I took the liberty to add a few links to this article.

~NightSky

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US Nuclear Target Map: Potential Targets and Safe Zones
https://thepreppingguide.com/us-nuclear-target-map/

Minute by Minute - How to survive nuclear war after a bomb is dropped: what to do, how to prepare
https://www.businessinsider.com/guide-to-protect-yourself-nuclear-attack-before-after-bomb-2022-3

By Michael Snyder

If the Russians launch an all-out nuclear attack on the United States tonight, will you live or will you die? Of course I don’t think that the Russians will launch such an attack right now, but we live at a time when the threat of nuclear war is greater than ever. More than half of the nations on the entire planet are either currently engaged in military conflict or are funding military conflict, and war rumors are spreading like wildfire all over social media on a daily basis. For years, I have been warning that the trajectory that we are currently on is bringing us dangerously close to the unthinkable, but global leaders just continue to drag us in that direction. If we do not change course, nuclear war could happen a lot sooner than many people think.

Of course these days there are tens of millions of Americans that are convinced that a nuclear war is in our future.

In fact, one recent survey discovered that 46 percent of Americans actually believe that a nuclear war is likely to happen within the next 10 years…

Nearly half of surveyed Americans say they are worried that the U.S. could enter a nuclear war within the next 10 years, according a new survey.

The YouGov poll, released Wednesday, found that 46 percent of surveyed Americans believe a nuclear war involving the U.S. is on the horizon, while 37 percent say it is “not very” or “not at all” likely.

If we do not find a way to make peace with the Russians, eventually someone will cross a line that they should not have crossed.

When that day arrives, will you be living in a state that is at high risk of attack?

If the Russians were to launch a surprise attack, taking out our nuclear silos would be the top priority.

The silos for our Minuteman missiles are located in three vast missile fields that were purposely constructed in relatively unpopulated areas.

The first “nuclear sponge” is located in central Montana, the second is located in North Dakota, and the third covers parts of Wyoming, Nebraska and Colorado.

The reason why our leaders located these “nuclear sponges” in less populated areas was so that more heavily populated areas would be spared…

Picture hundreds of underground silos across remote areas of the country as the pores of a massive sponge. Enemies – who can spot the silos by satellite – must destroy them in an attack against the United States or risk being hit by American missiles, according to U.S. experts. Planning such a large, complex attack might make an adversary think twice because it would take two nuclear warheads (or one massive one) to destroy a Minuteman III silo. The 450 to 900 warheads thus absorbed by the U.S. missile fields would strike in less populated areas than they otherwise might.

Needless to say, strikes on these missile fields would create enormous amounts of nuclear fallout that would contaminate vast areas in the middle of the country…

Any attack against the nuclear sponge, however, would result in radioactive fallout that could contaminate hundreds of communities across the United States, depending on the weather conditions at the time of the strike. A nuclear detonation creates fallout. It blows radioactive dirt, dust and other debris into the air, and exploding nuclear weapons at ground level (as targeting the silos would require) increases the amount of fallout.

In addition to our missile silos, bases where our nuclear bombers are located would also be primary targets.

Those bases include Whiteman Air Force Base in Missouri, Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, and Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota.

Without a doubt, the Russians would also target bases for our nuclear submarines on both coasts. The two most prominent are Naval Base Kitsap in Washington and Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia.

Of course every single one of our military bases would be a potential target.

There are more than 400 military bases in U.S. territory, and every single state has at least one.

Major cities of strategic importance would also likely be targeted. In my opinion, Washington D.C. and New York City would be at the top of the list.

If we end up fighting a nuclear war with the Russians, we will be at a major disadvantage, because we are still relying on missile silos that were built in the 1960s and missiles that were built in the 1970s…

In fact, the U.S. has not built nuclear missile silos at scale since the 1960s, when the Army Corps of Engineers oversaw the construction of around 1,200 launch facilities; and it has not developed and mass-deployed a new intercontinental ballistic missile (or ICBM) since the Minuteman III entered service in the 1970s.

New missiles are eventually on the way, but the projected cost of replacing our old missiles has nearly doubled…

By July 2024, the public knew the program had blown its budget. But the announcement was nonetheless staggering.

The projected price of an Air Force program to build a next-generation nuclear missile – dubbed Sentinel – had risen 81%, from $77.7 billion to nearly $141 billion. (That’s the equivalent of Americans’ combined medical debt as calculated in 2021, according to a research study.)

“There are reasons for this cost growth, but there are no excuses,” said William LaPlante, Under Secretary of Defense overseeing acquisitions at the time.

The reason why the price tag has gone up so much is because it turns out that we are going to have to replace all of the old missile silos as well…

Bob Peters, a career weapons of mass destruction expert who leads nuclear weapons policy work for the conservative Heritage Foundation, explained how the silos’ locations in cold winter Mountain West and Great Plains locales contributed to their sorry state.

“After 60 cold winters of freezing and thawing and freezing and thawing, that concrete is just falling apart, and (the silos) cannot be salvaged,” Peters said.

Many of our old silos are barely functioning at this stage.

And that is really bad news, because the work to replace our current silos will not be complete until the 2050s…

Military officials anticipate the project will reach the silo engineering phase in mid-2027. The replacement missiles and silos likely won’t be complete until the 2050s. During that time, the U.S. will continue to rely on its venerable Minuteman III force.

Meanwhile, the Russians have been developing a number of new missile systems, and they now have the most advanced nuclear arsenal on the entire planet…

Russia’s nuclear weapons arsenal is not only the largest in the world, but thanks to the limitations imposed on the United States by the 2010 New START treaty, it is also the most advanced.

You may have heard about the new Oreshnik missiles, the Bulava missiles that have been developed for Borei-class submarines, the extremely impressive Kalibr-M cruise missiles and the Poseidon underwater drones, but the RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles will be the most impressive of all once they are fully operational…

The RS-28 Sarmat is a liquid-fueled, silo-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) with an exceptional range of around 11,185 miles—allowing it to strike targets virtually anywhere on Earth. This extended reach, combined with its ability to take unconventional flight paths—such as over the South Pole—makes it difficult for missile defense systems to track and intercept before it can deliver its lethal payload.

When reviewing its specifications, one cannot help but to marvel at the Sarmat system’s payload capacity. One missile can carry up to ten tons of warheads, significantly more than most contemporary ICBMs. This allows the missile to deploy a variety of configurations, including up to 15 independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs)—each equipped with a nuclear warhead, or even a small number of high-yield warheads exceeding 10 megatons.

Additionally, the Sarmat is reportedly compatible with the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, a maneuverable warhead capable of traveling at speeds exceeding Mach 20 (!) while evading defenses with unpredictable trajectories.

The good news for us is that there have been some setbacks with the Sarmat program.

But even if we disregard the Sarmat, we still don’t have any way to defend what the Russians can throw at us.

Meanwhile, the Russians have developed the most advanced anti-missile systems in the whole world by a very wide margin.

Russia’s S-500 was specifically designed to be able to intercept incoming nuclear warheads, and we do not have anything comparable.

Sadly, most Americans don’t know any of this.

They just assume that nobody would ever dare to attack us.

Let’s hope that remains true in 2026.

Because if a full-blown nuclear war between the United States and Russia does erupt, it has been estimated that 5 billion people could die from famine…

A few years after a nuclear war between the United States, its allies, and Russia, the global average calories produced would drop by about 90%—leaving an estimated 5 billion dead from the famine, the researchers report. A worst-case war between India and Pakistan could drop calorie production to 50% and cause 2 billion deaths. The team tried to simulate the impact of food-saving emergency strategies, such as converting livestock feed and household waste to food. But in the larger war scenarios, those efforts did little to save lives.

A nuclear winter would kill far more people than a nuclear war does.

Once the explosions stop, starvation will slowly be killing people for years.

I understand that it is not pleasant to think about such things.

But I would encourage you to do so, because our world is getting crazier with each passing day.