Nuclear Warfare Policy: Cold War to Today: Part 5
Carter Administration’s Civil Defense Policy Review (Part 1 of 2 – Introduction and Soviet Civil Defense Assessment)
The cornerstone of nuclear equivalency and Mutually Assured Destruction was that the threat of nuclear destruction effectively held each other's population and critical infrastructure hostage, guaranteeing deterrence. The thinking is that no side would initiate a nuclear war if it meant the complete destruction of your country in a retaliatory response. The very threat of mutual destruction was the deterrent, as no one would win in a nuclear exchange.
However, if a side dedicates significant resources to effective population protection, such as civil defense, it could lead to an imbalance in deterrence. This could potentially increase the likelihood that one side believes they can "win" a nuclear war by preventing the destruction of their population and thereby freeing themselves from the hostage situation. Of course, the inability to evacuate infrastructure ensured the inevitable destruction of a society and a functioning government. Despite not receiving the same level of attention as defense budgets, civil defense continued to play a crucial role in the nuclear deterrent chessboard.
President Carter in July 1980 updated the U.S. strategic nuclear targeting doctrine, designated PD-59/NSC-59, and thus superseded the Nixon era targeting doctrine of NSDM-242. NSC-59 referenced PD-41/NSC-41 in the memo and called for the parallel implementation of that memo in conjunction with PD-59. Under the subject heading of "U.S. Civil Defense Policy," PD-41 linked its findings to the broader U.S. strategic nuclear policy as a form of deterrence.
On September 29, 1978, the President signed PD-41, creating a document based on the recommendations of PRM-32 (Presidential Review Memorandum 32) from September 30, 1977, which was itself a study of NSSM-244 (National Security Study Memorandum-244) from July 24, 1976. NSSM-244 established the fundamental requirements for civil defense programs in the United States, as well as the cost and effectiveness of safeguarding the population and critical industries in the event of a nuclear war, and provided secondary support in the event of a natural disaster.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, the director of the NSC, designated the following issues for review by the Policy Review Committee, which PRM-32 established and led by the Department of Defense:
• Analyze the strategic implications of civil defense programs in the U.S. and the Soviet Union
o Determine what changes, if any, are needed in U.S. civil defense policy
Civil defense was defined as all activities related to the protection from attack of the population, industry, and political leadership below the National Command Authority. The deadline for completing the study was February 1978.
The review was to include analysis on the following:
• The nature and capabilities of the U.S. and Soviet civil defense programs
• Doctrines, policies and objectives of U.S. and Soviet civil defense programs
• The strategic usefulness of current and potential U.S. and Soviet civil defense programs
• Alternative U.S. policy response to Soviet civil defense and alternative policies for U.S. civil defense
The reason that civil defense was coming to the forefront is that Mutually Assured Destruction, and the sub-strategy of Countervalue, required the populations of each other’s countries to be vulnerable to, or basically hostage to, a nuclear attack that destroyed the population and the underlying industries that maintained a functioning society.
Deterrence was established by the fact that one side would not attack if they knew their populations and industries would be eliminated through a general nuclear war or through an escalatory limited nuclear war that held the national population of the urban population centers under the mortal threat of nuclear destruction. A robust civil defense program would be one way to mitigate the risk to the population and industry, thus increasing the likelihood of saving a large part of the population and industry from nuclear destruction. This effective program could reduce the deterrent effect of MAD and countervalue and thus potentially make a nuclear war winnable.
Findings of the Soviet civil defense program was released in a NSC memorandum by Mr. Brzezinski in October 1977 with the following findings:
1. Soviets had blast shelters for all their top leadership
A total of 110,000 people
10% - 20% of the urban population
2. In three days the Soviet Union could evacuate a bulk of their urban population and thus reduce their fatalities to 20,000,000 and their total casualties to less than 50,000,000
3. In seven days the Soviet Union could evacuate all of their urban population and reduce their fatalities to less than 10,000,000 and total casualties to less than 20,000,000
4. Soviet Union has 117,000 full time civil defense workers
5. Soviet Union spent 400 million rubles per year on civil defense or $2 billion compared to the U.S. budget of $100 million annually
The conclusion was that the U.S. had no meaningful civil defense program at the time when compared to the Soviet program.
Mr. Brzezinski's conclusion may be valid, but it could also serve as a self-serving justification for creating a countervailing strategy. However, if this is accurate, it raises another issue: a nuclear war, particularly a limited one, would need to either prevent the evacuation of the cities or have a time frame of 3 to 7 days to act; otherwise, the countervalue's "hostage" targeting would render the reserve strategic nuclear force partially ineffective in the SIOPS's preplanned countervalue scenarios. A rapid and successful evacuation of the urban centers and the protection of their industries would destabilize the deterrent value of MAD doctrine and nuclear equivalency, especially when the U.S. lacked the perceived Soviet capabilities.
The memorandum goes on to further state major findings of Soviet Civil Defense:
1. Soviet civil defense program focuses on the protection of people (in order):
a. Leadership
b. Essential workers
c. General population
2. Program increased substantially in the 1960s
3. Civil defense is highly structured and under military control under the command of a General of the Army and a Deputy Defense Minister. Civil defense extend to all levels of the Soviet government with 117,000 active duty personnel.
4. The 1976 budget was 400 million rubles or $2 billion.
5. Advanced program for protection of the leadership with command post locations for nearly all the leadership (110,000 people).
6. 10%-20% of the urban population can be sheltered and 15%-30% by 1985.
7. Despite shelter protection for the urban population, large scale evacuation is key to reduce casualties. Two to three days for bulk of the evacuation from major cities and a week for full evacuation.
8. Estimated U.S. attack of 2,200 weapons directed at economic targets project the following casualties based on preparation times for Soviet civil defense:
a. Less than 2 hours
i. 50,000,000 – 70,000,000 fatalities
ii. 120,000,000,000 total casualties
b. Less than 24 hours
i. 50,000,000+ fatalities
ii. 100,000,000+ total casualties
c. 2 – 3 days
i. 15,000,000 – 20,000,000 fatalities
ii. 50,000,000 total casualties
d. Over 7 days
i. 5,000,000 – 10,000,000 fatalities
ii. 20,000,000 total casualties
9. Soviet civil defense cannot prevent massive industrial damage, a breakdown of their economy, and destruction of most of their material accomplishments
10. The Soviets have a favorable view of their civil defense organization and believe it would improve their ability to conduct military operations and enhance the USSRs change of surviving a nuclear exchange. The Soviets do not have confidence in the degree of protection civil defense can offer and therefore will not embolden them to risk a nuclear war.
11. The above assumptions in Paragraph 10 will not change in the foreseeable future.
Mr. Brzezinski's assessment, which was part of the NSC-32 review process, suggests that the Soviet civil defense system is more robust than the U.S. civil defense system. The Soviets, given a week’s notice of a potential nuclear attack, could save a large portion of their population and their leadership but would be unable to save their industries or economy from nearly complete destruction. The assessment assumes that the Soviet leadership saw civil defense as a key to winning a nuclear war but also lacked the confidence in their ability or civil defense on its own to prevent the destruction of the Soviet Union. Therefore, Mr. Brzezinski believed that even with a robust civil defense program and the ability to reduce casualties, it was insufficient to eliminate the deterrent of MAD or the threat of a countervalue attack.
Prior to the concept of a limited nuclear war, Mutually Assured Destruction served as a deterrent, preventing any side from attacking the other by inflicting massive casualties on their respective populations. The deterrent effect of Mutually Assured Destruction was to hold each other's populations as "hostages" to a nuclear attack. Being able to successfully evacuate a population could actually be viewed as removing the deterrence from the side that can effectively save its population.
Mr. Brzezinski acknowledges this apprehension and suggests that a week-long Soviet evacuation could potentially diminish the deterrent impact of MAD and nuclear equivalency by reducing casualties by up to 83%. He tries to reassure the official audience of his memo that deterrence was still in effect because the Soviets did not trust the civil defense to save urban populations, and even if they could, the industry and economy would be destroyed. If they survived, the Soviet leadership would have no way to maintain their country because their control over society would have been destroyed.
The subsequent section of this article will delve deeper into the U.S. civil defense strategy and the conclusions drawn from PD-41 regarding the protection of the U.S. population both before and after a nuclear attack.
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