first strike

Sounds like a plan, to our insane politicians anyway...

If the USA or the Russian Federation would start off a full first strike attack on the other, it would be detected by the antagonist a few minutes after its start, which would leave just a few precious minutes for the attacked power to counterattack and launch a considerable fraction of its static arsenal in silos towards the attacker. Thereby, in effect, the "first strike" would almost immediately become a reciprocal, symmetric "first strike" for both sides. The shields on both sides might block off a considerable part of the incoming missiles.

Let us be optimistic, say 95% of the incoming ICBM's, cruise missiles etc would be intercepted. Say 2,000 weapons would be sent in this attempted "first strike" from both sides. Then, 5% would get through. So, one hundred nuclear weapons of, say, one hundred kilotons would reach the towns and the main weapon systems of the adversary. Hitting the silos would be of no avail, because these would now be empty, since about a quarter of an hour before their missiles would have left the silo. Half of the pack would hit towns, both in the USA and Russia.

Among these towns, Moscow, New York, St. Petersburg, San Francisco would be the first to be utterly destroyed. But count 48 more cities on both sides to be destroyed. After this first hit, more ICBM's in submarines etc. would be launched. The quantity of radioactive dust reaching the stratosphere will then build a cloud blocking a part of the sunlight from reaching the soil everywhere on the planet for many months to come. A nuclear winter will ensue. The plants on the fields will stop growing, agriculture will crumble everywhere on the globe, and general famine will then starve a considerable fraction of Mankind, say 99%.

This will leave about one hundred million Humans to start Civilisation afterwards. Electricity will be restored in many places within ten years, agriculture will resume, local transportation too. Seven billion Humans will be dead, among which the greater part will be those who started the "first strike" ... A century after this happens, a world population of two hundred million will start to rebuild Humanity ...