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I'm sure I've heard the idea that nuclear arsenals can kill us all a hundred times over, or similar. Obviously my half-remembering isn't evidence, but if other people had heard this sort of thing, it would be evidence of a popular idea, however wrong. Even allowing for the larger arsenals at the height of the cold war.

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Today arsenals are so much smaller than during the Cold War. Both the US and the USSR had almost 70K warheads; today they have 1600 each. Reading about SIOP plans makes you realize how hard the US planned to hit the USSR; I have no doubts the Soviets had similar plans. Today, 3200 warheads can ruin your day; but 140K warheads (discounting the relatively small number of Chinese/French/UK warheads) would ruin all but the Southern Hemisphere.

The thing is 70,000 wouldn’t get launched because both sides would be targeting nuclear facilities in a first strike.

Ok, say 10% fails upon launch or fails to detonate. Now you're down to 63K per side. Say each side reserves 50% for targets of opportunity, they've each launched 31K warheads. Goodbye civilization.

The UN reports that there are currently 580 cities in the world with populations greater than 1M. Doesn't take many warheads or launchers to wipe those out.

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