I don't think that the USSR was involved in the war.
Yeah but when the bombs were launched they went everywhere. Chances are pretty good that they got hit as badly as the rest of the world, especially given their place in the resource wars. Nobody wanted the USSR coming and recolonizing the world after it was destroyed, while the USSR probably launched it's arsenal right back at the nations which dropped the bomb on them (I'm guessing that the majority of the Western Europe nations had a nuclear exchange with the USSR during the short Great War. The Great War was a confused jumble of mess. I thought I read somewhere that there were countries which saw bombers/ICBM's on their radar screens (bombers which weren't actually headed toward their country, probably just flying past or near it), got spooked given the high intensity period during the later Resource Wars, called command and control with a "We're under attack!" message, who in turn told them to bomb the other country. I'm guessing their radars probably picked up ICBM's being launched before they were even left the owning nation's airspace also. I don't think a government who just found out another nation is launching their entire nuclear stockpile would just sit there and say "Well, let's see where they land". So there were indeed many nations that weren't supposed to be a part of it that ended up becoming a part of it. I even have a theory that even non-nuclear powers had their bombers take off and bomb cities with large amounts of non-nuclear explosive ordinance (who then got nuked in return, if they weren't nuked in the first place), which is why some cities in the US (and probably around the world) look like there was no way they could have been nuked (not counting LA and San Francisco) but still retain heavy damage. Like I said, the Great War was a huge confusion, and I'm pretty sure ALL of the nuclear powers were involved, and many non-nuclear powers. You know, considering how fast jet airplanes and missiles travel, and how fast messages can be passed up the chain-of-command (especially if they are to warn about incoming nukes), two hours is kind of a long time. Plenty of things can happen in that period of time.
My ultimate theory is that, no major countries' government survived the Great War (or if they did, they ended up as a small-faction of remnants like the Enclave). Because if they did, 200 years would be enough time to start colonizing the world. Ok say, that even a major country like Russia DIDN'T get hit. Well, considering the HUGE resource drain before the Great War, and add to that the rest of the world's governments collapsing (meaning there is no more trade) and large amounts of radiation seeping into the country from the surrounding nations that did get hit, eventually the country's government would collapse, and it would become a realm of post-nuclear apocalyptia anyways despite the fact that they didn't get hit. After the government couldn't feed it's population anymore or get it other daily necessities because they were hoarding whatever resources were left to keep the government alive, rioting and/or war would break out. And a nation in under that kind of strain couldn't support a war. The government would collapse within weeks. Anarchy would take over, and eventually, Russia becomes a post-nuclear paradise like the rest of the world.
What I want to know though, is what happened to the bomber pilots who didn't get shot down when they landed back in their own country after a successful bombing run only to find it utterly destroyed?
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