[Legbreaker]

I'd just like to stress that the books state neutral countries were hit in with nukes to deny their facilities and resources to the enemy. This tells me that while not wiped off the face of the planet as the belligerent countries effectively were, France, Switzerland, and all the other neutrals aren't going to be in much shape to supply their own needs, let alone export anything beyond despair and refugees.

They certainly weren't hit anywhere near as hard as those actually involved in the fighting, but to me that just means they'll have a leg up - perhaps a 10 year head start in reconstruction.

It's worth noting however that after WWII, the loosing countries came back fairly strong (after a couple of decades of reconstruction) while the winning countries economies went into decline. Simplified, this was because their outdated factories were flattened and when rebuilt, updated to the latest technology, while those who retained their old factories found that in the 70's and 80's they were up for some very significant upgrading costs. I believe this was one of the causes behind the unemployment problems of the time.

Of course in T2K, those countries which were flattened, aren't going to get the assistance the countries of the 40's and 50's did and therefore reconstruction and recovery is going to be orders of magnitude more difficult and slow.