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Comment by TheCleric | Hacker News Reader

The US is no saint to be sure, but this goes both ways. I was aware growing up I’d be vaporized if nuclear war ever broke out seeing as I lived right next to a major Air Force base.

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I grew up near the Cold Regions Research and Evaluation Laboratory in New Hampshire, and we (schoolkids) were told that our little town would be a primary target because “that’s where they study how we could survive a nuclear winter.” I’ve never actually figured out whether that claim is reasonable.

Back then every area claimed to be near a primary target due to some reasoning or another. Some of the stated reasons were more plausible than others, but the reality is there were far more of these claims than there could be primary targets.

> the reality is there were far more of these claims than there could be primary targets

The USSR peaked at nearly 40,000 nuclear weapons, one for every 10,000 people in the US with 15,000 to spare for allies.

I suppose it depends on one's definition of "primary target". There's a difference between "target viewed as more important than most others" and "well shit, everything is gonna get nuked anyways"

A substantial fraction of those weapons were considered "Tactical" or "Battlefield" and could not easily reach the North American mainland. Europe, on the other hand...

Cold War Joke: Q: How can you tell if a nuclear explosion is strategic or tactical? A: It is tactical if it explodes in Germany.

Remember, towns in Germany average 7kt apart.

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