These U.S. States Will Be Sacrificed if World War 3 Starts

#themilitaryshow #NuclearWar #RussiaUkraineConflict
🌍 The geopolitical relationships between world powers are at their lowest in decades. With the Russia-Ukraine conflict dragging Western countries into proxy warfare, experts are questioning: Could a nuclear war be imminent? 🌐🕵️‍♂️ Since the 1960s, the U.S. has had a grim plan to use certain states as “nuclear sponges.” Discover the history, strategies, and the chilling possibility of a nuclear conflict. 🚀☢️ #NuclearWar #Geopolitics #ColdWar #RussiaUkraineConflict #WorldPowers #NuclearStrategy #USMilitary #GlobalConflict #History #NuclearWeapons #NATO #Russia #China #NuclearDeterrence
#themilitaryshow

Transcript
Follow along using the transcript.
0:00
The geopolitical relationships between the greatest world powers are at their lowest
0:04
point in decades. The two-year conflict between Russia and Ukraine has resulted in Western
0:10
countries being embroiled in war, if indirectly. The proxy warfare between NATO and Russia (and,
0:15
by extension, China) is strangely reminiscent of the Cold War. It’s no surprise that experts
0:20
are starting to ask the big question - Could a nuclear war actually be about to happen?
0:26
The U.S. has been preparing for this scenario since all the way back in the 1960s.
0:30
And should a war break out it was decided, somewhat grimly,
0:33
that certain states would be used as a “nuclear sponge,” absorbing the bulk of
0:37
opposing nuclear warheads so the country as a whole would have a greater chance to survive.
0:42
And this isn’t just a US plan. Similar strategies have been implemented by
0:46
nuclear-bearing countries around the world. We’ll get to how the US decided which states
0:51
would be put on the nuclear chopping block, but first it’s best to start at the very beginning.
0:55
It all began with experiments by Pierre and Marie Curie, showing that there existed
1:00
elements, namely uranium and radium, that contained huge stores of potential energy
1:05
waiting to be unleashed. The renowned Italian physicist Enrico Fermi then showed that he
1:10
could produce vast amounts of radiation energy by bombarding uranium with neutrons.
1:15
The concept of nuclear fission materialized in 1938 when German chemists Otto Hahn and
1:20
Fritz Strassmann detected barium as a result of uranium neutron bombardment,
1:25
with scientists confirming that barium was being made by the uranium atom splitting into different
1:30
elements. The scientists correctly predicted that since the resulting elements contained
1:34
fewer total neutrons, the reaction also produced free neutrons, which had the capacity to chain
1:39
the reaction in additional uranium elements. Additionally, the reaction released vast amounts
1:44
of energy as it removed the strong nuclear bonds that hold the atoms together. This discovery was
1:49
quickly recognized as a potential tool for both energy production and destruction. But fortunately
1:55
for the US and all of the allied powers in World War 2, the German physicists responsible
1:59
for the early nuclear developments were being actively driven out of Germany by the Nazi regime.
2:04
It would take a letter from Albert Einstein to President Roosevelt on August 2, 1939,
2:09
to officially alert the American government to the actual threat posed by nuclear weapons to both the
2:14
U.S. and the entire world. Since Einstein outlined that the German scientists had the potential
2:19
to develop the nuclear bomb in the near future, the U.S. government decided to spearhead its own
2:24
nuclear research program to counter the threat. This led to the start of the Manhattan Project
2:29
in 1942, one of the costliest U.S. military and research programs of the 20th century.
2:35
The Manhattan Project was ultimately considered a purely defensive measure,
2:39
an attempt to create weapons that would be used not as a way to necessarily destroy the enemy,
2:43
but as a show of force that would deter future aggression. Ultimately, the Manhattan
2:48
Project led to the successful development of a nuclear bomb, with two functional prototypes,
2:53
Little Boy and Fat Man, that were detonated above the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
2:58
killing an estimated 200,000 people. This effectively removed Japan from WWII. However,
3:05
while the bombs ended up being the only examples of nuclear weapons used in combat, this was only
3:10
the beginning of widespread nuclear proliferation. Suddenly, all of the world’s greatest powers
3:15
were vying for the technological and industrial capacity to build nuclear arms. Why did everyone
3:20
want them? Well if you didn’t have access to a nuclear bomb and the other side did,
3:24
you were at a significant disadvantage in any potential conflict. This created
3:29
a paradoxical approach where countries would develop and stockpile significant
3:33
nuclear weapons to deter other countries who had their own stockpiles into launching theirs.
3:38
The nuclear strategy for many countries was ultimately referred to as “mutual assured
3:43
destruction” or MAD, with weapon stockpiles large enough to hopefully negate an opposing force’s
3:48
nuclear capacity before it could be deployed. After WWII, America emerged as one of the world’s
3:54
larges economies, cutting its unemployment rate from 25% before the war to just 2% after and
4:00
nearly tripling its GDP, from $80 billion to $230 billion. The country put its economic prosperity
4:06
into developing more weapons for its defense, allocating a sizable 10% of its budget to the
4:11
military. A figure way above many other countries in the world, which never really stopped (although
4:17
current figures are in the 4% range). This led to the U.S. having close to 30,000 nuclear warheads
4:22
in its stockpiles by 1964, compared to Russia’s 5,200. This was around the same time as the Cuban
4:29
Missile Crisis, which ultimately led to the U.S. and USSR signing the Partial Test Ban Treaty,
4:34
greatly reducing the capacity for testing (and therefore developing) new nuclear weapons.
4:39
The ban on testing bombs above ground and underwater didn’t deter countries from making
4:44
more nuclear weapons though. By 1986, Russia’s stockpile was close to 40,000 nuclear warheads,
4:50
and while the U.S. was decommissioning some of its own, it still had around 22,000 weapons.
4:55
For reference, the five other nuclear armed countries—the U.K., France, China,
5:00
Israel, and South Africa—had fewer than 1,000 warheads combined at the time.
5:04
The main launching platform for nuclear weapons in the 20th century was the ICBM—Intercontinental
5:10
Ballistic Missiles—which could house and detonate a nuclear warhead thousands of miles away and
5:15
strike key tactical and strategic locations of an opposing force in the event of war. ICBMs
5:21
could a;sp conceivably be used from submarines, making them able to strike virtually any target
5:25
on the planet. This meant that potentially, nowhere was truly safe from a nuclear attack.
5:30
To mitigate the threat of nuclear weapons and achieve total dominance, the U.S. concocted a
5:35
plan to centralize its nuclear stockpiles in areas away from the major population
5:39
centers on the American East and West Coasts. Ultimately, this meant that during the Cold War,
5:44
seven states would contain the bulk of nuclear missile silos: Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska,
5:50
Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Missouri. Since ICBMs are stored underground, the reasoning
5:56
of the American government was that keeping the weapons in locations away from major
6:00
political centers of the country would force an opponent (chiefly the USSR) into focusing
6:04
the brunt of its nuclear weapons on the silos. But why was this even considered as a strategy?
6:09
Wouldn’t it have been more effective for the Soviets to drop the bomb in the
6:12
middle of Manhattan or Washington, D.C.? The answer to that is a bit complicated.
6:17
The ICBMs were designed as a counter-threat to the Soviet nuclear weapons. In the event of a
6:21
nuclear war, all the available ICBMs could be deployed within a few hours,
6:26
hopefully annihilating the enemy stockpiles, and thus preventing them from doing the same to the
6:30
U.S. As such, the U.S. government considered that the ICBMs themselves were most likely to
6:35
be the primary target for the enemy to attack. If the Soviets expended all of their weapons to
6:40
attack the country’s population centers, they would be open to a counterattack on their own
6:44
population centers. This would fully exemplify the “mutually assured destruction tactic”.
6:49
There were two primary ICBM types that were siloed in the countries in these states. The first,
6:53
Atlas, is a long-range missile, with a range of around 8,700 miles, while its successor, the Titan
6:59
I and then later the Titan II, had an effective range of roughly 9,300 miles. For reference,
7:05
the distance between Pierre, South Dakota, and Moscow is about 5,100 miles when taking
7:11
the shortest route over the arctic. As such, both types of missiles had more
7:16
than enough range to strike pretty much any major city across the Soviet Union,
7:20
with Moscow likely being among the first targets. The states that the ICBMs were stationed in had
7:25
a few geographical advantages over the major population centers in the U.S too. The first
7:30
is related to them being roughly in the center of the U.S., being relatively far away from both
7:35
the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Since the U.S. anticipated that the most likely attack
7:39
with nuclear weapons would come from submarines or marine carriers, this meant that the enemy
7:44
would need to get relatively close to the U.S. waters to attack. Their being away from the
7:48
coast also meant that the nuclear weapons had a longer time to travel, giving the U.S. aerial
7:53
defense systems more opportunities to detect and hopefully neutralize the threat that came from
7:58
these weapons. And since the states weren’t that populous to begin with and had plenty of available
8:02
land, silos could be placed strategically across them so as to not interfere with the
8:07
people and industrial centers that were there. This meant that these states were ultimately
8:11
seen as necessary sacrifices for the greater good of the country as a whole. If the Soviets were to
8:15
launch nuclear weapons, they would likely have no other choice but to try to attack the silos
8:20
that carried American nukes. This meant that even if they managed to neutralize American
8:24
nuclear weapons, the rest of the country would still have most of its military and naval force
8:29
to continue fighting “traditional” warfare. And since the ICBM silos were quickly identified
8:34
to be among the first possible targets that the Soviets would hit, the U.S. government
8:38
could allocate more resources and land to create effective defenses for them. The silos were buried
8:44
underground with a multi-layer system. Ideally, each silo was designed to require multiple missile
8:49
strikes to eliminate. Through that, the U.S. hoped that the Soviets would exhaust all of
8:53
their available nuclear weaponry trying to take out the silos instead of distributing
8:58
them across the U.S. population centers. This would give the rest of the country enough time
9:02
to regroup and launch a counteroffensive. And since the U.S. was allied with most
9:06
of Western Europe at the time, they could come to America’s aid by declaring war and invading
9:11
the Soviet Union alongside American forces. But the U.S. government didn’t stop there.
9:15
While the seven states were ultimately designed to be the first target of nuclear attacks,
9:20
other strategies were put in place to minimize the losses both in the
9:23
states and across the continental U.S. First off, the national highway system was
9:28
designed in 1956 to evacuate all the major cities across the U.S. The plan was exercised over the
9:34
next 13 years, costing more than $30 billion to implement, making it one of the most expensive
9:39
public works endeavors in American history. Initially, the highway was specifically designed
9:44
with signage and routes that would help people escape the cities in case of an enemy attack.
9:49
The dedicated signs would notify the drivers what exactly to do “in case of enemy attack.”
9:54
But the highway was more than just a method of evacuation. Perhaps even more importantly,
9:58
the roads were designed to provide the U.S. Army with a quick way to travel between the two coasts
10:02
on land, connecting the defensive systems on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the country. To
10:07
bolster this capability, some roads are routed close to key military complexes, such as the
10:12
I-10 and I-70 for the 1st Armored Division and the 1st Infantry Division, respectively.
10:18
Of course, since the nuclear attack never actually came, the highway system was eventually changed
10:22
slightly to better accommodate the people who were using them. The highways allowed people to travel
10:26
further for work, essentially giving rise to the American suburbs, helping to broaden the American
10:31
economy and effectively spread out the most populous cities across a larger area. As such,
10:36
the signage for what to do in the event of a nuclear attack was eventually removed.
10:40
The growth of the suburbs and the ease of movement across the U.S. also had a secondary
10:44
effect of helping to move some people out of the biggest population centers and into the
10:49
countryside. This meant that more people would hopefully be out of the cities if the Soviets
10:53
decided to drop a nuclear missile on the U.S. during the Cold War. This created a new form
10:58
of nuclear defense strategy as one through decentralization. It meant that the U.S.
11:03
could better withstand enemy attacks, which could also apply to traditional warfare and invasions.
11:08
But the same principle also applies to natural disasters. Any loss of life could be minimized
11:13
through rapid evacuation and the fact that more people were already outside of the city centers.
11:18
The second method that the U.S. government used was teaching citizens under potential threat of
11:23
an attack a “duck and cover” policy. Children were instructed to hide under tables or any
11:28
other object to try and avoid debris, while families that could afford it were building
11:31
nuclear shelters in their basements or away from their homes. The policy also
11:35
instituted municipal nuclear shelters that were open to the public in the event of an
11:39
attack. These were based on the notion that the Soviet weaponry would not catastrophically
11:44
decimate the American population, giving people a chance to hide and rebuild in the aftermath.
11:49
To bring the idea closer to home, the Federal Civil Defense Administration, or the FCDA,
11:54
recommended that families should keep a seven-day supply of food and water nearby in case of war.
11:59
The initiative was helpfully dubbed “Grandma’s Pantry,” with slogans such as “Grandma was always
12:04
ready for an emergency.” The ideal “pantry”—a stockpile of the most necessary foods—was
12:08
showcased across the country in stores, exhibits, and fairs, giving the idea broader coverage.
12:14
However, the idea of keeping a seven-day stockpile of food and water on hand wasn’t quite as feasible
12:19
as the government hoped, largely due to the fact that most food items at the time were
12:23
perishable. This meant that the families would likely need to spend significantly more time,
12:28
energy, and budget to restock and keep reusing the recommended foods. Perhaps more importantly,
12:34
most pantries existed inside homes on the ground level. In case of a nuclear attack, the average
12:39
American home wouldn’t fare well and would likely be destroyed, taking grandma’s pantry right along
12:44
with it. Ultimately, the population realized that keeping up with the idea was counterproductive
12:49
and more effective designs needed to be put into effect. The U.S. Department of Agriculture was
12:53
determined to create foods that could be safely stored for prolonged periods without spoiling.
12:58
One of the first such foods was the “all-purpose survival cracker,” which was essentially a bulgur
13:03
wheat biscuit. General Mills also developed “multi-purpose food,” a granulated synthetic
13:08
protein mixture that could be combined with water to create a nutritious meal—at least
13:13
theoretically. The mixture had a sand-like texture and could hardly even be called food
13:18
by conventional standards, but it contained most of the necessary vitamins and minerals that could
13:22
sustain a person for a while. The package that the mixture was sold in contained 24 pint-sized water
13:28
cans, allowing a person to survive for two weeks on one pack. The FCDA estimated that it would take
13:34
roughly two weeks for the radiation levels to drop enough for people to go out of their shelters and
13:39
try to find food. While both types of “disaster foods” were relatively popular and sold in
13:44
significant numbers, many people also resorted to more “traditional” canned food options.
13:49
The other defensive strategy was to popularize and encourage building nuclear shelters. The
13:54
government ran a survey in 1961 to determine existing buildings which could be readily
13:59
converted into nuclear shelters to minimize the cost of building new ones. There was consensus
14:04
that those in the direct blast would likely stand little chance of survival, but that many
14:08
casualties could be prevented through effective shelters being built across the country away from
14:13
the densely populated cities. Another idea was to provide the population with relevant
14:18
information on how to build a dedicated private nuclear shelter, ideally with two to three feet
14:23
of concrete shielding. The government handed out pamphlets with step-by-step instructions.
14:28
When combined, the private and public shelters were theorized to be able to save 50 million
14:33
Americans from a nuclear strike. Going any further and building fully reinforced nuclear shelters en
14:38
masse would’ve cost the government too much, especially considering that it was spending
14:42
significant amounts on defense already. This meant that the nuclear shelters were ultimately
14:47
a half-measure designed to curb panic and provide potential relief by giving people an opportunity
14:52
to save themselves or “roll the dice.” This brings us back to the idea of why
14:57
the U.S. government decided to place its nuclear weapon silos where it did in the first place. The
15:02
perceived main advantage that the U.S. could use in the event of nuclear war was that of geography.
15:07
Due to a significantly lopsided population distribution, the countries in the center
15:11
of the continental U.S. were seen as the least of all evils, minimizing the potential life loss and
15:16
the resulting political fallout. So, would any of this planning
15:20
have actually made a difference? Since the threat of nuclear war prompted
15:23
both sides of the Cold War to fully commit to the idea of mutually assured destruction, ultimately
15:28
this created the illusion of absolute safety. The stockpiling of missiles in the countries
15:33
in the Great Plains only served to enhance this assurance. In the event of total nuclear war,
15:38
the U.S. hoped that the Soviet Union would exhaust most of its weapons in trying to eliminate the
15:42
American nuclear capabilities, thus ensuring that the rest of the country could be relatively safe.
15:48
The key word here is relatively, because even if the Soviets amassed all their
15:52
weapons to destroy the stockpiles, the rest of the country would still receive
15:56
potentially deadly doses of radiation. If a missile stockpile were to be bombed
16:00
by nuclear weapons, the Soviets would likely commit two nuclear warheads per silo to ensure
16:05
that the surrounding shielding is pierced. The bombs would be detonated close to the
16:09
ground for maximum effect, and the resulting shockwave will create an implosive effect that
16:14
sucks in dirt from the ground and mixes it with radioactive particles from the weapon itself. The
16:19
vaporized mixture forms the tell-tale mushroom cloud, which can rise for miles and get swept
16:24
away by the wind. High-altitude winds could carry the fission material for hundreds or
16:29
even thousands of miles, rapidly spreading radioactivity throughout North America.
16:34
While most studies conducted during the Cold War focused on the nuclear fallout
16:38
of a single or relatively few nuclear strikes, they confirmed that the winds could play a vital
16:42
role in making parts of the North American continent virtually inhospitable for days
16:47
following the nuclear explosions. Current simulations using advanced computational
16:52
capabilities and more accurate predictive models paint an even more harrowing picture.
16:57
Scientists from Princeton University used historical records of wind speeds and
17:01
directions on several days in 2021 to map out the fallout dispersal in the event of
17:06
nuclear war. The scenario they concocted was of an 800-kiloton bomb being dropped on each of the
17:12
450 silos located in three key Air Force bases. For reference, Little Boy—the bomb dropped on
17:18
Hiroshima—had an approximate power of 15 kilotons, so they were looking at one 50 times bigger.
17:25
According to their calculations, a concerted nuclear attack on the silos could only kill
17:29
between around 340,000 and 4.6 million people in the first four days. However, the adverse
17:35
effects could be felt by people living in Canada or Mexico, depending on which way the wind blows
17:40
in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Even a more moderate scenario predicts that the entire
17:45
U.S. population would receive more radiation than the current allotted yearly limit for the public.
17:50
In a simulated worst-case scenario, with variable and high winds, the whole of continental North
17:55
America could potentially receive a deadly dose of radiation. The simulation itself
18:00
doesn’t account for the actual radioactive material of the bomb at the detonation site.
18:05
This would result in the populations close to the silos having a near-universal 100% death
18:10
rate in the weeks following the nuclear attack. Of course, the simulation can only do so much to
18:15
predict the actual death toll in the event of an attack, and the results have shown to vary
18:19
greatly depending on the weather patterns. Furthermore, the simulation has limited
18:23
itself to a single large bomb being dropped on each of the silos. The current Russian nuclear
18:28
arsenal has at least 700 nuclear warheads with a power rated at 800 kilotons or greater. This
18:34
would mean that if Russia was adamant on cutting off the American nuclear arsenal at its core,
18:39
the actual scale and power of the attack would be greater than the one shown in the simulation.
18:43
The worst-case scenario from Princeton could turn out to be only a middling one.
18:48
This all is based on the assumption that Russia would indeed only target the nuclear-bearing
18:52
silos located in Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana, and North Dakota—states that currently
18:58
host them as the spread of silos was further reduced after the plan’s inception. However,
19:03
more recent estimates show that the U.S. contains far more eligible targets
19:07
for a nuclear attack than just silos. A map published in 2015 by CBS though,
19:12
claims that the warheads would have a much wider dispersal, with many being aimed at the largest
19:17
cities and metropolitan areas, including New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C.,
19:21
San Francisco, Houston, Chicago, Dallas-Fort Worth, Miami, and Philadelphia. The map also
19:27
showcases the location of over 90 nuclear power plants in the U.S., which are primarily located
19:32
in the eastern states that house roughly 80% of the country’s total population. These could be
19:37
very well considered auxiliary targets since the nuclear fuel could be detonated with a
19:42
smaller bomb to emulate a larger one, effectively enhancing the initial strike with more radioactive
19:47
material and spreading fallout farther away. One of the map’s supposed sources for the data,
19:52
the Federal Emergency Management Administration, or FEMA, claims that it hasn’t produced an
19:57
official map but that it regularly updates pamphlets with instructions on how to
20:01
prepare for a catastrophe, including nuclear explosions. This means that the U.S. government
20:06
is still perceiving the threat of nuclear war as something very real, even if the actual likelihood
20:11
of Putin dropping bombs on America is low. Which brings us to today, where the current
20:15
geopolitical situation on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation policies is also at an all-time
20:21
low. The world powers worked closely during and immediately after the Cold War, disbanding most
20:26
of its nuclear weaponry. The policies had a marked effect on reducing the number of
20:31
nuclear warheads from over 76,000 in the mid-80s to around 12,500 today. However, the previous
20:38
decade of political tension between China, NATO, Russia, India, Pakistan, and the Middle East has
20:44
largely degraded these nonproliferation pacts. Only one such policy remains, the New START,
20:50
which limits the U.S. and Russia in how many nuclear warheads they could deploy in their
20:54
armed forces. However, Putin announced that Russia would discontinue its participation in the policy,
20:59
preventing NATO from inspecting Russian nuclear weapons facilities and capabilities,
21:04
as well as stop notifying the U.S. about new nuclear warhead developments. The country’s
21:08
foreign ministry has announced that Russia would continue to abide by the policy’s warhead quantity
21:13
limits and would notify the U.S. on launches. With the New START ending in 2026, there are only
21:19
two more years where the U.S. will have meaningful information about Russia’s nuclear arsenal,
21:24
and even that information has become limited from Russia’s suspension of notifications
21:28
and preventing NATO inspections. After that, the major nuclear powers of the world will
21:33
become disconnected once again, potentially plunging into another Cold War. Only this time,
21:38
Putin is determined to unite former Soviet countries together and might
21:42
stop at nothing to achieve this plan. Even a limited nuclear exchange between
21:46
the biggest players would have transformative effects on the entire world. As little as 100
21:52
detonations centered on the biggest cities could drastically lower global temperatures and push the
21:57
world into a severe famine that could kill more than 250 million people. A total nuclear war could
22:03
spell doom for the human race. This pressure puts the impetus on the countries with nuclear
22:08
warheads to effectively communicate and create dependable information channels and assurances
22:13
about nuclear nonproliferation. Otherwise, the Cold War nuclear growth could begin anew,
22:18
with countries bolstering their nuclear capacities to prepare for the worst-case scenario in the name
22:23
of dissuasion and public security. And after that, no states or countries would be left untouched.
22:29
But what do you think? Is Putin building up for a nuclear war? Is the threat of nuclear
22:33
war more realistic than during the Cold War? And what’s the best way to survive should the
22:38
bombs start flying? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below and thank you for watching.
22:43
Now go check out Russia's Top Nuke Targets or click this other video instead!