It seems that being in a major city such as London or New York makes it much more likely that one dies in case of nuclear war than in the countryside or in a smaller town.
Also, some people seem to think that certain countries are much safer from nuclear war than others (e.g., compare New Zealand to the US), which also makes sense.
What seems much less clear to me is how large the difference in risk really is.
How would you model the probability of dying from nuclear war as a function of the distance from a major city in Europe or the US?
How would you estimate the a priori difference in risk of dying from a nuclear war between the highest and lowest-risk countries? Which are those countries?
I very much appreciate being linked to any resources that are useful for answering this question!
If you believe the most apocalyptic nuclear winter scenarios, which project a 10-degree C reduction in northern hemisphere temperatures for years in the case of a full nuclear exchange, the vast majority of deaths will come from starvation. Thus, most deaths will be from countries dependent on food imports, no stockpiles, low ability to expand land under cultivation, and low fertilizer production.
That sounds a lot like the Middle East. The developed countries in the northern hemisphere will likely use their industrial wealth and agricultural know-how to help countries in the tropics like Brazil convert rainforests into farmland, but there will still be food shortages. Countries like Egypt simply have little to exchange for food that is now bid up to extreme prices.
Highest risk are probably NATO airbases in Poland, Slovakia, and Romania used to supply and support Ukraine. There may also be nuclear retaliation against north German naval bases. They’re more likely to attack smaller American cities first before escalating.
Disagree. Nuclear attacks on NATO, let alone US cities, is already escalated to full retaliatory engagement. Nuclear war won’t be a gradual escalation—it’ll be small-scale and “tolerable” by the US and allies until it’s not, at which point it’s a step-change to armageddon.
If whoever is running Russia is suicidal, sure, but if they still want to win, it might make sense to use strategic weapons tactically to force the other side to accept a stalemate right up to the end.
Yup, it’s tricky to know what’s “tolerable”, and there’s also an option for deniable terrorist use of “stolen” nukes. But in any case, it won’t be a gradual escalation—use of nukes against a NATO member or on US soil is the classic Schelling line that can’t be crossed slowly. (Literally; that’s a large part of Thomas Schelling’s work).
I didn’t realize there was an automatic threshold of total retaliation the moment Russia nukes Ramstein air base.
it’s called mutually assured destruction for a reason.