A former CIA operative has suggested two regions in the world will be protected should a catastrophic nuclear war break out – and neither of them are Europe.

Nuclear war fears are at their most intense since the 1980s when the Cold War had people around the world keeping their fingers crossed and hoping for the best. The USA and Israel launched their aerial bombardment of Iran almost three weeks ago, and since then the world has been on high alert.

While it is difficult to say whether anywhere would be genuinely safe in the event of a nuclear explosion, ex-CIA agent Andrew Bustamante suggested two parts of the world would be spared from the fallout.

According to Andrew, it’s all to do with which countries possess nuclear weapons and which parts of the world will find themselves out of the firing line. There are currently nine nations who have nuclear capabilities – the USA, Russia, China, the UK, France, North Korea, India, Pakistan and Israel.

Speaking on Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO podcast, the former CIA intelligence officer said: “When I look at this map, I think there are lots of places that are safe in the event of a nuclear conflict,” reports the Mirror.

“Especially if you consider traditional nuclear conflict, which is going to come from the nine states that are nuclear capable.

“In large parts you’re going to see two centres of the map, firing at each other. So South America is going to get spared, Africa is going to get spared, Europe is going to be absorbing bad winds depending on what the trade winds look like.”

Andrew continued to suggest that south-east Asia and Australia are likely to be “largely spared”, depending on the actions of Pakistan and India with their nuclear weapons.

As tension escalates in the growing conflict between the USA and Iran, the former CIA operative says his primary worry is not the nuclear aspect but what will transpire after nuclear weapons have been detonated.

He believes it will provide an opportunity for African and South American warlords to wreak havoc. However, his fears were swiftly dismissed by national security journalist Annie Jacobsen who believes he is underestimating the severe danger to all humans, even if they are not directly affected by nuclear missiles.

She stated: “One of the components that you left out are the fires that will be burning after the nuclear detonations. The fires burning are what lifts the soot, which causes a nuclear winter.

“If you look at the climate modelling, even a small nuclear war between India and Pakistan is enough to cause a mini-nuclear winter.

“There will be no African warlords because they will starve as well. There will be no resetting any of these governments in my understanding.

“I don’t think it’s a reset at all unless a reset is us going back to our hunter-gatherer state from 12,000 years ago trying to figure out how to evolve again. I don’t think it’s an extinction level event, I think it’s a near extinction level event.”

Former CIA operative Andrew concluded on a bleak note. He said his training taught him there was only one course of action if a nuclear weapon “went off above your head”.

He said: “When I lived underground in a silo, we knew that if a nuclear weapon went off, above your head – take your life while you can. Because trying to survive what’s left behind is going to be worse.

“Dying as your organs melt is far worse than shooting yourself in the head today. That might sound terrible, but it’s not like the movies and the TV shows. Nobody wants to try to live through that.”