Quote:
Originally Posted by Badbru
Seriously wouldn't both side want to be a little bit cautious about how many nukes get thrown around? Both the US and Soviets, heck even Europe, know
for certain they're going to get nuked somewhere and after that they're going to need intact friends to help them out. I can't think of a better way to destroy international relations than to drop a nuke on someone. Also cannon states the main two beligerants inched their way towards nuclear warfare in order to avoid the dreaded MAD massive exchange. As such I guess I'm a proponent of the less damaged approach, atleast to the not strickly involved in the war areas, such as Africa, South America, and Australia. Even Portugal and Spain get off lightly in my T2k environment.
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Large parts of Africa are already halfway to Mad Max as it is. A handful of nukes is all it takes to upend the applecart. The v1 chronology tells us that both sides are willing to nuke targets in neutral countries to deny the enemy access to resources.
As for the balance of nuking, let’s remember that we’re talking the USSR here. Once they take a few hits, the surviving leadership is going to be thinking about the future. The chances for the Soviet Union to emerge in a favorable position are diminished by every other player who enters the recovery period in a better condition than the USSR. This is why the Soviets hit France, although France probably gets an even lighter treatment than the US. The Soviets will have very little to lose by giving Western allies in Africa a taste of the nuclear fire, since the Africans can’t retaliate. If the West reads the code, then they strike Soviet clients in the region. Very little skin off the Soviets’ nose. At the very least, the Soviets would want to render African electronics and power generation as inert as much of the Soviet system. The number of attacks on African cities, bases, and infrastructure might be very small. Pretoria, Johannesburg, Cape Town, the Nigerian oil shipping facilities… it doesn’t take a lot to take the pro-Western Africans out of the equation. Perhaps a few tacnukes are used against specific South African bases and the bases of any other pro-Western African nation with the resources to be a problem. Again, a handful will do the job.
Having Africans “taken out of the equation” doesn’t mean the place is completely wrecked. There’s plenty of room for things exactly like the operation in Kenya. But in many places, the ability of government to control the hinterlands was pretty weak already. Many of the African nations will fragment into much more organic states. Oil and electricity will become even scarcer throughout the continent. Civil war and civil disorder, which lurked just beneath the surface in many locations, will become pandemic. Of course, there will be islands of peace and relative prosperity. However, clients of both sides and the neutrals will become completely wrapped up in their own very local concerns.