Would ww3 actually be the end of the world, or would it be another regular war? Obviously the scale of a war between nato and russia, china, whoever would be significantly larger than america and iraq (for example) but would any country actually be stupid enough to use nuclear weapons?
Using nukes sort of defeats the point of going to war doesn’t it? If you turn a country into a radioactive wasteland:
A) they’ll just do it to you as well, and
B) even if they don’t retaliate, there will be nothing left to conquer, so you gain nothing
Modern governments view nuclear exchanges as survivable for the state but not the people.
The datacenters, ports, and supply chains are targets. Starvation kills the ones not killed by direct strike.
After the nuclear exchange, in person invasion with military forces occurs. Nuclear stock piles get built up. This cycle repeats every 100 to 1000 years. Nuclear war is cyclical, we just have not lived through the first cycle and have not seen it happen.
Radiation is reduced in favor of physical damage. Ground burst soot is reduced in favor of air burst damage.