No Major Country Survived the Great War Intact, But Some Regions May Have Fared Better

Greetings fellow vault dwellers! As your resident wasteland survival guide writer, I‘m here to uncover the truth about a question that‘s plagued historians since the first bombs fell: Did any country fully survive the nuclear apocalypse that was the Great War?

After digging through the archives and consulting with Scribe Neriah at the Citadel, the definitive answer seems to be no. No major power like China, America or the Soviet Union made it through wholly intact – we know that from the state of crumbling ruins we‘ve explored. However, conjecturing anything beyond that requires some speculation about global impact, wartime contingency plans and post-war conditions for survivors. So strap on your Pip-Boys as we dive into the theories!

Major Powers – Little Chance of Surviving

Let‘s start with what we know. The superpowers with huge stockpiles of nukes definitely felt the full force of the onslaught. American cities became seas of fire, and closes allies like Canada or European states allied to NATO were certainly hit hard too.

China and the USSR also likely collapsed, otherwise why wouldn‘t they have tried to contact or even invade the former US wasteland to seize resources? Some theorize secret advanced Chinese bunkers may have survived, but they would have eventually ran out of supplies without civilization to resupply them.

So the global overlords almost certainly fell. But what about elsewhere?

Other Notable Countries and Their Survival Odds

Here‘s my tier list for the survival likelihood of other nations based on defensive tech, infrastructure and location – from thriving to probably wiped out.

The common threads you may notice…isolated territory, low population density, and distance from major targets or rivals probably helped. But every region would have faced catastrophic environmental and infrastructure damage. Still, for those that survived the initial blasts, their survival may have depended heavily on available farmland, preserving technology, treating radiation sickness, and repelling raider clans.

So why wouldn‘t any enduring nations have reached out? Distance, suspicion of outsiders, or simply not having means to traverse radioactive seas are all possibilities.

My guess is some remote regions could have sustained pockets civilization. But the post-apocalypse would still have been bleak – probably dealing with supply shortages, die-offs, mutations and other headaches we see even two centuries later. Hey, nobody said the wasteland would be fun!