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The dynamics of nuclear tensions have changed since the Cold War, and Wyoming might not take a direct hit if the bombs fly. But it’s still best to keep putting the fear of God into the world’s despots, a retired top-tier military official said. 

A FEMA map showing the places in the United States that would supposedly be the safest during a nuclear war leaves Wyoming pretty clear, but doesn’t tell the full story about how safe the Cowboy State would be in a nuclear war.

And while most of Wyoming is seemingly marked safe from being vaporized by hellfire, Cheyenne and the surrounding areas are pegged to be hammered into oblivion by multiple strikes. 

Stay Strong

That might have been true decades ago, but things might go differently today. Wyoming might not get nuked at all, retired Air Force Col. Tucker Fagan told Cowboy State Daily. 

That doesn’t mean it would be easy here in the aftermath of nuclear war, he said. It’s likely much of the country’s vital infrastructure and supply chains would be destroyed. 

So, just as during the Cold War with the now-defunct Soviet Union, it’s best to keep letting the world’s despots know that they’d have nothing to gain and everything to lose by going nuclear, Fagan said. 

“As long as we are strong and we can deter, and Russians and Chinese and North Koreans are afraid to die, that’s the essence of deterrence,” he said. 

Fagan is the former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Nuclear Section under President Ronald Reagan and the former Commander of  F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne.

When it comes to the scenarios of nuclear war, Fagan is an expert. Along with his top-level military experience, he created the “nuclear football” for President Ronald Reagan.

Putin Would Probably Go After People, Not Silos 

Fagan said he’s seen the map that supposedly shows the safest places in case of nuclear war, and others like it. 

The problem is, they rely on the Old Cold War philosophy. Arms stockpiles peaked in the 1970s and ’80s, when each of the sides had more than enough weapons, more than 10,000 each, to lay waste to each other many times over. 

Had a nuclear war erupted in those days, missile silos would have been a prime target. And Cheyenne, along with much of southeastern Wyoming has plenty of those. 

Treaties have since cut the nuclear arsenals of the U.S. and Russia, down to about 1,500 warheads each, Fagan said. 

But as Russian President Vladimir Putin has demonstrated in his country’s war against Ukraine,Fagan said, the primary target would probably be America’s people. 

“What’s the Russian objective, what are they doing in Ukraine? Killing people,” he said. “They’re after the people, because they know the people will not be subjugated.” 

Americans would similarly refuse to be subjugated, so Putin would try to kill as many as possible, Fagan said. 

And to do that, he might not want to waste warheads on a sparsely populated places like Wyoming, he said. 

Scare The Dictators Themselves

Despots like Putin don’t care about the lives of ordinary citizens, even those in their own countries, Fagan said. 

That’s why it’s important for the U.S. to make sure the dictators themselves know they wouldn’t survive going nuclear. 

“You need to let them know you have the ability to kill even them. They don’t want to die. Do you think those autocrats care about their people?” he said. “I’m talking about Putin, Xi Jinping (China) and Kim Jong Un (North Korea), they don’t want to die.”

If any of the despots launched, and Wyoming didn’t get hit directly, it would still be miserable here, Fagan added. 

“We would still lose electricity, and supply chains would disappear,” he said. 

States Would Have To Band Together

There is a glimmer of hope in the case of major national disaster, nuclear war or otherwise, Wyoming All Hazards Association President LaRae Dobbs told Cowboy State Daily. 

Each Wyoming county has an emergency plan, which dovetails in with state and regional plans, she said. 

And those plans include what to do in case of a huge breakdown at the national level. 

“It’s more focused on what are the cascading events that are being caused, rather than what was the event that caused it,” she said. 

The first order of business would be making sure supplies of food, water and medicine kept flowing, as much as possible, she said. 

Toward that end, Wyoming and surrounding states have strategic stockpiles, of such things, she said. 

“We would immediately rely on the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security to coordinate with other surrounding states,” Dobbs said. “We have mutual aid agreements with the other states.”

Emergency coordinators at the county level are the key to making it all work, she added. 

“We know each other by name and by sight, but the majority of our communities don’t even know we exist,” Dobbs said.

Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.