The US and Russia have drawn up plans on how to best wage nuclear war against each other, and while large population centers with huge cultural impact may seem like obvious choices, strategists believe a nuclear attack will focus on countering the enemy’s nuclear forces — destroying them before they can counter-attack… Even if every single US intercontinental ballistic missile silo, stockpiled nuclear weapon, and nuclear-capable bomber were flattened, US nuclear submarines could — and would — retaliate. According to Schwartz, at any given time, the US has four to five nuclear-armed submarines “on hard alert, in their patrol areas, awaiting orders for launch.” Even high-ranking officials in the US military don’t know where the silent submarines are, and there’s no way Russia could chase them all down before they fired back, which Schwartz said could be done in as little as 5 to 15 minutes. But a strike on a relatively sparsely populated area could still lead to death and destruction across the US, depending on how the wind blew. That’s because of fallout… (READ MORE)

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