What's the population of the world if the Cuban Missile Crisis went hot?

[Terranical]

How realistic would the population be if the Cuban Missile Crisis escalated to a Global War which then became a Nuclear War, killing millions of people. Realistically the USSR would fall but the USA would survive but losing majority of it's population, basically losing it's economy and etc.

What else in the world would be impacted by the Cuban Missile Crisis? Would China be impacted by the war (Sino-Indian War of 1962 occurred at the same time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, would the Soviets assist India by nuking China?) What would the population be afterwards when all of the Northern Hemisphere was taken down by a Nuclear Holocaust.

 

[TimTurner]

How realistic would the population be if the Cuban Missile Crisis escalated to a Global War which then became a Nuclear War, killing millions of people. Realistically the USSR would fall but the USA would survive but losing majority of it's population, basically losing it's economy and etc.

What else in the world would be impacted by the Cuban Missile Crisis? Would China be impacted by the war (Sino-Indian War of 1962 occurred at the same time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, would the Soviets assist India by nuking China?) What would the population be afterwards when all of the Northern Hemisphere was taken down by a Nuclear Holocaust.

South America, Africa, India might benefit by default, due to the fact that as largely unaligned/unimportant regions, they are at less risk of suffering nuclear winter.

 

[Hnau]

Nuclear winter is always underestimated. With just a couple hundred nukes detonated, winters are going to be terrible for the next few years after and atmospheric ozone will be depleted. That means hundreds of millions dying from skin cancer and starvation. How nations can keep order with such conditions, none of the other consequences of nuclear considered, I have no idea.

 

[walmart]

Africa, India might benefit by default, due to the fact that as largely unaligned/unimportant regions, they are at less risk of suffering nuclear winter.

Are they self-sufficient in food production?

 

[redeclipse]

I think I read an account from a US missile launch worker in Okinawa who was told to aim missiles at China and North Korea during the Cuban so they'd get it.

 

[FBKampfer]

Basically nowhere survives in its current form.

India likely breaks apart, assuming it does get hit as a former UK colony and major stopover in the Indian Ocean. And she's probably the most likely to survive a nuclear winter intact.

Assuming everything goes bonkers, nukes are ripple fired into targets, and nobody leaves any bullets in the chamber, literally everywhere is a little bit fucked. Depending specifically how it goes down, you might well see something on the order of 2 billion dead after all the aftershocks settle down.

 

[M79]

3.12 billion before any war starts.

About 35% live in urban areas.

(http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/world-population-by-year/).

Personally I think the US will "win" losing only about a dozen sites, two dozen at most, maybe as few as three (and most of those that do get through are one-way attacks via M4 bombers). USSR gets decimated to the point the US is reviled for a generation regardless of how it happens.

US has 3500 warheads and 203 missiles capable of reaching the USSR while the Russians have maybe 600 warheads and 36 missiles theoretically capable of reaching US soil and they require a lead time to fuel, *maybe* enough to be taken out before launch. US has over 1300 bombers able to reach the USSR and some are already in the air while the USSR has fewer than 140 able to do so.

(https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/07/10/what-was-at-stake-in-1962/)

Overall I think the 5%-95% confidence interval is between 0.6 and 1.2 billion dead between immediate death, fallout, disruption in supply chains, and internacine warfare that results (India and Pakistan, Sub-Saharan Africa, etc.) when the world order shifts South. South Africa, Brazil, and India are the new powers with Japan, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and Pakistan closely behind. Egypt, Colombia, Persia, Malaysia, Chile, Indonesia, and Mexico make up the next tier of powers.

US survives and may even grow into rump Canada if Russian bombers mistake Montreal or Toronto for New York or Philadelphia (or just get shot down there with nukes that subsequently go off). But it's a (largely self-sufficient and mostly intact) pariah state for a generation. This may kick-start the environmental movement and promote limited growth or emphasize the space program in a way not realized in OTL.

 

[Thon Taddeo]

In the long term, the green revolution probably does not happen, which would decrease significant population growth.

 

[GDIS Pathe]

But it's a (largely self-sufficient and mostly intact) pariah state for a generation. This may kick-start the environmental movement and promote limited growth or emphasize the space program in a way not realized in OTL.

Most of Europe can't afford to piss off the US so the UK and whatever surviving European states are basically American allies by default, Latin America can't afford to piss off the US because of economic ties and much of Africa has to lean on the US for food aid or starves the US isn't gonna be pariah the resources of continental North America are far too important

 

[bernardz]

I think I read an account from a US missile launch worker in Okinawa who was told to aim missiles at China and North Korea during the Cuban so they'd get it.

I recall reading such reports too. If a nuclear war did break out it was going to be global.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_and_Control_(book)

 

[Alternator]

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-cuban-missile-war-timeline.65071/

 

[marathag]

Nuclear winter is always underestimated. With just a couple hundred nukes detonated, winters are going to be terrible for the next few years after and atmospheric ozone will be depleted. That means hundreds of millions dying from skin cancer and starvation. How nations can keep order with such conditions, none of the other consequences of nuclear considered, I have no idea.

False, it's over estimated. Sagan's theory was shown to be false

Compare what Tambora did in 1815 with that eruption, far more particulate matter and sulfur compounds into the stratosphere that if every warhead was used in a groundburst and every city had a firestorm.

After all, a couple hundred nukes were shot off in open air tests, and no Winter. Same for WWII, all those cities burned, limited effects.

Mankind has the effect of firecrackers compared to large volcanic events.

Now from the Iceland to Germany, will be targets of the 3300 odd warheads of the USSR will be able to use, in place of the 27,000 the US was planning to dump on the USSR, Pact Nations, DPRK and China

So eliminate 75-90% of those populations within a year

The USSR, wouldn't be able t get many warheads to CONUS, as that was the driving force putting Missiles in Cuba in the first place.
Fallout would have been the problem for North America

 

[M79]

Now from the Iceland to Germany, will be targets of the 3300 approx. 350 odd warheads of the USSR will be able to use, in place of the 2700 approx. 1500 the US was planning to dump on the USSR, Pact Nations, DPRK and China

So eliminate 75%-90% approx. 35% of those populations within a year

The USSR, wouldn't be able t get many warheads to CONUS, as that was the driving force putting Missiles in Cuba in the first place.

Fallout would have been the problem for North America

Fixed that for you. Devastating to be sure but not what was described initially.

 

[Barry Bull]

Nuclear winter is always underestimated. With just a couple hundred nukes detonated, winters are going to be terrible for the next few years after and atmospheric ozone will be depleted. That means hundreds of millions dying from skin cancer and starvation. How nations can keep order with such conditions, none of the other consequences of nuclear considered, I have no idea.

Source, preferably peer-reviewed, if you can. What you said is definitely not mainstream scientific opinion.

 

[Cockroach]

False, it's over estimated. Sagan's theory was shown to be false

The "Go direct to last glacial maximum. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200"-type nuclear winter of the early theories and popular perception has been pretty thoroughly busted. The 1-5 years of moderately (0.5-1C) reduced global average temperature seems more robust but is still highly sensitive to assumptions about how much crap is created (A.K.A. counter-force vs counter-value weighting of the strike and how vulnerable cities are/were to firestorms) and how much of the crap gets high enough in the atmosphere to be a medium-term problem (A.K.A. unexplored fluid dynamics above a firestorm).

I expect at least one or two poor growing seasons are likely. I'd suspect a lightly damaged US or unhit area like Australia would be able to cope with only minor losses to famine but probably at the cost of curtailed agricultural exports which would be bad news for much of Asia, Africa and whatever survives in Europe.

 

[RightHoJeeves]

It depends on the exact sequence of events that leads to the crisis going nuclear. There aren't enough nukes on the Soviet side to destroy the world in 1962, only Western Europe and some ICBMs directed at the CONUS.

If the US strikes first the Soviet Union loses the majority of its second strike capability on the ground such was the state of their nuclear capabilities in 1962. The US might optimistically lose no major cities.

In a worst case scenario the US loses about as much of their population as the Soviet Union did in WWII, upwards of 27 million and substantial damage to major cities and industry but nothing that the country can't come back from in a decade or two.

The Soviet Union will be a wasteland since SAC will keep bombing until they run out of targets to hit. Western Europe is also hit hard by short range nukes.

Latin America and Africa are fine, Asia will depend on whether the US restrains itself from smearing Red China. In 1962 the assumption was that all communists are on the same team so they're also on the hit list unless the Commander-in-Chief decides to spare them.

So it would be ugly but not the Apocalypse like a nuclear war in 1983 would be.

 

[marathag]

Fixed that for you. Devastating to be sure but not what was described initially.

3300 was the total they had, but most were tactical for the short range battlefield and cruise missiles.
For the US, had 27609 for all types, from the Davy Crockett Nuke on a Jeep, to the15MT City killers in the B-52s

There are indications that General Power of SAC was planning to do his own version of SIOP, with Moscow Metro area due for around a gigaton or so of attention from SAC, and that's not counting if the USN Polaris would have added to that party

 

[marathag]

I expect at least one or two poor growing seasons are likely. I'd suspect a lightly damaged US or unhit area like Australia would be able to cope with only minor losses to famine but probably at the cost of curtailed agricultural exports which would be bad news for much of Asia, Africa and whatever survives in Europe.

Plus Fallout concerns.
Not so good for crazing cattle, and up the food chain

 

[HB of CJ]

We now know what Kennedy knew then that the Soviet nuclear AT THAT TIME was not spinning up to speed. Only a few, (less than 6) of the huge non accurate non reliable city buster H-bombs Missiles the Commies had would have landed on or near the USA. By comparison is has been determined that about one half of the USA missiles would have worked as designed.

SAC would probably have gotten about 25% of its bombers to some target inside the USSR. The results of all of this? Millions dead inside the USA and certainly that number inside the USSR. Total losses? Nobody knows. It would have been very bad but NOT nearly as bad as the nuclear detractors would have predicted. Remember the USSR had great civil defense.

The USA had practically none. Russia backed down because they knew they would have lost big time. Kennedy pushed and won because he also knew this. I as a kid remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. Los Angeles CA USA. Not a good place to be. It all turned out OK but it was a scary time in our Nations History. A long time ago. All of us were very lucky indeed.

 

[marathag]

Remember the USSR had great civil defense.

The USA had practically none.

By time of the the CMC, Washington DC had around a half dozen Public public shelters, to around 1000 with capacity for a half million in three years

Here's a good introduction on what the US did with CD