Could A Nuclear War In Asia Effect You? Absolutely

Right now all eyes on North Korea, which is totally understandable. The rhetoric being exchanged between our government and theirs has never been so heated, and at this point, it wouldn’t be a surprise if war broke out. However, while the media has been parading an endless stream of worrisome stories on this subject, they’ve neglected to keep tabs on another brewing conflict between China and India.

For weeks the two countries have been hashing out a war of words over a border dispute in Bhutan. The Chinese tried to build a road in disputed territory, and the Indian army was deployed to block them. Since then the Chinese have been threatening to annihilate the Indian soldiers if they aren’t removed.

Over the past month, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been on the move. We believe that the PLA has made sufficient preparation for military confrontation.

It is a war with an obvious result. The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi should be aware of the PLA’s overwhelming firepower and logistics. Indian border troops are no rival to PLA field forces. If a war spreads, the PLA is perfectly capable of annihilating all Indian troops in the border region.

And that isn’t just bluster. China and India have gone to war over border disputes as recently as the 1960s. The only difference now is that these nations both have nuclear weapons.

While many Americans are now deeply concerned about the possibility of their country being embroiled in another world war, most haven’t considered the possibility that there could be a nuclear exchange that has nothing to do with us, in countries that are far away from us. Which has to make you wonder, should we be concerned? Would a war like this have a major effect on life in America?

The answer is yes. It absolutely would. It certainly wouldn’t be an apocalyptic event for us if America decided to stay out of the fray, but we’d have reason to be concerned. That’s because any nuclear weapons detonated in East Asia could produce a cloud of fallout that would reach us. It wouldn’t be cataclysmic, but it would be dangerous.

We know this because when China tested a nuke back in 1967, it produced a fallout cloud that enveloped almost all of the United States. According to a book called Nuclear War Survival Skills (which is still a very relevant book that you should check out):

Trans-Pacific war fallout, carried to an America at peace by the prevailing west-to-east winds that blow around the world, could be several hundred times more dangerous to Americans than fallout from the worst possible overseas nuclear power reactor accident, and many times more dangerous than fallout from a very improbable U.S. nuclear power reactor accident as lethal as the disastrous Chernobyl accident was to Russians…

…Fallout from the approximately 300 kiloton Chinese test explosion shown in Fig. 1 caused milk from cows that fed on pastures near Oak Ridge, Tennessee and elsewhere to be contaminated with radioiodine, although not with enough to be hazardous to health. However, this milk contamination (up to 900 picocuries of radioactive iodine per liter) and the measured dose rates from the gamma rays emitted from fallout particles deposited in different parts of the United States indicate that trans-Pacific fallout from even an overseas nuclear war in which “only” two or three hundred megatons would be exploded could result in tens of thousands of unprepared Americans suffering thyroid injury.

It would take several days for the fallout to reach us, at which point most of the radiation would have decayed. But there would still be enough radioactive material in our food supply to cause thyroid damage to thousands of people.

The best thing you can do to prepare for a nuclear exchange in Asia has a supply of potassium iodide on hand, and to stock up on supplies that could remove radioactive materials from your body and the environment. It would also be wise to prepare yourself for a global financial crash that would inevitably follow the destruction of two countries with massive economies.

It’s unfortunate, but the bottom line is that nuclear weapons have a global effect, in one form or another. Even if you live far away from where these bombs land, they can still ruin your health.