OK....we will go through this a bit at a time.....
There is no prepping for that scenario.
Yes - there is. In fact there are even several good books written about how to do exactly that.
People who are knowledgeable about nuclear weapons and radiation all agree that Nuclear war is something most of the world's population would survive.
If nukes were unleashed on the U.S. regardless of size, then it's game on, and retaliation will be devastating to the world.
Maybe.....maybe not....but either way, it will not devastate the world.
The US, Russia, China, Iran, etc., will not survive a nuclear war.
Probably not as nations like they are now.......but plenty of people from those nations will make it....especially the ones who are prepared, knowledgeable and don't panic or give up without even trying to survive.
It will be the end of the globe.
Absolutely not.
For a start, there are almost no nuclear weapons targeting the Southern Hemisphere.
Next.....most nuclear weapons would be hit on the ground or in flight.....that is why there were previously many more weapons in the Soviet and US stockpiles. It was accepted that most would not make it to their targets.
US has 5,400 nukes
Russia has 6,000 nukes
China has 500 nukes
UK has 120 nukes
France has 290 nukes
North Korea has 55 nukes
Pakistan has 170 nukes
India has 160 nukes
Israel has roughly 100 nukes
Correct.....but again, most won't ever make it to a target. Most warheads are on obsolete ICBMs that have cheap recurrent costs.....but have been mostly rendered ineffective by missile interception technology. The warheads that will mostly get through are those on Boomers (SLBM armed subs)......but those have very high recurrent costs, so most nations with those have been steadily cutting back on numbers of them since the end of the cold war.
Nukes in land based silos
Nukes on mobile launchers
Nukes in bombers
Nuke in submarines
Of the above, only the sub launched SLBMs have a good chance of getting to their targets.....but only if the sub isn't being tailed by an attack boat and gets deep sixed before it can launch anything.
Nukes in suitcases
Nukes in vehicles
These were once sort of a thing but were retired 3-4 decades ago.
The fallout from such weapons will kill nearly everything ... radiation, fallout, nuclear winter ...
To a limited extent.....but most weapons will be fused for airburst which kicks up little to no fallout.....and the most dangerous radioactive elements/particles have short half life.....so that means the level of radioactivity decays quite fast. If you can protect yourself from radioactive contamination for a couple of weeks, then you can start spending quite a bit of time outside. That is how bunkers work. This idea you need to be in a bunker for months or years is BS.
The earths atmosphere has already been subjected to 545 MT of nuclear detonations.....in tests....and yet we are all still here.
Most of those weapons you listed are in the 100-400 KT yield range....so even if half of them managed to get to a target, that is only about triple the combined yield of the previous testing.
So if you survive the blasts ... then what?
Well to do that, you really do need to be outside the blast radius of hits......but the combined area of all those blast radii is actually only a small part of the target nations and a tiny proportion of the earths surface.
Like all survival from severe crises, being outside all the blast radii, is mostly about location. But assuming you do survive the first few weeks, then you will need all the same resources, supplies and capabilities that apply to all severe crises.
When you emerge from your bunker, do you really think you will survive the catastrophic environmental destruction you will find?
Yes - I will......because the environmental destruction you mention is mostly an unrealistic construct of the 1980s nuclear disarmament movement and Hollywood.
Quitters never win and winners never quit.
The food chain will quickly die.
Light to medium fallout doesn't kill plants.
Animals that were not contaminated won't die either.
Most foods can be decontaminated by washing to remove surface residues.
Even though a reactor accident creates much more contamination than a nuclear strike, the food chain around Chernobyl is actually thriving because the people were mostly moved out. Some people still live there.....they like the relative solitude.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki are both thriving modern cities.
