I'm thinkin it would generally be pretty bad all things considered. At least I don't see many up-sides to it.

your really exaggerating. it depends on the nuke and the size of the city, but a standard say 750kt weapon which are the average weapon for most nuclear countries would (surface burst) totally destroy about 4km from the centre, and damage lightly up to about 7km. much of a large city would be left standing. but take a 20mt (currently non-existant we hope) weapon and you may get up to 12km destroyed and 20km lightly damaged. casualties would exceed this though due to infra-red and gamma radiation - maybe 75 miles 100% fatalities from the radiation. nb these figures arent entirely accurate since all nuclear weapon data available conflicts with each other

Can a nuke be intercepted my a missile... i dont know

There is also more to consider than just the physical damage. Let’s assume that it was in New York. What do you think the people of Chicago and LA would be doing ten minutes after the blast? I would think that most with the means would be evacuating in the fear that they were in eminent danger themselves. Not only do you lose your largest city, but instantaneously the top ten cities in the country become paralyzed. Streets clog with cars and traffic comes to a standstill. Supermarkets, gun shops, hunting stores all become insane centers of frenzied buying (at best). More likely panic, rioting and looting will occur as the survival instinct kicks in and everyone tries to get the supplies that they think they will need, but certainly are not available in the quantity desired. Those who cannot escape these cities may lock themselves in their homes. At the very least, how many are going to go to work? What happens with the ten largest cities in the country shut down? Think also of the economic damage caused by 9/11. That was just a couple of buildings. New York houses some of the largest financial institutions in the world. It is the world headquarters for countless companies. They are all out of business. The goods and services that they provided are no longer available. The NYSE doesn’t open, how do you get your money out? How many years will it take to reconstruct the records that are lost? What happens to the value of the dollar? What about the communications and electric grids that shutdown in an area much larger than the blast radius. (Due to loss of equipment, not EMP) What about political damage? This wouldn’t be a bad time for a few bad guys to launch some offensives. I wouldn’t recommend that China make a move on Taiwan, lest they be confused for the perpetrators, but certainly Indonesia could crush east timor with virtual impunity. OPFOR’s article is scary, to be sure, but I think that it would be only a small part of overall damage.

Or in the heat of the aftermath the US military decides is time to start the human race over from square one. kinda of a "if we go we take you with us" general warning.

That article seems hopelessly flawed on one count: from my understanding, within zones where temperatures would go high enough to ignite a major fire, thered be nothing left to burn. Depends on who you ask, I suppose. But I dont recall any reports of widespread fire damage coming out of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Hell, no mention of fire at all, outside of the blast of course.

AM, it's been over 20 years since I read it, but I think "Hiroshima" (by Seymour Hirsch?) vividly described the massive fire that burned down Hiroshima and was likely the cause of a large part (as in maybe the majority) of the total casualties. So many people were leaping into canals to escape the heat that they were drowning each other, as I recall. Displacedjim

If Russia or China would attack USA there will be total chaos on earth. Well, I don't think China is very big threat to USA, but Russia is. Think about the cold war. Everybody was saying: "It's a question of time". That means that world will die. It's just question of time when. And who will strike first...Russia or USA. And one more thing. Everybody is talking about that USA or Russia is better. Russai is not stronger than USa(by the way i'm russian). But USA is also not stronger than Russia. If there will war between Russia and USA, it will start with 2 mig and f 16s, and will end with nuclear weapons, which without a doubt will destroy the whole world. If somebody wants to disscus it email me [email protected]