Well, let's really hope not. (Let us hope that nothing of worth is ever destroyed, and let us not speak about destruction of universal goods lightly.)
Edit: let us be even more clear (possibly in light of the dismissing feelers who just passed by). If you are into destruction of the cultural heritage, you are the enemy. Complexities just come later.
Sorry.
Edit: I will express it again, and to stress the point: some things are the fruit of the drive towards construction. Some other things may be destroyers. So, it all depends. No, we will not attribute worth to destroyers.
If we turn St Petersburg into rubble, I doubt anyone will be worrying about a few trifling conventional weapons. NATO and Russia go at it, and we're all just sitting around next month waiting for the Chinese, Brazilians, Indians and South Africans to sort out who is responsible for which relief efforts.
Actually, now I think about it, that quad will probably be far more concerned with determining the disposition of the remaining NATO/Russian warheads. So even relief efforts might be impacted by their more pressing concerns.
In any case, the world would just be a mess for a good long while.
Yes, exactly, that's why this isn't going to happen.
All that said, you are absolutely right about "spoils". No one is gonna be thinking about "spoils". Probably top of everyone's list of questions will be, "How many warheads are left? And what remnants of NATO or Russia control them?"
We're talking about two groups who would have conclusively shown they are perfectly willing to use their nuclear arsenals to achieve their goals. That, combined with the fact that their goals would become a whole lot less lofty overnight makes me think the world would become a very precarious place.
for that matter they're not going to be able to supply much relief effort, either. hopefully they'll pick a side - India or China - and ride out the eventual hegemonic war between those 2.
It's about being prepared for all kinds of eventualities, whatever they might be.
For example, last year and early this year heavy winds fell trees on electric lines both in Finland and Sweden, cutting off electricity locally for many days. There was a pandemic not too long ago. Waterworks problems have happened in the past in Finland and also happened this year in Sweden. DDoSing happens here and there, it can impact banks and such.
In addition, grayzone/hybrid operations i.e. all kinds of stupid bullying are constantly conducted: for example, earlier today a submarine cable between Germany and Finland (C-Lion1) was cut, and later today another submarine cable between Lithuania and Sweden was cut as well. Such cables don't just snap by themselves.
Like the Finnish page says: "Prepared people cope better".
https://www.suomi.fi/guides/preparedness
https://www.msb.se/en/advice-for-individuals/the-brochure-in...
Maybe the Australians wouldn't allow that?
I guess I always assumed they would. Kind of like North Korea with Russian warships. I don't think we could take the chance that the Russian naval assets harbored in N Korea were harmless. Likewise, I'm assuming Russia wouldn't be able to make the assumption that American warships harbored in Australia were harmless.
I don't know? Maybe everyone's naval ships just surrender or something? I doubt it though. Your nation being destroyed is, in my mind, more reason to fight in those circumstances, not less.
Also, there is a chance that in the event of a full-blown nuclear exchange Russian leadership would see the showdown as fundamentally civilisational, and seek to take Australia down simply because it is unambiguously an outpost of Anglo-American culture.
Your general points are valid, but undersea cables do fail for many reasons. A few moments of googling turns up industry failure statistics. Most are still due to human activity in some way (but unintentional, like an anchor drag) but plenty are due to the natural environment of the sea floor.
2.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoal_Bay_Receiving_Station - Brrzzt!
3.) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Defence_Satellite_C... - Sparkle!
I think the US leases bases in Australia. Given that a single aircraft carrier group contains more power than the ADF combined I would suggest any that limp back to Australia's shores would be able to continue using these ports.
One of the places that sends the "shoot 'em up boys* signal to the stealth nuclear subs.
I'd thought these days the signal would be "OK Boomer"?
(I'm still impressed that the РВСН has St Barbara as a patron saint. They claim that it's because they were founded on her day, 17.12.59, but I'd bet it has rather more to do with towers and lightning strikes as attributes, as well as her existing patronage over artillerymen, tunnellers, and explosives workers in general. They make severe waffle irons in Chelyabinsk: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/OUQPxihQfQDuPE-8f8X1... )
Nobody is gonna be in a situation to reassert control.
During the cold war, there was a widespread theory that an all-out nuclear war would produce a similar effect; there are, after all, a great many warheads out there. So it was theorised that even countries that didn't participate in a nuclear war would end up with crop failures and mass starvation. The so-called "nuclear winter" or "nuclear holocaust".
Thankfully this theory has not yet been put to the test.