What would happen to civilization and humanity in general if Cold War turned hot (nukes are used)?

What would happen to civilization and humanity in general if Cold War turned hot (nukes are used)?

It would probably have been better than today.

I've heard it said a lot that if the US and the Soviet Union launched all their nukes it would end humanity but would it really? wouldn't they only be aimed at eachother and allied countries that also had nukes? so wouldn't South America, Africa and South Asia remain untouched and only have to suffer through the climate being fucked up?

>What are air currents
Oh no user the entire northern hemisphere would be fucked and so would the southern hemsphere is onlly of that fallout were to leak down there and theres the fact the fallout can make the rain in the pacific ocean radioactive, this radiation is now in the water and can get to South America, you driink this water enjoy your tumor and mutant children, you literally cant escape it.

If nukes are so deadly how come people are able to live in Hiroshima? They say Chernobyl is so fucked, but how did they manage to get both of them into liveable cities in relatively short time? Im not saying nukes are incredibly dangerous to humanity, but if anybody can point me in the direction of materials that would answer my questions itd be very appreciated.

Didn't we read all these books and see these movies in the 60s & 70s.

"On the Beach". We're all going to Australia to wait to die.

Go to the library.

>What would happen to civilization and humanity in general if Cold War turned hot (nukes are used)?
It would be a massive setback but it wouldn't be a total collapse of civilization. It probably wouldn't even be collapse-of-Rome tier. Worse than WW2 but humans (and the planet) are incredibly resiliant.

It might even lead to cultural reforms that ultimately benefited us (a la the black death) but who knows. I doubt it would be a mad max scenario.

Radioactivity is a meme.

Over 4000 nuclear tests have been performed to this day in several different places on Earth: the Pacific Ocean, mainland America, Algeria, India, China, North Russia, just too mention a few.

Now now, does any of this radioactivity affect us today? Unless you plan on spending your retirement on ground 0 of a nuclear test site, the answer is no, it doesn't.

Radioactivity would account for something arround 0.5% of all the fucks the USSR and USA would give about a MAD scenario.

I forgot to mention that most nukes tested during the Cold War were hundreds of times more powerful than the nuclear warheads present in today nuclear arsenals.

Most warheads of the 21st century are strictly made for tactical targets, whilst those of the Cold War had strategic purposes.

>Now now, does any of this radioactivity affect us today? Unless you plan on spending your retirement on ground 0 of a nuclear test site, the answer is no, it doesn't.
I'm this user so I'm not some apocalypticist but I would bet that there's been an increase in cancer rates. Nothing catastrophic but probably noticeable if we'd had the ability/desire to catalog cancer rates hundreds of years ago for comparison.

Fun fact, most of the nuclear tests were done underground. :)

Strategic not Tactical. Tactical Nuclear Weapons were phased out when Bush 41 signed the SALT II treaty.

Singles of truth, 2 days after a nuke the radiation level has dropped to 1/100th of its peak, after 2 weeks 1/1000th.

The "nuclear fallout takes 2000 years to go away" maymay leaves out that 1999.9 of those years have barely above average background radiation.

It greatly depends.
A nuclear war is no different than a conventional war, in that it can be a small war fought with a small contigent of forces, or a big war with full mobilization. What that means in nuclear warfare is that you could either be exchanging one nuke at time in a regional conflict with tactical targets, or it could be a seriously fucked up MAD scenario involving NATO, the USSR and China.
An obvious claim to make is that the Western world's main cities - New York, London, Paris, Rome, etc, all the way up to Provence, Lisbon, Naples, and smaller cities, would be erradicated, and this would have a lasting impact on the world's economy and demographics. Developing nations could start becoming relevant much sooner, or if either US or the USSR comes up as a winner of this war, they would immediatly engulf the rest of the world. There's a lot of possibilities to mentally explore.

Some third world countries were greatly alligned to either USA or USSR, even if not directly allied, which makes them potential targets. Even completely neutral nations are targerts. In a MAD scenario, it is your country's best interest to ensure that, even after you and your enemy are dead forever, no one else will be able to claim the throne of superpower, so might as well just kill all of humanity.

If no third world countries are a target, they would still suffer economically, because the West is their main source of importations for agricultural products and mineral ores, and also, where third world imports machinery and finished products from.

See
I agree.

I swapped tactical for strategical for vice versa.
In Russian military language it's used the other way I arround, I guess you could call this an excuse.

Is it a coincidence that you are Russian posting the picture of a Russian vehicle bearing a nuke in a thread about nukes?

Who knows.

After a nuclear war, the big thing to worry about is a famine more than anything else with all the dust being blown into the atmosphere, lowering sunlight which also lowers global temperatures.

humanity dies

Civilization would instantly end in a best-case scenario.

fuck off we're full

It would have been fucking metal