Two-thirds of the world's population would starve to death in the event of a full-scale nuclear war between the US and Russia, according to a new American study.
Food insecurity would be much deadlier than any nuclear blasts, researchers from Rutgers University concluded in their study, published in the journal Nature Food. The sun-blocking soot and ash resulting from the blasts would wilt crops around the world and devastate global food supplies, with "catastrophic" consequences, according to the researchers.
Although the research was framed with the threat of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, any military conflict that leverages nuclear weapons would be expected to cause a similar impact.
The researchers considered six scenarios involving nuclear arsenals of different sizes, five based on smaller conflicts between India and Pakistan, and one based on a war between the US and Russia. The conclusions showed that even a confrontation between...