If there actually was a WWIII - my guess is that MANY major cities would be destroyed in the USA, Russia and China. And probably a lot of other places. I don't think that any of the superpowers can afford to allow the other guy to "still be standing". If one superpower survives, they would take over the world. But I honestly couldn't tell you what might be destroyed, and what would survive.

If you think about most American towns - people go shopping at WalMart and they buy gas at the local convenience store. Americans are heavily dependent on the distribution systems for groceries and fuel. If those distribution systems go down, the shelves at WalMart will become empty quickly. That's really the practical problem. We benefit from having a highly efficient distribution system ... everybody takes it for granted. But on the positive side - America has a huge amount of fertile land. There are plenty of places to set up homesteads and grow your own food. Lots of choices. I think that Americans have a tremendous advantage with this, compared to China (overpopulated) or Russia (very bad winters).

I wouldn't be confident that the US Government will give any kind of warning about an impending WWIII. If it ever happens, it will come as a surprise. Take a look at 9/11 as an example. When a surprise attack hit the USA, the Government did two things. (1) Respond to the attack by securing specific locations, (2) Try to get important officials to safe locations. And that was it. Any public announcement to Americans will follow at a later date. If you wait for that kind of time delay, you are in the same boat as 300 million other people.

I'm not leaving the USA because of any of these scenarios. WWIII might never happen. My own reasons are personal. But I do think about these scenarios for "contingency planning". In other words, if I choose a location somewhere else ... how secure will it be if there is a WWIII or a global financial disaster? My thoughts are that long term survival basically involves "homesteading". You have to switch to a self-sustaining lifestyle. There's a lot of places people can do this. But these types of skills take a long time to build up, they don't happen overnight.

Pete