crazy. Countries like Japan, Turkey, Greece or State of California should not have nuclear plants. It's just too risky. Too many earthquakes or other potential disasters. As for the Chernobyl, it was completely human factor at fault. The irony is that they were performing a security check. Someone fucked up and the result is a complete disaster. The good thing about nuke plants is that they can never explode like a nuclear bomb. As for the nuclear weapons, they're the least of our problems. When thinking about WMD, people always overlook the other, more terrifying weapons, like superpowerfull biological or chemical weapons. They can do much more damage them any nuke. You can't really hide in a shelter from a virus, or a nerve gas. Not to mention the absolutely crazy amount of conventional weapons, stockpiled in Siberia, US Midwest or mainland China. Both MOAB and FOAB are conventional weapons, but they are almost as powerful as the Fat Man and the Little Boy dropped over Japan. But they would be used in a war, because they don't leave radioactive fallout. I'd always support the idea for dismantling nuclear weapons in any non-major country, but as soon as USA, Russia or China dismantle it, we'll have WW3 before you can pronounce 'nuclear proliferation'.

Fukushima, to be blunt, was a F***ing retarded design. They put the backup generator below sea level, which promptly failed, and their other backups that they had because they KNEW that would happen were only directly attached to 2 of the reactors, while the rest needed to go through a switching station that...........wait for it..................was also below sea level.

Likewise, Chernobyl had gaping design flaws that weren't fixed due to the inefficency of the soviet system. Chernobyl used Graphite-tipped rods that when used to shut the reactor down, actually sped it up for a short duration first, and a "Void-positive" RBMK design where a major steam buildup that was a sign of a runaway reaction made the reaction worse as opposed to the void-negative design that dampened reactor power when the coolant got too hot. Chernobyl used a frankly terrifyingly stupid design that was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.

And then they turned off all the safeties for a test. What possibly could go wrong?

As for the bombings, don't forget, in Japan, they were preparing for in their opinion, armageddon. They were arming every man, every woman, every child, if they couldn't find a gun they gave him either a bamboo spear or a suicide grenade.

They weren't going to surrender. The estimated casualties of Operation Downfall (The conventional invasion of Japan) were so high, even today we haven't ran out purple hearts made for that occasion.

Yeah, if you look at major nuclear accidents, it was always human error or absolutely ludicrous design, which really falls under human error too, though.

I agree that there is no problem with Nuclear weapons. Every country that has them won't use them unless they have to. And they have to use them if they're attacked, which keeps the door of another open world war locked for now.
North Korea is getting nukes to be sure they won't be invaded, and i think that's pretty clear to everyone.
While we're at it, i don't see the problem with Iran having nukes either. Israel already has them, which makes them have the upper hand. If Iran makes some nukes, that will keep all their enemies off their backs, the same way nukes keep Israel's enemies off their back.

The "one button" is a myth. But the nukes(at least Russian) have the ability to bypass the human factor(Perimeter system). What they do is dettect the launch and it's coordinates, estimate the target during flight, and check the radiation level in the athmosphere offten.
If they dettect a rise of radiation, i think this is how it goes: they send the report to that branch of the army and wait for their decision. If there's no answer, they ask the President to decide. If there's no answer, they ask the people in the siloses(when talking about silo-based missiles) to decide. Then, if they don't get an answer, they use the pre-determained coordinates(depending on the coordinates of the launch) to launch the missiles.

When talking about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, i'm one of the few here(as it seems) that think it was totaly unjustified and unnecessary.
One island remained in the war. You can just blocade it until it surrenders, and shoot any airplane coming from there from the sky. Same for the ships. Maybe even drop some leaflets.
That way their blood would be on their hands(depending on their decision to continue or surrender), not on someone elses.

Japan still had a sizeable military contingent in China when the bombs fell and the home islands are perfectly capable of self-sustaining themselves. So it was either a massive firebombing campaign to destroy all farmland, a land invasion, or drop the finger of God to make the emperor-crazed Japs realize that fighting might not be the best option.

You DO realize that Japan is a really really big series if islands right?

Actually if the US didn't nuke Japan and wait a little longer, the Soviet will eventually move in from the north and we would have another Korea.

Even if the side effects of the nuke was horrible, it was still a better fate compared to separating the country.

I think that Hiroshima and Nagasaki wasn't a mistake. The military junta in Japan wanted to send everyone possible against the Americans in what it would have become a blood bath. Also shouldn't they be launched, the conventional bombing would have kill much more civilians ( the tokio raid took 120000 lives- more than the nukes) . maybe a blockage could had worked , but maybe the Japanese preferred to die from hunger than to surrender.

Japanese Army in China was ridiculous compared to the battle-hardened Soviets. Soviets would takeover Manchuria and eastern parts of China relatively easily. Japanese would be unable to do much with only their islands left. It's just like the Allied Powers said, "Defeating Japan doesn't mean defeating Germany, but a defeated Germany is definitely the end of it for Japan". I don't mean to underestimate the lost lives of American, Canadian, Australian or any other participant, but it is a fact that Japan was not a real treat to world. Nazi Germany on the other hand, was. Defeated USSR would mean a defeated world. No way that any country would defeat Germany with all those Russian resources and millions of people who would be used for slave labour in concentration cramps. I won't argue about wether bombs should have been dropped. Asking a Hiroshima or Nagasaki residents would pretty much show how do they feel about it all. Nuclear weapon, or any kind of weapon is a terrible thing to use on people. I'm sure that many innocent people died that August 1945, just like many young Americans would die trying to take the islands. It's not all about the numbers, because people don't really care anymore. All they hear now is numbers, but every single number you hear in the news had his/her family, life, friends, etc. It's easy for us to argue wether humans can play God when it comes to other humans, because we're not the one living in a radioactive area, today, 70 years after.

I don't think they had a lot, but they'd be no match for Soviets who were already rapidly advancing.

Maybe you didn't understand what i was trying to say. I see another option where Japan government would be the sole responsible party for however many of their people died. That means no bombing, but maybe leaflets.
Either way a full blocade of the island, without any invasion, and only shooting at whatever comes from Japan. We can't know if there would be more dead or less, but we can know it wouldn't be our fault. Let them run at your bayonet with their own will, don't come with your bayonet to them.

But only one main island.




In that case it would be their choice. Their blood would be on their own hands.

We can argue all night about plausible alternate histories between the Muricaboys and Russiafans, but the fact is; Japan was a threat, no matter how big or small, there would have been more casualties on both sides if the nukes weren't dropped and we should all be grateful that it ended.

The US tried to develop an anti-nuclear shield during the 80s; the Strategic Defense Initiative. It didn't work because the tech wasn't there yet, but they have since restarted (I think). Would these anti-nuclear shields sort-of undermine MAD and whoever has them might drop a nuke because "Hey you just try to retaliate, we're impenetrable now!"

MIRV killed this systems. It isn't economicall to shoot three or more rockets to just destroy a warhead , when another 5 are going to destroy the city. Plus, MIRV usually carry countermeasures in form of chaffs that make then difficult to difference between warhead and chaff. That's why anti-ballistic missiles aren't going to be mass deployed ( they are keep in one or two cities, but they can't protect the whole country)

As for the SDI , it was a big expense of money that could have been destroyed by an emp in space. Also , a violation of the outer space treaty. I don't think it was a good idea

Soviet takeover of Manchuria is not an alternate history. They did liberate it from the Japs. And as for the SDI, it was, and it still is a big lie. It's just a way for all those private military contractors (Boeing,Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman etc) to get more money from US taxpayers. All ICBMs are basically giant cluster-bombs, armed with nuclear warheads. And the SDI was supposed to shoot 'em right from the sky. It would be like you and me were trying to shoot each other, and you get the idea to shoot my bullet, before it hits you. The bad part is that both of us are using shotguns. Try to shot that, before it kills. you. It just can't be done. At least not in foreseeable future. And that's without rocket technology improving.

Okay, how about this.

The central island of japan, Honshu, is 230,500 km².

The other "Main islands" that make up japan alongside it are also stupidly close together, to the point of having bridges between them.

You can't blockade them from eachother, and they're very big. "Island" doesn't mean small.

You're also assuming there would be more dead on both sides. I for one think that if there were to be more casualties, they'd be from the japan side.

It doesn't work because you have one rocket carrying many warheads. You can only try to shoot it at takeoff(that's why NATO is trying to build it around Russia), but the territory is just too big. Not to mention mobile nukes.




http://prntscr.com/7f56gl

Your link's broken.

Works fine for me.
Anyway, try this one:
http://prntscr.com/7foo96

That's still many islands and a very large territory to blockade.

US submarines hurted a lot the Japanese trading navy because , even though is an stupidity, they didn't use a convoy system as they believe it would be seem as a weakness instead trying to kill sub's entering their waters(it didn't work at all) the list of strategic mistake by the Japanese in ww2 is really long. By 1945 the US navy could had impose a blockade without a serious opposition. But when the USSR conquered Manchuria , any blockade would not have a great effect. The Japanese where in an unsustainable position, even without A-bombs. Strategic bombing + a lack of resources for weapons + a closing ally invasion mean that they were going to be defeated. And still, the military junta wanted to sacrifice a lot of civilians to get a chance for a fair surrender. Honestly the bombs make the junta get some sense of reason and surrender( well there were some who wanted to keep fighting and tried a coup that luckily failed)

True that. Not to mention they still were fighting; the last Japanese holdout was discovered in 1975!

Yeah, but that was just one guy. He believed that the news of surrender were just propaganda. But still an unbelievable people those Japanese. Although they were on the wrong side, I still respect them, unlike Nazis.

So what do you guys the future holds for nuclear weapons? Will we dearm or rearm? I'm positive nukes are here to stay; we might just improve and expand our arsenals and more and more countries today are getting nukes. Eventually not one nation can go to war with another because everyone has nukes! Might be far-fetched but who knows what the future holds?

If we ever encounter a hostile alien race, would nukes be an option? Alternatibely, what if the aliens have nukes?

We'll dearm until someone starts a major war and reminds us why the hell we had the things in the first place.

Sigh, people keep thinking Disarmament is good, don't see why.

The story of Hiroo Onoda was interesting to hear indeed. It was so extreme that it took his former commander to personally relieve him of his duties. But your last statement confuses me. Let it be clear I do not endorse fascism in any manner, in fact my country is heading that way but... You respect the Japanese, who were, arguably more aggressive and perhaps more cruel than the Nazis? Are you aware of the contributions that Nazi Germany gave to the world at that time? Are you aware of people like John Rabe and such? I'm just generally curious, by the way.

What has the Japanese Empire given to the world? Both states were terrible and belong in the past but one mustn't forget what their actions, be it good or bad, brought along.



They're here to stay, we'll never denuclearise any time soon. We may look for and develop new weapons but we'll keep nuclear weapons in reserve or sell them off cheaply to less well-off nations. I mean, Pakistan is using our aid to build nuclear weapons and they have terrorists cells in their country. Who thought that was a good idea? Like we sanction and wag our finger at Iran, which is a stable country at that, just because they do not agree with our version of democracy and suddenly they're now excluded and labelled as evil but Pakistan, a unstable country with internal problems is allowed?

Chances are, we'll end up destroying ourselves over petty things with such weapons long before aliens. But if they did show up, I doubt our nuclear arsenal would have any effect on them if they are technologically superior. I actually watched a YouTube video depicting a scenario of such an event and the conclusion was that aliens only came to Earth for resources and an interesting twist was that the only way to defeat them was via guerilla tactics and a combination of sabotaging said resources with explosives so that it destroys them from within.

The 'alien stealing resources' thing has always bugged me. If they can travel thousands of lightyears through space with their tech what could they possibly need from Earth? Water? That exists on Mars in the ice caps, and possibly other planets underneath the earth. Oxygen? Most likely a common resource too. There is no need for aliens to invade Earth in order to get raw materials. But that is a discussion for another day.



Care to elaborate instead of posting a meme?

I never said I respect their militarism. I respect the Japanese people. Nothing that the Japs ever did, no matter how horrible, doesn't comes even close to what Nazi Germany did. Yes, they were Allies, but Japan did not have an official ideology that endorsed extermination of whole nations. Germany had that ideology (kill all the Jews and Slavs). Russia 27 million, Poland 8 to 10 million, my country 1.7 million. Not to mention the almost extermination of European Jews. My country had a sizeable Jewish population. Artists, writers, statesmen, so many other ordinary people. Now it's just over a thousand of them left. Also, all of Nazi "contribution" to the world is paid in blood of millions. Not exactly a fair trade, if you ask me. My paternal grandfather lost 4 brothers in Jasenovac concentration camp. My maternal grandmother lost all of her family. Their only crime was that they were Slavs (Serbs).

They killed a lot of Chinese. They were really similar to nazis

Yes, I know that, I'm not trying to negate that. I like the Chinese. I'm just saying they were less of an evil, than Nazis. Evil. nonetheless, but still less. More than 60% of people killed in WWII were killed by the Germans.

One interesting twist could be that the resource they're after is one that, so far, our science has only confirmed on this planet: Carbon-based life itself. I have no idea why aliens would be after that, but them being aliens, their motivations and morality would naturally be a 'blue and orange' one compared to ours. Failing that, they might do so for ideological reasons. Perhaps they'd have a policy that any lesser civilisation they find must be eradicated lest it ever rises to threaten them. Perhaps they don't have the time or means for elaborate xenoforming and want to steal a planet that already has a biosphere similar to their own (or at least 'similar' in the sense of being able to to sustain carbon-based life). Perhaps they're imperialists that want to own as much of the galaxy as possible. Perhaps they have a superiority complex and enjoy killing lesser sentient species for entertainment. We cannot possibly know in advance what they might want of us but if their intentions are in any way hostile, humanity won't stand a chance with our own conventional warfare, nuclear or not. It wouldn't so much be a fight about defeating the invaders but trying to outlast them, trying to whittle away at their assets and evading their grasp until someone/something calculates that the costs of the whole operation have begun outweighing the projected profits.

As for the subject of nuclear weapons, I really see them as a double edged sword. On the one hand, I do think that their existence reduces the likelihood of conventional warfare between nuclear-armed states (as seen during the Cold War). However, this comes at the colossal negative that one error in the system can be enough to destroy civilisation as we know it. Let's not make any mistakes: Be it the Cuban missile crisis, the Stanislav Petrov incident, the fear surrounding Able Archer '83 and likely many other close calls that we never even heard about - the world has come close to this disaster many times and in all those moments, nobody ever consciously -wanted- it. Nobody genuinely wants to cause a nuclear war but under extreme pressure, humans make mistakes. If my technology leads me to believe that the enemy has already started this war and there is no way to undo that, I might as well retaliate with everything I have. The one who shoots first dies second. The one who dies first does so thinking that at least he wasn't the one who caused the disaster.

With that in mind, it is horrible to imagine that the future development of reliable anti-missile defence systems might upset the nuclear balance of MAD to a point where one side might actually go back to risking the conventional war if it feels certain enough that the enemy's inevitable nuclear response will be greatly deminished, or even rendered ineffective. It's worth wondering whether the present crisis in Ukraine would have unfolded in the same way it does if Russia had no nuclear weapons, or if NATO had cause to believe that it would be able to neutralise them effectively. In the past, one side had the bomb and many others wanted to catch up to reach parity, thus reducing the chance of conventional warfare. Now, and in the future, one side will develop a technology that gives it the -feeling- that the enemy nukes will not hurt them anymore and once again, other parties will try to catch up to reach parity, all while conventional warfare becomes more possible again because MAD becomes undone from both sides. Amidst all that, whole new weapons of mass destruction will be developed. Cyber weapons, orbital weapons, perhaps weather or seismic weapons. The be-all, end-all of humanity's twisted fascination with eradicating its own does not end with chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

Flattening any civilizations you come across makes evolutionary sense - you're eliminating any potential competitors. Also Earth's the only habitable - by that I mean with the right conditions for liquid water on the surface - planet in the solar system, and killing us might be cheaper than Terraforming Mars. One can only hope that if Aliens ever visit us, they're truly spacefaring, in that they don't even need planets anymore.
If all else fails, use them to GTFO in the most manly way possible, by riding nukes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-sWM-nGTsk

Interesting thoughts everyone. On the topic of nuclear annihilation, would there be a slight chance of humans surviving, ala [insert post-apocalyptic movie/video game/book/comic here]? Humans emerging from the ruins, building settlemens, surviving old-school style? In my opinion; no effin' chance. Dem nukes might leave the uninvolved countries relatively intact but the ensuing nuclear winter and ecological disaster will sure kill off all remaining humans. If not that then they'll die out later due to food scarcity and radiation poisoning.

On another thought if there were two planets, and both planets had nuclear weapons, would those planets go to war? Nukes could be used in space.

Humanity would not survive a nuclear war - the fallout would affect everyone on the planet, and kill everyone through cancer and radiation poisoning.

@The japanese didn't commit the holocaust.
I didn't see people in germany competing for "Most beheadings" Nor was there a Rape of Paris.

Controversial opinion inbound: I do believe that humans would survive a nuclear war and that civilisation would recover. Yes, there is such a thing as fallout and the consequences of a nuclear war would be global, but the concept of a 'nuclear winter' is somewhat disputed among scientists, ranging from the classic 'the sky is perpetually darkened for generations' scenario to alternate assumptions of a 'nuclear autumn', where temperates would fall and crop seasons would be affected for a period of time. This is partly due to the fact that some nuclear war simulations drew false parallels regarding firestorms and smoke emissions (i.e. the events that would carry irradiated dust into the atmosphere) from WW2 bombing campaigns, as well as political motivations to depict a nuclear war as either completely unsurvivable or moderately survivable, depending on who you ask. The primary killing factor of a nuclear war is also not the nuclear exchange itself nor the radiation, but the ensuing breakdown of society, the loss of infrastructure, social order, food, water and medical supplies. However, no nuclear war scenario posits that the destruction would spread equally in all parts of the world, since some countries simply aren't considered strategic targets. As a result, much of the northern hemisphere would see widespread destruction with the southern hemisphere being -relatively- less affected by the actual exchange, leaving parts of the infrastructure intact and free from -immediate- fallout. Simply put, I don't think even a nuclear war would wipe out -all- of humanity, simply because humans are resilient, thinking creatures that can not only understand their surroundings but plan survival strategies. In a survival situation, humans fall back on instincts and behavioural patterns that civilisation may have rendered dormant, but not removed entirely. Consider that this is the same species that survived the volcanic winter that followed the Toba eruption with just some tens of thousands of individuals whose many generations of descendants went on to conquer the entire planet and are now counting over 7 billion. Present day humanity would also have the advantage that all the knowledge that can be preserved beyond the nuclear war would allow the survivors to rebuild societies and infrastructures much faster those who had to invent all the things in the first place.

We have several users disagreeing on whether humans could or could not survive a nuclear war.

In the case of a nuclear winter I redirect your cases to the year of 1816, when the volcano Mount Tambora erupted the year before. The temperatures dropped all over the world and the year was known as the 'Year Without a Summer'. Even as thousands, maybe millions died of the eruption and ensuing shortage of food, we still lived on. While of course one volcano does not compare to a thousand nukes, the concept of a nuclear winter has happened before and we managed through it.

Fun fact: Mount Tambora is expected to erupt again, this year. The casualties are expected to be in the millions.

Well, it depends on the scale of the nuclear war. If Pakistan and India nuke the crap out of each other, it won't be all that bad. If it came to a nuclear war between NATO and Russia, the fallout would likely contaminate *everything* with radioactive isotopes. You couldn't even be drink any water without filtering it first.

Oh, for the love of God! Where did you read that I said the Japs didn't commit Holocaust? I stated a fact. "Rape of Nanking" was a horrible crime, but it's just a media name for the massacre. Nazis did far worse crimes, like gas-chambers, human test subjects, etc. Japs also did it, but on a lot smaller scale. No one said it's justified.

Studies suggest that Japanese killed between 7 or 11 million of Chinese during their war. Plus another 5 million of Chinese died from famine or diseases. Simply put, you don't hate the Japanese because they didn't kill your relatives which is understandable. However they were as bad as the nazis, and shouldn't deserve your respect to all their leadership.

Once the soviets were done with Manchuria, they could've deployed their forces to destroy the Japanese fighting in China, but also, to attack and cut off Hokkaido from the rest of Japan. To make the blockade even worse on the Japanese, the approaches between the home islands could've been sown with mines, making it near impossible to transport food without exploding. Once hunger sets in, Japan would've surrendered fast. If they don't surrender, then their people could revolt (maybe mix in some leftists spreading propaganda) against the junta and surrender themselves.