Eight US states most in danger if WW3 was to break out

Should you ever wish to survive a nuclear war it'll all be a matter of location, location, location.

If the conflicts of the globe trigger another world war then your best bet for survival is being in a country that's neutral and out of the way, though even that wouldn't be of too much help if a hypothetical WW3 went nuclear.

At that point you'd want to either be in a bunker specifically designed to survive nuclear warfare, or you'd want to be far enough away that you avoided the nukes and were still somewhere capable of growing food afterwards.

One would hope that the US and Israel missile strikes on Iran and the subsequent Iranian retaliation does not trigger a global conflict, much less a nuclear one, but history tells us stopping a war is a far harder task than starting one.

Iran does not have nuclear weapons and the US is not at war with a nuclear-armed nation, though Russian mouthpiece Dmitry Medvedev claimed WW3 would 'undoubtedly begin' if the Trump administration kept up what he described as its 'insane course of criminal regime change'.

The experts have said 'nowhere is safe' in the event of a nuclear war, so it's best not to have one (Planet Observer/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

So while we'd hope WW3 isn't on the cards the world has become more chaotic and conflicted, and somebody doing something stupid that has consequences far beyond their intention cannot be discounted.

After all, when Gavrilo Princip assassinated Franz Ferdinand he may not have thought he was firing that shot credited with starting the First World War, nor could he have anticipated the scale of death his gunshots would trigger.

A couple of years ago Newsweek sought expert advice on what a nuclear war might look like for the US, and there are some states in more danger than others.

The expert advice suggested that the US states most in danger of being nuclear targets were Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota because they were closer to the locations of US missile silos.

In a nuclear exchange the missile silos of other nations would be a prime target as each one destroyed would be another warhead that couldn't be fired back in retaliation.

Missile silos in certain states would be prime targets, which would be awful for the people living in those states (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

However, in a grim warning the experts said 'nowhere is truly safe' as there would be more than enough nuclear weapons to target many other locations including infrastructure and population centres.

Under a simulation where the US missile silos were targeted it'd be the coastal states that were least exposed to radiation, but further testing found that the wind would carry radiation across the North American continent.

John Erath, Senior Policy Director for the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, told Newsweek: "While those who live near military facilities, ICBM silos in the Midwest or submarine bases along the coasts might bear the most immediate and severe consequences of a nuclear attack, there's no question: ANY nuclear war or weapons detonation would be bad for everyone.

"Nowhere is truly 'safe' from fallout and other consequences like contamination of food and water supplies and prolonged radiation exposure."

Christian G. Appy of the University of Massachusetts Amherst told them even a 'small' nuclear war would result in a nuclear winter that 'would kill all or nearly all of those who survived the blast, firestorms, and radiation of the war'.

Once again the only winning move in a nuclear war is not to play, even those who survived the initial blasts would likely die of radiation or starvation in the aftermath.