But as everyone who's read about Twilight 2000 knows, even the limited nuclear war dealt immense damage to the world. Countries like Australia, Sweden, Finland etc., you don't even need to use that many (or powerful) nukes to screw them up.
I don't remember where, but somewhere I read that you'd only need about 100 or so nukes to completely destroy the United States as an organized entity, maybe even less. Though it had its flaws, Jericho did a good job in showing how even 23 Hiroshima-size bombs detonated in as many cities could deal a hell of a lot of damage to the U.S. Total nuclear war is like two guys firing rocket launchers at each other: their bodies will blow apart. The limited nuclear war as described in T2K is more like two guys blowing each other's heads off with sniper rifles: the rest of the torso may be intact, but it's no good if your brains are all over the wall.
Considering this, I find it to be no stretch of the imagination to consider that the Russians would have had no problem in expending a few nukes to make sure that Scandinavia (and Australia too, for that matter) would pose no problem for what remained of Russia in the post-nuke world. You can bet that the Americans would have the same policy. Heck, both sides have people whose sole job is to figure out how many nukes are needed and where the targets would be.
P.S: I'll post this later when describing the Nordic countries in the Nordic sourcebook but I might as well post it in brief. While the Finnish Army didn't suffer particularly heavy casualties in the war itself, the ensuing chaos forced the army to split into numerous smaller units in order to better provide order. Also, the collapse in agriculture has caused most of the army to be demobilized in order to provide manpower for agriculture. At the moment the army is in peacetime levels (And it's not as if Russia is in any shape to threaten with invasion.). Oh yes, Finland is run by a military dictator who titles himself as "Marshal of Finland", like the late Marshal Mannerheim. As for Sweden, that country is locked in a messy and brutal civil war between the Royal and Republican armies. So I think it's safe to say that neither army is particularly intact. Well maybe the Finnish army, but it's been drastically scaled back, and is more geared for policing the country than anything else. Oh yes, and the Helsinki Metropolitan Area (meaning Helsinki, Espoo (the 2nd largest city in Finland) and Vantaa) is a no-man's-land, ruled by gangs of criminals, punks, Roma, skinheads and others.
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