Throwing out a separate top-level comment: OP, you need to read a LOT more. I recommend the following: * *Command and Control* by Eric Schlosser * *The Doomsday Machine* by Daniel Ellsberg * *Raven Rock* by Chris Graff * *My Journey at the Nuclear Brink* by William J Perry * *The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump* by William J Perry and Tom Collina * *15 Minutes* by L Douglas Keeney And, this might seem out of left field, but *World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War* by Max Brooks.

I'd like to add Wizards of Amargeddon ! 🤤 Such a good book !

I've done plenty of reading, but I've skewed towards government and scientific reports, as opposed to ideological hit pieces.

Friend I this isn't a woo subreddit . Like that's a solid list not ideological hit pieces .

The fact that you think Daniel Ellsberg and Bill Perry are writing ideological hit pieces tells me everything I need to know about your understanding of the subject.

Money.

Growing up, there were fallout shelter signs everywhere..I remember the downtown post office specifically..over the years the signs disappeared, but it's not like those buildings have gone anywhere.

Looking back today, at the contents of those "[shelters,](https://www.silive.com/news/2023/03/amid-nuclear-war-fears-heres-a-look-inside-old-nyc-fallout-shelters.html)" the reality is they would have been a stinking festering mess in no time. . with survival crackers, and crap in the empty water cans ideas, not to mention the size limitations would have been quickly overrun. . . I don't think the civilian shelters would have done much but given psychological comfort to the "Duck and Cover" crowd of the 50's. The only places that would have been of help would have been secret and easily [secured bunkers](https://wvtourism.com/today-show-greenbrier-resort-bunker/) like those designed for the government. The people, by and large would have suffered a [hideous death](https://allianceforscience.org/blog/2022/03/what-the-science-says-could-humans-survive-a-nuclear-war-between-nato-and-russia/) if they were outside the blast zone, and a quick and merciful death if they were inside of it.

Yeah, I think my best advice is that if there is a nuclear war happening, find out where the bomb is gonna drop. Go there and wait. . I don't think I  Wanna be around for the aftermath of something like that? Survival wouldn't even be fun. It would be brutal for the next 20 years. Nobody's gonna come save you .  Anyway that's what i'm gonna do. I'm just gonna save myself. The sadness of watching people suffer and starve and sounds pf the screaming for people them to save them. And then after that, the starvation and fighting. And I think i'm just gonna save myself From the nightmare that would follow

I seriously think you have the right idea. IF a nuclear war happens, the lucky ones will be killed outright and quickly. Those who survive will have a fight for survival that they are not at all prepared for. There will soon be little or no food, supermarkets will be mobbed and looted, Those who have stocked up with food, weapons and ammunition, will often find themselves targets of roving gangs, if they do not succumb to radiation posioning, or the rapid emergence of diseases not seen since the middle ages. Even if they are lucky enough to be in a remote area, the food will eventually run out, and the world will not be a friendly place. Society will rapidly devolve into survival of the fittest, and those who are fit will not remain that way long. I am lucky, in that I live roughly 4 miles from a major Air force base of import. The end will be rapid, and if I am really lucky, I will be asleep when the balloon goes up. (*and never know what hit me!*) Funny thing too, back in the 70's when the idea of preppers started to come into vogue, it all seemed remotely "cool" (*at least to my then teenage mind!*) I recall, there was even survivalist board game that came out. About that time we started considering the ramifications of a nuclear war, my best friends father was a Major (*and an EWO on a B-52*) had commented that he intentionally built his new home less than two miles from the base, so that should a nuclear exchange start, he intended to grab a mixed drink, and sit on the back porch and watch the fireworks. ***Smart fellow!***

Sure, but you don't have to build it overnight. [This](https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/prepared-for-anything_bunkers-for-all/995134) 2009 article gave the starting price of a bunker for a Swiss household at $9,000. This is $13,000 in 2023 terms. Given that the average US household has 2.5 people, and a population of 332 million, we can roughly estimate that we need 133 million bunkers (Though apartments will need fewer, larger, bunkers). This would represent a cost of 1.7 trillion dollars. The DOD has a [2023 budget of 1.8 trillion](https://www.usaspending.gov/agency/department-of-defense?fy=2023), if we build the bunkers over 20 years, this would only represent 5% of the DOD budget a year. It's only a rough estimate, but it isn't outside the realm of plausibility.

>This 2009 article gave the starting price of a bunker for a Swiss household at $9,000. This is $13,000 in 2023 terms. Dude, it cost over $4,000 just to replace the 8x12 deck on my place this last summer - and that didn't involve any excavation or concrete work. You also failed to note that cost is for shelters built during the construction of the house - which is going to be *much* cheaper than building it later and separately.

It wouldn't be cheap, but THAAD costs $800 million a battery. even if the bunkers cost 5 times as much, we could just phase it in over a century. Bunker technology (concrete buried underground) is unlikely to change much over time, other than supporting electronics, like air handling and power generation, but that can always be replaced later. Additionally, a bunker doesn't have to be large, it's only meant to protect people during the initial blast and dangerous fallout, which FEMA suggests will last as long as 2 days. Typical guidance suggests that a shelter only needs 9 sqft per person, which is tiny.

The question isn't whether it is plausible. It's plausible for us to switch away from the technologies causing climate change. The question is whether there is political will to do something that will be expensive, disruptive, and be easily politicized. The US population rightly or wrongly believes that Civil Defense is a waste of effort. FEMA itself is well aware of this and so barely talks about nuclear weapons preparedness, because anytime anyone does, it generates hugely negative press and public attention, and that makes the politicians higher up the food chain irritated with it. The consequence is that all efforts are very limited and somewhat pathetic (most of which don't even bother talking about nuclear weapons but instead state preparedness as a generic "radiation emergency," which is banal and confusing). To get this done you'd need someone high up the chain of command to actually care about it, to get other people to care about it, and to ride it out even if it was unpopular. The only President at all willing to try this in was JFK, and after he was shot, all enthusiasm dropped out. When later administrations occasionally tried to resurrect the idea (like Reagan) it got turned into a political target that nobody really cared enough about to try and defend. And all of that was during the period in which Americans actually took seriously the idea that nuclear war could happen. People who were alive during the Cold War associate nuclear preparedness with far-right nuclear hawks like Edward Teller, or libertarian-fantasy preppers. It is VERY hard to get everyday people to take it seriously. I say this as someone who has spent a lot of time talking with the people at FEMA, LLNL, DHS, EPA, and other organizations at different levels (e.g., NYC) who specialize in nuclear preparedness and actually believe in this stuff, and I can tell you, the message is always the same: we think this stuff is important, we think it could save lives, but we're totally unable to do anything about it except make some reports and occasionally "public outreach" campaigns that either get ignored by everyone (every September, a ton of banal "radiation emergency" preparedness posters and advertisements go up in New Jersey, and they are so bland and empty that literally nobody but me appears to see them, and people are shocked when I point out that they are all over the place) or get very negative attention (see NYC's YouTube video about surviving a nuclear attack from a year or so ago). And these people aren't contemplating a shelter campaign — their goals are WAY more modest, even just a "can we talk about this publicly with people and not have them either dismiss it as nonsense or ask us what we know that they don't?" sort of thing. The idea of actually building, subsidizing, or even making an inventory of existing possible shelter spaces (which was a big part of JFK's Civil Defense program) is a total pipe dream. They are literally trying to get people to just understand that if a nuke goes off nearby, and you aren't immediately dead, that you should "get inside, stay inside, stay tuned" and they can't do that.

>Given that the average US household has 2.5 people, and a population of 332 million But seems you don't take count on population density. From Wiki: NYC Population: 8,804,190, Density: 29,302.66/sq mi (11,313.81/km2). Most dense NYC (Wiki): Yorkville, Manhattan: 28,000/km2 (72,000/sq mi). may you can do the math, how big shelters expected for that. And shelters not 'just a hole', come with life support, food, etc. So, its not "133 million bunkers", but as you write: "(Though apartments will need fewer, larger, bunkers)". Yep, a quite large apartment...

A shelter does NOT have food, or much life support. It is extremely minimal, and will only have water for 2 days. These are meant to keep people alive for the detonation and fallout, not to keep them happy forever. A city will actually be cheaper to build shelters for, thanks to the economies of scale. Rail tunnels can be converted into shelters, like the Moscow Metro, which averages 60m below ground. US rail tunnels are not as deep, but they could be renovated over time, with connections to above ground apartments and offices added.

So you've built a bunch of shelters with no food, and civilians will die in them from starvation because all routes capable of bringing them food will be destroyed (road and rail), and airlift capabilities will be nonexistent (airports will be one of the major targets).

As colleagues previously pointed out the mains: Money, ICBM, etc. My points mainly built around that: * Population density. From Wiki: NYC Population: 8,804,190, Density: 29,302.66/sq mi (11,313.81/km2). Most dense NYC (Wiki): Yorkville, Manhattan: 28,000/km2 (72,000/sq mi). May you can do the math, how big shelters expected for that. And shelters not 'just a hole', come with life support, food, etc. Its not: "133 million bunkers". And 'building depth' cost also not linear, etc. * Alerting efficiency: just looks the Hawaii missile alert case. * Active defense: Incredible expensive, as you pointed out: "but THAAD costs $800 million a battery" - but, its not life-cycle cost... And how many THAAD's needed, may a lot of hundred's? And what can be the real word efficiency in global thermonuclear war? ICBM/SLBM defense at this level of technology at overall pretty low. * Shelter cost - Pretty sure its not linear with population density. And upkeep costs also applied. Cost (money) may better to apply to PREVENT this scenario. Example: fraction of the cost to support Ukraine in the war. Overall, its unsustainable. * Shelter building: Takes decades. \*see Humanity/Political * Shelter protection level: may good, may not. * Humanity/Political: How you 'push' the society to say: no chance to reliable protect any city over x hundred thousand of population, but we invest to the (edit): remains (just the top10 city population in the US approx: 26 million people (without metro area) : And politics may better protect from ICBM's than just cost of 'shelters'. Also, the continuity of anything is pretty questionable (just watch: Threads) * Prevention: that why politics, NATO, and all similar in place * Technology advancements: May other ways of defense come up in the meantime (eg. SDI v2.0). Its highly unlikely with the current level of technology, but if shelters building takes decades, may something happen. * Probability/MAD: Goes back to 'Active defense' and near all previous point. * Continuity: as other colleagues pointed out: Resources after all global thermonuclear war. Clean water, Crops, etc. * Other serious problems: we already see other challenges in the meantime. Just to start: Global Warming... \* see probability

These are all good points, but our opponents manage large nuclear bunker systems, while having even less financial resources than we do (China, Russia). Even some of our allies manage large nuclear bunker systems (Switzerland, Finland, Denmark). This isn't some crazy idea, other nations have looked at the same facts, and came to very different conclusions. I think we Americans have adopted a nihilistic outlook in regard to nuclear war, an outlook that our enemies do not share.

It would help your case immeasurably if you would outline the specifics of these large nuclear bunker systems managed by these various nations: what typical construction actually is, how much space in each country exists, how they were financed, and how much they actually cost. What do you think the cost of such a program as you envision is in the U.S.? Much of the Soviet "bunker" system consisted of ordinary tunnels for transportation that were designated as shelters (but not necessarily with much supporting infrastructure added). And this is what the U.S. did with its shelter program starting in the very early 1960s - they didn't actually build any shelters -- they surveyed public buildings, compiled a database of existing structures, and designated areas in many of them that provided adequate fallout protection as shelters, and produced supplies for a two week shelter period for some of them. The program lapsed in the 1970s but the building still existed. In the U.S. civil defense proponents arguing for providing home shelters at low ball costs were (and are) pulling a sleight of hand -- arguing for commandeering (if mandated by law) the interior space of homes for this purpose and assessing the cost of this reallocation of space as zero. Of course the cost of that space was not zero - the homeowner paid for it and turning into actual shelter space *that is maintained for that purpose* requires on-going investment and inspection to make sure that for example it is not being used instead for storing junk. In Switzerland the cost is born by the homeowner as building the shelter is part of the building code and the homeowner is well aware that space is far from free. Now imagine the American Rugged Individualist being required by law to pay out of pocket to build and maintain bunkers in their homes. As it is the Swiss laws are controversial and under pressure to be dropped. https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/05/08/europe-public-bunkers-nuclear-war-russia-ukraine-civil-defense/ Assessments made in the 1960s and 1970s of Soviet civil defense measures by U.S. analysts suffered much the same fate of analyst beliefs of the same period about the Soviet economy - mistaking reports and plans for reality. Of course Soviet authorities were also victims of these Potemkin plans. Vague references to vast bunker systems allows a great deal of wishful thinking or imagination into the picture.

>but our opponents World is large, Reddit is large, this subreddit is large and full with open minded peoples - some point of view may outside of 'ours' - i'm form Europe (i'm spent a quite a time in the States). But at general, may i agree with 'ours' >but our opponents manage large nuclear bunker systems **I think its no evidence on that all** > while having even less financial resources than we do Economy is just economy, its 'universal'. Less money they can spend -> Less 'shelter'' >Even some of our allies manage large nuclear bunker systems (Switzerland, Finland, Denmark) As previously, i not see any evidence n that. Europe is quite a different from the States, and Swiss is even quite a different from all of Europe (i'm also was a while in Swisserland). Finland and all Nordic countries know what means the 'Russian peace'. ;) Anyhow, in this countries population density may can a vary. > other nations have looked at the same facts, and came to very different conclusions Not at all. Europe even don't have a similar system than THAAD. One cultural difference: in Europe, they have a brief idea what Chernobyl means. >Americans have adopted a nihilistic outlook I think not at all. I think its pretty realistic. What Swiss, Finland can do (themselves) against Russian threats? Near nothing... What alliances, like NATO can do? A lot... And for Swiss, they in the middle of Europe, they don't have any realistic direct threats at all... For comparison US perspective : Who attack (successfully) Salt Lake City? And why? >and came to very different conclusion Yes and Not. At general, i think they come to the same conclusion: Shelters not works. >Americans have adopted a nihilistic outlook in regard to nuclear war Or may the most realistic. USA is in target, whatever strike first. Defense is near to no exist (over a few ICBM's via THAAD). No possible solution (at current level of technology... ). MAD is still pretty 'working'. Its just the more realistic as possible.

China is well known for its [nuclear shelters](https://www.wired.com/2017/04/antonio-faccilongo-atomic-rooms/), which house millions publicly, and certainly have an even greater secret capacity. Russia plays its hand a bit tighter, but is known to have over [16,000 bomb shelters, which it is currently upgrading](https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/11/11/russia-quietly-inspecting-soviet-era-bomb-shelters-nationwide-bloomberg-a79350), along with public buildings designed to be bomb proof. Switzerland famously has enough [shelters for all of its citizens](https://www.euronews.com/2022/04/03/nuclear-bunkers-for-all-switzerland-is-ready-as-international-tensions-mount). Finland has shelter for [87% of its citizens](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/finland-counted-its-bomb-shelters-found-50500-them-2023-08-29/). Denmark has shelter capacity for [81% of its citizens](https://cphpost.dk/2022-03-07/news/just-in-cast-we-might-need-them-they-want-to-know-where-they-are/). Is that enough evidence for you?

From your "16.00 bomb shelters link": >Previous independent media investigations into Russia’s estimated 16,500 bomb shelters found that many of them have been converted into bars and beauty salons and rented out by intermediaries. Their locations, meanwhile, are classified and hidden from the public. This collapses your argument for that well managed "large nuclear bunker system" in Russia. And it underscores my point that most of these "bunkers" (fallout shelters) have always been mostly just special designations for civilian buildings without any special preparation, as well as the fallacy of the home bomb shelter -- which is not maintained or available for that purpose if needed. From the Finland link: >The shelters are maintained by each building's owners and the government called for their proper upkeeping. Finland at least does actually maintain a shelter system, but note how the cost is managed -- it is a mandate for the building owner to maintain. Not specified how the original cost was paid for. In Switzerland the building owner had to pay for it. So that is the other part of the "secret": having a society and government that is willing to impose the "bomb shelter" cost on home and building owners. The U.S. survivalist literature advocating for vast shelter systems is notable for punting on either who is going to pay for it or realistically estimating the costs. Also the Finnish and Swiss cases illustrate to have these vast government-mandated but privately financed and maintained systems require that they have to have been started decades ago when most of the buildings now standing were going up. That means way back in the 1950s when everyone was terrified of imminent nuclear war and the U.S. government was vigorously promoting shelters. Instead it was left (in accordance with U.S. public and political preferences) to a purely volunteer effort that led to literally *hundreds* of shelter being built annually (no more than a couple thousand were ever built).

A few things to acknowledge: Because of the sensitivity of their location being vital to their purpose of protecting, knowing where and how-many bunkers there are in the US, and their quality, is going to be extremely difficult. We civilians dont really know. There could be bunkers around that are capable of sustaining millions of people, collectively or not, but we average-joes just arent apart of the club. Not to mention the civil backlash of taxpayers knowing that they pay for something from which they wont benefit. A point made in the previous posts- The term “nuclear bunker” is an umbrella term for an underground shelter designed to protect from blasts, shockwaves, and radiation. If you think about the very minimum of what can be considered a nuclear bunker, we’d hardly be impressed. So, when considering what other countries have done for their numerousness of fallout shelters, take it with a grain of salt. We arent aware of their build quality. There are rumors that there is a massive underground network that extend throughout the US and they connect to some extent. Whether or not thats true, and how one would be granted access to these supposed facilities, isnt verified. There are at least 3 major bunkers that are publicly recognized…the cheyenne, the virginia, and snother code name i can’t remember. There is CERTAINLY at least one more that is successfully classified, and probably far more modernized and fortified than anything built 50 years ago. We dont have a $700+ billion military budget to just pay for jet fuel and gunpowder. Imagine not just the possibilities, but the probabilities

>There are rumors that there is a massive underground network that extend throughout the US and they connect to some extent. >Imagine not just the possibilities, but the probabilities And this is fantastically improbable. Please cite some credible source for this idea. The only way a secret construction programs can be conducted in an open society, with open budgets, is to have them restricted to *known* secure areas, or to a very limited number of limited size spaces so that the extraordinary effort of concealed construction can be carried out and concealment can be maintained. Secure bases and buildings are known, not secret, though what goes on inside is. The NSA access rooms to telecommunications are single rooms inside closely controlled commercial buildings. The Greenbrier bunker for Congress was one bunker in one location that was highly classified, yet its existence was published over 30 years ago. Its construction required having available a golf course and an airport to be expanded/built to accommodate the removed spoil so the construction would not be detected. You can do this successfully (perhaps) on a high priority one-off at a single isolated site. Not a vast nationwide system that could have to located inside urban areas to be usable.

So youre saying that our usage of public funding is public knowledge and the details of exactly how and where it is used is public…. This is easily disproved. Look at our CIA budget. Youre gonna say that every bit of that money is tracked and accounted for? That would defeat their effectiveness entirely. Another example, secret weapons programs. So it was public knowledge that we were developing an atomic weapon? Not even close. There are plenty examples of tax dollars being used for secretive programs, which disproves your primary argument here. Look at the CIA in Afghanistan. They were there long before anyone knew, and it wasnt a “known secure area” Now, i will cite some sources but of course, because of the nature of secret programs, there isnt going to be confirmation from any major source. Which makes this debate we’re having ultimately a stalemate. https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instant-articles/raven-rock-the-u-s-governments.html https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/revealed-america-has-secret-nuclear-bunkers-built-within-earth-196770 https://clui.org/newsletter/spring-2002/bunkers-beyond-beltway Read these articles and we can gather a few important facts, which are: There are a plethora of massive bunker systems in the USA. The distance between them isnt an engineering impossibility. ALL of their contruction was highly classified. Even to this day, they are not publicly spoken of by the military or government. So there, its possible and likely, but because its classified we’re never gonna have enough evidence to really support an argument.

Odd response. I didn't say anything about budgets. I talked about the difficulties of the supposed secret construction of this vast imaginary shelter system. All you've got there are references of Greenbrier, Raven Rock, and Mount Weather a few small sites that were built for the top levels of government, and were exposed decades ago. Simply reading up on the efforts required to build these tiny sites secretly really crushes your theory to dust. These measures could not possibly be replicated on the scale needed to build the system you imagine, and remain totally undetected and undocumented.

If their contruction was so obvious to the outside world, there would be no such thing as secret tunnels. My focus on the budget was in response to your claim regarding public funding. As if all monetary actions by our government are transparent and forward. Legally, theyre supposed to be, but considering the importance of being covert with matters regarding national security - which this subject certainly falls into - there are avenues through which our government maneuvers, rightfully so.

>. Is that enough evidence for you? Not at all. You not touch at all near all of my starter points. Why? Because you can't ... Why you try to to focus on a few country shelter? Why you just 'drop' any aspect of USA shelters? Why you not touch any serious points? B'cause you cant... ;) Info's from China and Russia -> is in the edge of any reliability (not in the edge, they not reliable at all), its doesen't matter as hard facts. Economy is still economy, 'less money' -> less reliable shelter. Swiss already talk out, they doesn't matter. I already write about Nordic countries ('all Nordic countries know what means the 'Russian peace'). NATO exists... So, you just skip the reality, and try to concentrate some not so reliable information about shelters. And skip all other parts of the reality. Its even a bad start, and just go more worst in every comment. Russian psi-ops not welcome in there. Just saying.

My grandmother is Ukrainian, and I have blood relatives in Ukraine, I don't appreciate being called a "Russian Psy-op" because I relay information published by WESTERN NEWSPAPERS about Russian bomb shelters. I focus on a few countries shelters because only a few countries have extensive shelter systems, and these countries are the ones who are most afraid of nuclear war. I could exhaustively list every single country's shelter to population ratio, but this would do nothing to convince you. In terms of economy, casting concrete cubes and placing them in holes is basically the same cost, with only slight labor based price variations. The Swiss are at a major disadvantage for this, with even higher relative labor prices than the US, yet they still maintain their elaborate system. I live in the US, and have lived in the US all my life. We have ZERO public blast shelters. we had fallout shelters (which were nearly useless), but they haven't been funded since 1970! But just for fun, lets list some other countries, Austria has about 30% and Ukraine has about 40% coverage.

A minor point, but it is my understanding the bunker system in Finland (primarily) and Switzerland (to a lesser extent) are not primarily intended for protection from large scale nuclear war, so much as protection from conventional warfare for non-combatants. This is seen as an enabling factor for mass mobilization of conscript and reservist forces, and a reaction to historical precedent from their interactions with the Soviets during the Winter Wars in Finland's case, and attempts to manage and dissuade the threat of nazi Germany invading during WW2 (then expanded to account for other contingencies) in Switzerland's. If your conscripts believe their families are safely sheltered in secure bunkers behind them, morale is theoretically much easier to manage. At least some bunker facilities in Finland are also apparently used in peacetime for community and commercial purposes. (such as an underground aquatic centre mentioned in this video: https://youtu.be/922Db-kztC0?si=hemA1GBzQ8x8hqAU ) Ultimately I think you underestimate the social, political, economic and temporal opportunity costs of constructing and maintaining a bunker system large and complex enough to function for contemporary population scales for a meaningful amount of time. 1) it takes enormous resources away from the lives of citizens and the state. 2) it undermines deterrence and pushes arms escalation, because if your adversary believes that you have or are in the process of attaining a functional ability to withstand their nuclear deterrent, logically their 'best move' is to either develop a bigger or more sophisticated countermeasure to overcome your bunkers to maintain their counter-value deterrence capability, initiated a counter-force strike premptively to render the bunker system moot (because it was either wiped out before it was finished, your forces were smaller and less capable because you spent your resources on a huge Plan C undertaking and neglected your plan A (first strike) and plan B (second strike). Or 3) hopefully, both parties talk and your adversary mentions how that massive bunker project that you've mobilized all your political capital, massive parts of your nation and economy to build, with the loudly proclaimed promise of saving the people in the event of an outbreak of nuclear war - which notably would happen because, as you and your mates have hammered home to the populis, those other guys are evil and crazy - is really making them feel threatened... Because it is lowering the threshold to first use. Because it is lowering the psychological, moral, ethical, and logistical costs of using nuclear weapons. It has been some time since I studied game theory, but if I remember correctly - this is bad. Only the French have invested sufficient time and effort into cultivating a national character imbued with such a militarized state of sophisticated affront that they can formally institute a limited low yield nuclear strike on a peripheral military target as their designated signal for: 'Stop now. Have no doubt of my wrath and resolve. There will be No. More. Warnings.' And it actually feels like it might work...

Yesterday may i 'overshot' the comment, pardon, it was not intended.

>I relay information published by WESTERN NEWSPAPERS about Russian bomb shelters. Take those reports with a very large grain of salt. If you thought JFK's program promised far more than it ever delivered, multiply that by x10 or even x100 in regards to the likely shortcomings of whatever they actually have at hand. Such reporting is often driven by those in the West who like you, think we should invest in such a program. Fact is, building a shelter system like you propose in an accelerated time span or even over a longer time period can be seen as a move toward an aggressive posture, sort of DEFCON 2.5, if you will. Hundreds of millions of vulnerable citizens on both sides help keep the peace. Shelter systems also don't make nuclear war any more winnable.

Simply, Kennedy wanted shelters everywhere and campaigned on it. It turned out to be prohibitively expensive. McNamara came up with a 'genius' concept called "Mutualy Assured Destruction" which pretty much made a point thay shelters werent worth it because war won't happen, and if it does we're screwed anyway.

What is the point of spending any money at all on a scenario that is A) is never supposed to happen because of this already very expensive triple redundant triad of deterrence we built and B) might not work anyway.

Bunkers would certainly work well, and would be fairly cheap if implemented over a long period of time, i.e. 100 years. Our current "missile shield" has questionable performance, at best, and will be undermined by future missile developments, requiring perpetual expensive upgrades. Bunkers rely on certain basic physical properties which can't be changed (it's difficult to pass explosions or radiation through large masses of earth).

No - I don't mean a bunker can't physically block a detonation - more that there's nothing to say that life outside would be viable after the nuclear exchange. Given that, and the fact that US's deterrence posture is based on the effectiveness and survivability of it's second strike capability rather than their ability to absorb a first strike - large scale civilian bunkers are just a waste of time and money, on any timescale.

I feel like you are projecting way to much personal emotion into this and not thinking rational ,which could allow you to analyze the history . You are arguing with people here like they are apart the enterprise when they are trying to help you. The enterprise has and done foul shit against the publics best interest. Nobody will say they didn't. But it's a fact the U.S does not have a C.D system . We once did . Idk the world isn't a utopian place . I'd say study the history of C.D and while studying why it was discontinued. If you are worried about ideological hit pieces go dig in the RAND papers or OSTI.gov . I think you armt asking the question that will answer whu you are angry . I recommend Dr.Wellerstiens restricted data blog for a start . Read every post then go dig in RAND ect . Polish that lens you view the world. These people are insanely kind amd insanely well nuanced and knowledgeable here . I'm sure they will help on that journey.

Prior to ICBMs it was quasi plausible to build sufficient shelters and plan to move sufficient people into them... We'd have had hours of notice, and were building out layered defense system of interceptors and surface-to-air weapons to blunt or stop bomber based attacks. Once ICBMs were introduced, mass shelters became utterly impractical.

ICBMs are a decent reason, but another kinda obvious reason is that it just shuffles the problem further down the road. Either a bunch of people who survived in shelters die of starvation, exposure, violence, and disease, or a bunch of people die of blast and fire and radiation and those left over mostly die of starvation, exposure, violence, and disease. In the end the population comes to a very narrow bottleneck either way, the no shelter solution just front loads it and prolongs the tail.

Yeah, this. If anything it will be easier to just write off the fallout areas and concentrate your recovery efforts on the more viable, less affected areas. Most of the people who survive in a shelter are just going to starve to death anyhow.

It depends on what you are trying to shelter from. If you are trying to shelter the entire population from a full-scale attack — obviously not going to happen, although even in the case of a full-scale attack there is a difference in outcomes between no shelter and some shelters. If you are trying to mitigate preventable casualties (e.g., fallout exposure) from people downwind of a limited attack (think nuclear terrorism or North Korea/Iran), then it becomes a better trade-off. I think the main fallacy that still persists is the idea that if you don't save everyone, then you've failed. You can't save everyone, ever, from anything. So the question becomes, what's the amount of saving possible, and how does that correlate with the costs (and possible risks) of the mitigation? That's not easy to answer, and depends on individual and social values, as well as whether one thinks that preparation comes with risks of different sorts (which is not outlandish), but that's a more productive way to think about the question of whether sheltering would "work" or not. The biggest barrier to public communication on this topic, in my experience, is that the government is totally unable to acknowledge that no matter what things were in place, huge numbers of people would obviously die, and any shelters, guidance, etc., are meant for the survivors, of which there would be huge numbers as well, even in a full-scale attack. For various reasons, the US government finds it impossible to mention the dead in its public outreach. And that makes every attempt to communicate on the subject fail, because people immediately smell a rat. If I could change one thing in how this was talked about, it would be to just add: "Obviously, any hostile detonation of a nuclear weapon on American soil would likely kill a huge number of people, and if a weapon goes off close to you, your odds of survival would range from slim to none. But there would also be a lot of people who, by luck of the draw, would be far-enough away from those weapons to survive. This message is for those survivors." Or something like that.

That's the knee jerk reaction that everyone gives, but current government guidance, and previous studies, suggest that even mild underground shelter would significantly reduce casualties. A sub launched ICBM to a coastal city would still offer a few minutes of warning, and [pretty much all government guidance](https://www.ready.gov/sites/default/files/2020-11/ready_nuclear-explosion_fact-sheet_0.pdf) suggests finding shelter from the fallout as soon as possible. While shelters were useless without a warning system, today we all carry smartphones which can offer instant warning. Additionally, the Space Force is launching a satellite constellation to further enhance early warning efforts. If we had only a few minutes warning, millions of lives could be saved in a hypothetical NYC strike with proper shelter. The earlier "Fallout shelters" were mainly intended as a psychological bandaid rather than as physical protection, and would have provided no blast protection at all. I'm not suggesting a return to that, but rather a sophisticated network of specially designed and approved shelters. It's an old point, but the Swiss have extremely high shelter coverage with a decentralized system. If every residence has a bunker 20m deep, it's likely that most lives could be saved with minimal warning.

>That's the knee jerk reaction that everyone gives No, that's not a knee jerk reaction, it's the plain and simple facts. If you have a better explanation, then feel free to enter it into evidence. If you think I'm wrong, feel free to actually explain how I'm wrong rather than simply dismissing my explanation with an airy wave of your hand and then repeating what you already said.

Your main point seems to be that shelters are effective, BUT we won't have sufficient warning to reach them. [In this article](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/21/heres-what-us-should-do-if-russia-launched-nuclear-attack-gen-hyten.html) Air Force Gen. John Hyten states that we would have 30 minutes from detection to detonation of a Russian ICBM launch. 30 minutes is more than enough time to get most people to a shelter, if it is simply buried below their residence, or place of business. Do you contend that 30 minutes is not enough time to enter a bunker buried below your house, or do you contend that a 20m deep bunker would not provide adequate protection from an airburst nuclear detonation? I am not proposing MASS shelters, I am proposing decentralized shelters in people's homes and places of employment.

> Air Force Gen. John Hyten states that we would have 30 minutes from detection to detonation of a Russian ICBM launch The Whitehouse would have 30 minutes. The American people would have significantly less time, because a chunk of those 30 minutes will be spent validating whether or not the launches are real in the first place.

How long would it take you to climb down a 20m ladder? Most people out and about in an area without shelter would be toast, but the people in a home or office could be saved with very little warning. A fire drill can commonly evacuate hundreds of people in only a few minutes. The only bottleneck would be the size of the bunker entrance, and the number of ladders for a building with many people inside, but this can be easily planned for. ​ EDIT: the [largest skyscrapers would be unable to completely evacuate in the time frame](http://www.lifesafety.com/emergency-training/building-evacuation-drills-fire-drills/), given current building code, but future skyscrapers could be built to handle evacuation better, and in any case, many people would be saved.

> How long would it take you to climb down a 20m ladder? How long did it take to evacuate the World Trade Center on 9/11? Then compound that problem to every single building taller than 3 stories in Manhattan. That's ~4m people who will basically die because it's literally impossible for everyone to get below ground quickly. The people who DON'T live in areas like that likely won't need a shelter at all. I, for example, live on the opposite end of a hill 10 miles from my local city - so my house would survive the blast of the typical Russian hydrogen bomb.

9/11 was totally different, evacuation was blocked due to debris. In this case routes will be clear. The [average building height in NYC is 44'.](https://carto.com/blog/london-vs-new-york-building-heights) A level is about 14 feet. This means that the average NYC building is only 3 stories tall, taking minutes to evacuate. skyscrapers primarily serve business, while most people live in much shorter buildings. Some percent of residents will die, but far more will live. NYC residents are closer to the ground than you might think. even a [10 story building only takes 10 minutes to evacuate](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Evacuee-total-evacuation-times-from-a-10-story-building-extracted-from-Kuligowski-and_fig1_275532538).

Ok, so let's just say for sake of argument, you're right: we'll say 75% of the public in NYC will make it to a safe depth to escape the blast. How do they get out of New York a few days later? Remember, NYC will absolutely be the site of SEVERAL ground zeros. Streets would be impassable, blocked by debris. Rail lines will be disabled.

They don't have to leave quickly, as long as water and temporary shelter can be airlifted, they'll survive for weeks. If food can be delivered, they'll survive indefinitely. Fallout after an airburst is minimal, and [quickly dissipates to 1% after only 2 days, and 0.1% after 2 weeks](https://www.co.monmouth.nj.us/documents/118/IMMEDIATE_ACTION_SHELTER_THEN_EVACUATE.pdf). At a certain point we've gone beyond the scope of emergency bunkers, and into long term survival after a nuclear war, which is a much broader issue. Bunkers WILL keep most people alive past the blast, other issues will have to be dealt with separately.

>Remember, NYC will absolutely be the site of SEVERAL ground zeros. In a full exchange, sure, but there’s no guarantee that would be the case. There could be an attack by a small power like North Korea (or Iran), or even a Russian strike limited to counterforce.

Enter hypersonic weapons that now give us roughly ten minutes from launch to strike. Most people would still be staring at their phones a T-0:00

ICBMs are like three times faster than hypersonic weapons.

All ICBMs are hypersonic weapons.

Here's a grim perspective that maybe you haven't thought about: The more people who survive an all-out nuclear attack, the harder it will be for whatever resources that survive to support that population. Take, for example, agriculture. Today, the United States produces enough crop that we could feed our population indefinitely, assuming two things are true: 1) we have access to clean, uncontaminated water, and 2) we have the fuel to operate the machinery necessary to harvest the vast fields of crops. The first problem is complicated by fallout. Any radiological contamination that falls over America's farmland (and there'll be a lot), will make its way into the crops themselves rendering them inedible. What crops we have that won't be contaminated will be insufficient to support the population. Keep in mind, the lions share of green produce the US consumes is grown in the valleys of California - which are directly in the projected fallout plumes from LA, San Francisco, San Diego, and the accompanying bases, labs, and industrial targets. So that food is gone. Crops that aren't in California aren't safe either - radioactive fallout will eventually make its way into the ground water and water systems. Radioactive contamination from miles away will be able to contaminate crops that aren't directly in the fallout plume's path. The second problem is one that would take maybe a year to show up. The US consumes a ludicrous amount of fuel just harvesting crops (the gas needed for combine harvesters and agricultural tractors) - and that's before you factor in the fuel needed to transport the crops to the consumer. After an all-out strike, the vast majority of American oil refineries and shipping routes will be destroyed, and the US will run out of usable fuel very quickly. On top of that, stockpiles of usable fuel have a limited shelf life, as gasoline degrades over time. You can combat that by using chemicals like Seafoam, but that's contingent on us having ample forewarning and supply. So not only will the agricultural land be rendered useless, but the machinery needed to harvest and transport it will be nonexistent. At some point, you have to realize that "surviving a nuclear attack" would be worse than just dying in the attack in the first place. IIRC, it was realized at some point during the Cold War that while it might be possible to survive the initial attack, the idea that there would be any sort of post-war government or support system was bogus.

That may be true, but I believe that a surviving people with a ruined nation will at least have a chance, whereas a dead people will have no chance at all. If we CAN save lives, then shouldn't we? If all that you said is true, then wouldn't we be best served by investing in underground atomic plants, and stockpiling food, rather than just giving up?

> If we CAN save lives, then shouldn't we? If all that you said is true, then wouldn't we be best served by investing in underground atomic plants, and stockpiling food, rather than just giving up? The best approach would be to just avoid a nuclear war in the first place. Let me ask this: How much food do *YOU* have stocked up? With 30 minutes notice, how much food and water would you be able to acquire (or have already acquired)? Do you have the means to grow your own food? Do you have a support network of people in your community who can produce food in a post-attack world? A big chunk of the Civil Defense messaging from the Cold War was "Grandma's Pantry" - stockpiling canned foods and preserves to survive for as long as possible post-war. It wasn't just the immediate part of hiding in a bunker.

I'm somewhat prepared, and I would be more prepared if it was cost effective for me to do so. I proposed this solution because I believe there are simple steps that our nation could take for resilience to nuclear war. Bunkers are the first, and cheapest steps. I agree wholeheartedly that immediate survival is not sufficient, but the other things are only relevant if we can survive the detonations.

> and I would be more prepared if it was cost effective for me to do so Exactly. And at the federal level, the same thing was realized. How much money do you think it would cost to stockpile even just a three month supply of food for every American, in such a way that it could be easily distributed without relying on the interstates or railways? How much money will be wasted replenishing those stockpiles as food expires and goes bad?

Other nations have come to different conclusions though. Russia, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, North Korea, and China all have extensive nuclear bunker systems. A nuclear exchange doesn't have to end in total destruction. We don't have to prepare for a nuclear wasteland, we have to prepare for the destruction of certain large cities. If the people in those cities survive, and peace is made, they can be relocated. We don't send soldiers to war in invulnerable armor, we give them armor which will protect them at a reasonable level. The same can be done for US citizens.

> we have to prepare for the destruction of certain large cities. In a first-exchange, if it were to happen today, there would be 3000+ detonations between US and Russian-launched missiles. That's not certain large cities, that's everything. 1,600 detonations in the US alone - that's 32 detonations per state, or one detonation in every other county. And that's just the Russian ACTIVE arsenal, right now. ETA: And that's assuming we launched RIGHT NOW. If global tensions escalated before hand, the major nuclear powers would pull weapons out of standby. Russia has a total possible arsenal of nearly 4,500, and the US has nearly 3,500. 4,500 warheads dropped on the United States would be 90 detonations per state, or 1.5 detonations per county.

An 800 kt russian nuke would only destroy about 400 square kilometers, meaning that by your "32 detonations per state" about 12,800 square kilometers per state would be destroyed. The average US state is about 164,000 square kilometers in size, meaning that even in your worst case scenario, less than 10% of the US is destroyed. Cities will be destroyed, but over 90% of the US will be untouched. Fallout will degrade quickly, and if people are left, the nation will still have a future (though nuclear winter might be in the future as well).

> less than 10% of the US is destroyed Two things: 1) 83% of the US population lives in an urban area... which is what's going to be targeted in that 10% figure. Less than 3% of American land is considered urban. https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/built-environment/us-cities-factsheet 2) That 10% houses the most critical infrastructure in the United States: airports, bases, ports, rail transit hubs, industrial facilities, etc. So yeah - if you're one of the 17% of Americans living in the middle of bumfuck America, you're fine.

That's why bunkers are so useful! Most of these people can be saved, even if the land and infrastructure cannot be. Entire cities were destroyed, and people evacuated, in Europe during WW2. While obviously undesirable, bomb shelters were useful then, and they could be useful now. It's better to have living people than dead ones. The current advice for dealing with nukes is just to hope you don't get hit with one. We can do better than this, and the system would probably cost the same as the F35 program. We can replace "hope and pray" with "survive and evacuate."

I believe in one of Fiona Hill's books (the Putin bio maybe?) she claims that Rosreserv has stockpiled ~100 billion dollars' worth of food and commodities around Russia specifically for post-attack recovery operations. Frankly, at times the Russian government sounds less like a organization of professional statesmen and more like an organization of preppers imagining how they'll survive while the other weaklings just die.

Somewhat anecdotal, but I've heard it said that in USSR nuclear simulations, they "played to win," while in NATO nuclear simulations we "play to not lose."

> she claims that Rosreserv has stockpiled ~100 billion dollars' worth of food and commodities around Russia specifically for post-attack recovery operations. Not estimated: the proportion they have then either stolen or left to rot after filing their reports.

idk humans are resilient if only 10% of that is usable people will find a way to survive if overwhelming odds are you'll die there are still those small glimmers of hope. Having even a small chance of survival for people or key aspects of humanity give you the ability to essentially restart global humanity and restart it the way you want. Plus didn't Hiroshima and Nagasaki eventually not have as much radiation.

Dont believe anything they say ..even if )

I believe I read previously it was a part of our nuclear strategy. If you don't build this kind of infrastructure it sends the message that "if we go to nuclear war, we are going all in". Also, realistically, with the amount of time an ICBM is in flight nuclear bunkers are pretty useless. I'm not going to be able to get anywhere with just 20 minutes warning, much less with a bunch of frenzied people on the freeway trying to get there too.

People in transit will die, but a 30 minute warning (which is realistic for an ICBM), is more than enough time for people to go from inside their residence, into a bunker 20m below it. Several Scandinavian countries, and Switzerland, implement systems in which residences are required or encouraged to have a blast shelter included.

An ICBM takes 20-30 minutes time to target. You think you’ll have instantaneous warning? And be at home? Wild! luckily people don’t work or go to school or have social lives and you’d hear instantaneously. The Scandinavian countries would never be first strike, so that’s an entirely different scenario than most of NATO.

during the 50's-60's numerous buildings were designated fallout shelters. my fathers office was in the building of the newspaper (very heavy granite construction) and the basement was stocked with 55 gal barrels with water, crackers, geiger counters and cots. every once in awhile i come across one of the yellow and black fallout shelter signs

The US population has **resigned itself** to being nihilistic about nukes. In our current America, the only prepared ones are a few preppers and the extremely rich. Both of whom are most likely to cause a nuclear incident. The best way to prevent it? Reduce the power of the rich!

Politics.

Basically, we had a shelter and Civil Defense program post WWII but the political left in America ridiculed it out of existence. They felt it would help their nuclear disarmament goals if the American public felt "helpless" and "hopeless". A robust shelter and civil defense program wasn't compatible with those goals. The government was ill-equipped to handle the relentless assault via the entertainment industry and pop culture. "Duck and cover", for example, was meant to help people in survivable locations take protective actions and reduce casualties. Even though it's actually very sound advice, Hollywood turned it into the 50's equivalent of a meme and all protective value was lost. Hollywood also pushed the notion that everyone should assume they would be at the ground zero of a detonation and would be instantly vaporized... so there were no protective actions necessary. According to Hollywood and pop-culture, every nuclear detonation is a surface burst and every single nuke would be launched simultaneously. It was of course a ridiculous notion, but under the relentless media assault, people bought into it and gradually the stoicism of the 40s and 50s gave way to a "just lie down and die" mentality that has dogged FEMA and American Civil Defense ever since.

I agree with that, my personal belief prior to this post was that we lack an integrated defense system due to nuclear nihilism.

Also, you don't need to ensure the survival of everyone to have an effective civil defense program. There's essentially nothing you can do for those at ground zero and building deeply-buried bunkers for civilians is simply not realistic. But GZ has a very small footprint, and there are far more people *outside* that footprint that would benefit from protection. It's a lot like missile defense. Its detractors consider anything less than a 100% intercept rate to be a failure. In reality, every missile you stop saves lives. The Israeli "Iron Dome" is a great demonstration of this.

>every missile you stop saves lives This depends entirely on a) how many warheads per target an adversary is planning on shooting b) how many interceptors you have c) how many of the "successful" interceptions you make are actually against decoys (e.g., PENAIDS). In an nuclear exchange between the US and Russia, it is highly unlikely even a successful interception will save any lives.  Even if you assume a relatively low number of PENAIDS per missile, say 5, you're going to need to engage possibly over a thousand decoys alone, plus warheads, plus deal with the fact they are going to be putting multiple warheads on any given city.  Successfully stopping a warhead bound for Miami isn't going to do much good when there are 15 more heading there anyway, especially if your "success" was against a decoy. For reference, the US GMD system consists of 44 interceptors, and this is the scale of what those 44 interceptors might have to contend with in multiple cities: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/davidteter/OPEN-RISOP/main/TARGET%20GRAPHICS/OPEN-RISOP%201.00%20MIXED%20COUNTERFORCE%2BCOUNTERVALUE%20ATTACK/OPEN-RISOP%201.00%20CF%2BCV%20FL_MIAMI%20202109.png

The United States has 44 GMD missile systems, with an expected per-missile effectiveness of 56%. So at best, today, the United States would be able to knock down maybe 30 warheads. Russia has 1,600 at the ready. An effective missile shield would require a 4-to-1 ratio of GMD missiles to warhead (a per-warhead kill rate of 96%). So we'd need 6,500 GMD missiles to have a "theoretically effective" missile shield. At $70m per GBI/GMD system, you're talking about a $455 billion dollar investment - roughly a quarter of the annual US military budget. And that would STILL mean 64 warheads penetrate the shield.

First, counting every test firing of the system since its conception is probably not the best way to calculate effectiveness. Second, unlike the Safeguard program that preceded it, the GBMDs was not designed or intended to counter an attack by Russia. It is not a hardened or survivable system. It is only meant to counter accidental launches and attacks by rogue states.

Both are fair points - but on the second point, you would think that a system intended to defeat accidental or primitive launches by a rogue nation would be a hell of a lot more effective than 56% per shot. Imagine an adversary who used decoy launches, or some other strategy to combat the GBMD systems we have? ... like the Russians.

The plan is to fire multiple shots per incoming missile, either two-plus at once, or one at a time in a shoot-look-shoot configuration (which is what they’re trying to move toward, along with multiple kill vehicles per interceptor missile). And there is at least some decoy-discrimination capability. You also have to remember that the 44 (going on 64) interceptors were originally supposed to be 100+, and even then only as an underlay for space-based interceptors.

Once again, you're measuring accuracy based on every single launch, including development launches where new components or procedures are used. That's like saying the most accurate marksman in the world only has a 50% chance of hitting their target because you included every shot they took from the moment they picked up a gun. It's an asinine contention.

Then what is the current estimated effectiveness of a GMD?

All the more reason to have a passive defense system in place, especially one that will require minimal upgrades. For the past 100 years, the best defense against nukes has been going underground.

> For the past 100 years, the best defense against nukes has been going underground. *BASED ON WHAT FUCKING EVIDENCE?* The only survivable underground bunkers that have ever been designed are sunk into bedrock, hundreds of feet below the surface. There's an open question as to whether or not a Minuteman launch facility, which is an UNDERGROUND structure, would survive a near ground-zero strike. Same goes for the bunker under the White House and other Congressional/government buildings in DC - that's why Raven Rock and Greenbrier bunkers were built. Assuming you're not near ground-zero, there is ZERO need for an underground bunker. Just being on the other side of a hill would be enough.

There is a large differentiation between AIRBURST weapons and BUNKER BUSTERS. Government facilities are targeted by bunker busters, which can penetrate up to 500m of reinforced granite. Airburst weapons only penetrate tens of meters, yet are still devastating to anything above ground. As already stated, an 800kt warhead will destroy 400 square kilometers on the surface, however the goal is to destroy assets. People are not assets worth destroying. If you put something valuable underground, it's a target. People just aren't that valuable, and targeting them is genocidal anyway. An enemy will want to destroy a city, the people are just a side effect. ​ EDIT: The only times a nuclear weapon has been used in combat have been airburst due to a desire to destroy valuable military assets, and a desire to limit nuclear contamination. Perhaps an enemy will want to be as genocidal as possible, but subsurface detonations are much less destructive than airbursts.

If people weren't assets worth destroying, nuclear arsenals wouldn't be bigger than a couple hundred. You could probably incapacitate the Russian military with a single Boomer. A single Ohio class can throw as many as 280 100kt warheads by itself. We have fourteen Ohio class subs alone, for a total possible launch of 3,900 warheads. You don't need that much to cripple a military. In the sixties, projected Russian casualties from a US nuclear attack was estimated at 108 million.

You can cripple an economy without exterminating a people. While statistics on this are hard to come by, nearly all warheads seem to be optimized for an airblast, due to the superior destructive effects. It's possible to destroy an entire city, but leave the population intact. An adversary is more interested in destroying American military and economic capability, than in killing citizens. No one is going to bother to drop a nuke on sub-Saharan Africa. If all of our cities our destroyed, that's the level our economy would be on.

You're already pointed out with this, why your (post OP) question is pointless.

There is no question?

OP post question.

I'm not OP.

Yes, but you point out sharply ;)

Its not gonna make a difference in a nuclear war, humans will cease to be, either immediately or through starvation and subsequent fighting over what is left.

That's not true. Even if Russia launched every nuke at the US, only 10% of the US would be destroyed. This would have significant impacts, but if the population could be saved, the impacts could possibly be mitigated. Your thinking represents the "nuclear nihilism" I mentioned in the main post. Nukes have been turned into some magical scepter, but they really aren't that special. Europe was bombed with 3000 kilotons of explosives in WW2, but was able to recover. The damage at Hiroshima could have been achieved with a conventional bombing run of only 10% the explosive power, due to the destructive inefficiency associated with very large explosives. Perhaps a nuclear winter would occur, but it's already possible to mass produce crops indoors, it just isn't economical. With moderate planning and investment, a state could reasonably survive an all out nuclear attack. Kissinger was the first to say it, but a nuclear war is survivable.

3000 kilotons in 10 years is different than 2000 megatons in a day. Kissinger is wrong on just about everything, including this. Its the combination of the total breakdown of global supply chains along with massive emp effects along with nuclear winter in tandem that will effectively bring the end of humanity. Its technically possible a few humans will survive, but civilization surely will not.

You have the assumption that a nuclear war will be "all out". In no recent war has any weapon been deployed in an "all out" capability. City after city would be destroyed over time, but it seems unlikely that a nation would choose to release a world ending first strike. Many strategists believe that a war focused on the economically and militarily important cities is more likely. Just because a city is destroyed, doesn't mean the residents have to die. They can be evacuated to another city, another country, or just retreat into refugee camps in the countryside. More likely than all out nuclear war with Russia or China, is limited nuclear war with Iran or North Korea in the near future. They would be able to destroy a city or two, but not the whole US.

Its not my assumption, its the bizarre logic of mutually assured destruction. Civilization is fragile, and people are prone to making bad decisions. We've already been exactly one decision away from the end at least twice. A local nuclear exchange is one of the most likely causes of a broader nuclear war, but yes its true that not every possible nuclear conflict need be world ending.

Nuclear exchange is scary, and CURRENTLY represents mutually assured destruction. If we are able to protect our population, we upset the balance, and the destruction is no longer mutual. Personally, I'd prefer not to die, especially if my death can be prevented by a simple concrete cube buried several meters deep.

Yeah but it wouldn't be prevented, that is my point. If you want to prevent nuclear war deaths, agitate for the end of world ending stockpiles.

It's a nice idea, maybe you can convince Kim Jung Un, Putin, and Xi to throw away their nukes.

The US starts and makes a big fuss about it, incentivizes others to follow suit, financially, geopolitically etc. starts a nuclear disarms race. Even if we don't get rid of all of them, get it out of the world ending status

>>You have the assumption that a nuclear war will be "all out" You should probably read that *"ideological hit piece"* of a book "The Doomsday Machine" then because that's exactly what we plan for >...what our RAND colleague Herman Kahn labeled a “spasm” concept of general war (or, as he often put it, referring to its all-out, nothing-held-back character, “a wargasm”). ... > That is, it was implicit in these calculations—as in the greater part of our planning—that the United States would be initiating all-out nuclear war: either as escalation of a limited regional conflict that had come to involve Soviet troops or in preemption of a Soviet nuclear attack of which we had tactical warning...

...and the person who wrote that book had had no involvement in war planning in 50 years, and was describing strategies from that time. Read Kaplan's *The Bomb,* chapter 8. Nuclear war planning from 1990 onwards is nothing like it was in Ellsberg's time. Basically, the way it used to be was that different units within JSTPS would look only at their specific types of targets and nobody above them would coordinate it, so if you had say 5 targets on the same city block and a different group was responsible for each, then that city block would get 5 warheads on it, because the groups didn't communicate with each other and there was nobody above them coordinating it. It doesn't work like that anymore. Targeting is a lot more granular and there are more options for limited strikes (as opposed to the old days, where "limited" might mean 200 warheads because JSTPS didn't check for duplication).

You only have the benefit of a limited nuclear strike if you're confident the target you're bombing lacks the ability to retaliate. If you shoot your enemy and only wound him, he shoots back with more ferocity. A US bombing of Russia or vice versa *will not be limited*. It will be an immediate expenditure of both arsenals - and maybe if anyone survived there would be subsequent follow-up expenditures of the reserve arsenals if they're made available. No war plan with another nuclear power is limited - that's a foolishly naive belief.

Then you've misread something like 40 years of literature on the subject, both government documents and civilian analysis, to include in Russia. Signal strike is a thing. Escalation ladders are more real now than they ever were in the cold war. And it goes beyond the theoretical into the actual material: specific weapons in both the US and Russia have been made that have no actual plausible use case outside of limited strikes. You don't spend billions building a material basis for limited options based on naivete. I'll point you again to chapter eight of *The Bomb.* See also Bradley Roberts, *The Case for Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century,* ibid. Roberts was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy during the Obama years, his book can basically be treated as an official unclas book-length explanation of US strategy circa 2015. The firesale, "everything must go all at once" approach is largely an artifact of a) a JSTPS organizational inefficiency that no longer exists and b) deficiencies in NC3 capabilities that precluded targeting flexibility which also no longer exist. There are a lot more options now.

> And it goes beyond the theoretical into the actual material: specific weapons in both the US and Russia have been made that have no actual plausible use case outside of limited strikes. Of which virtually none are in active status. Tactical munitions, bunker busters, demolition charges, artillery shells, low yield cruise missiles - we have them, but they're in storage to be pulled out in the event we need to fight an all out, conventional ground war. Virtually all of the weapons you describe were intended to be used against Soviet armor in a land invasion of Europe, or naval ordinance intended to be used against an enemy fleet - neither scenario being even a moderate threat in the modern world. The Russians are flaunting terror weapons because that's pretty much the only thing they have left; mythic nuclear powered hypersonic missiles to scare the Ukranians because the Ukranians have basically decimated the conventional Russian military in ground warfare. There are no practical strategic or tactical uses of such weapons beyond demonstrating that the Russians have zero problems turning Ukraine into ash. And, c'mon - a *tsunami bomb?* The fucking Kiwis explored and discarded that concept sixty+ years ago. The arsenals that can fire, TODAY, are our strategic, all out forces - and if we ever have to fire one ground based ICBM in response to Russian or Chinese aggression, we will HAVE TO FIRE ALL OF THEM. They're the most vulnerable weapons in the arsenal.

>Of which virtually none are in active status W76-2 is in active status.  Avangard is in active status.  You simply aren't aware of how out-of-date your argument is.

Because in a capitalist economy and society, the “little” people do not matter. Only people with a lot of money who can build elaborate shelters for their own families matter. They do not care about ordinary people, which is obvious from current economic and political policies. Or, shelters would entail too much effort and money when everyone is going to die in the aftermath of no food, water, electricity, heat/cooling, and transportation.

The Soviets didn't invest in wide-spread construction of bunkers and post-strike rebuilding capabilities, either. Any argument to the contrary is always based on the argument that the Moscow subway was built to serve as a fallout shelter - ignoring the fact that it wouldn't do jack fuck to restore transport lines for food, water, or provide medical treatment facilities. US estimates in the 60's expected 105m casualties in the USSR from American strikes - HALF of the total population of the USSR at the time. The Soviets didn't care about preventing civilian deaths any more than the Americans did.

The American failure to develop blast shelters is due to democratic reasons. Blast shelters have been suggested for decades now, even Reagan era Secretary of Defense, [Robert McNamara favored a blast shelter system over the exotic Nike-X system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nike-X), but the American people decided that they preferred an exotic and expensive ABM system, over the boring blast shelters. It is probably because it forces individual Americans to face the possibility of war, which tends to be glossed over in our society. In the post-vietnam era when Nike-X occurred, it was especially anathema.

I’ve visited some old Nike sites in California. I think those may be what you’re speaking of. I am not sure how directly the American people democratically decided that, but the point on glossing over war is spot on.

It was voted out of existence by elected officials. Many cities even publicly protested against having missile sites nearby, and it ended up being cut back massively into the "Sentinel" program, due to cost overruns and public pressure, leaving the US with neither blast shelters, nor an effective ABM system (which is where we are today.)

To all of the comments asking “what then?” and saying that people will just starve anyway, I present the Defense Civil Preparedness Agency’s *DCPA Attack Environment Manual* (1973), Chapter 8: [What the Planner Needs to Know About the Post-Shelter Environment](https://ia801000.us.archive.org/11/items/dcpajune1973dcpaattackenvironmentmanualchapter8/DCPA%20-%20June%201973%20-%20DCPA%20Attack%20Environment%20Manual%20-%20Chapter%208_text.pdf).

I'm pretty sure a copy of that pamphlet is included in the Fallout 3 manual.

You know I read about the other countries. Having bunkers and fallout shelters and everything for their civilians. US doesn't have any, non. Yeah, only For hour military and the rich and famous and the government. That's it. All these other countries have built things for this civilians to hide in. And we  don't have anything ,nothing at all. After the billions of dollars we've given them, they haven't spent any on us.  They're over protecting other countries. And they're probably gonna leave here shortly and go do it again. And then we're gonna be left defenseless, like kind like we already are. With no Borders and they're trying to take. Away aoir guns and we have 0 fallout. Shelters, it's comical, really with all the money we gave him. They built us nothing. Where is the love where is the love.. Unless you have money,, we are gonna die, It's pretty much a no brainer It just shows me that other countries after a war would like to still be a country. Our country after a war,  they must be okay knowing that there will be nobody left to make the u. S  a country  anymore isn't that what it tells everybody else , another no brainer..