The Effects of Nuclear War

Chapter III

INTRODUCTION

Effective civil defense measures have the potential to reduce drastically casualties and economic damage in the short term, and to speed a nation’s economic recovery in the long term. Civil defense seeks to preserve lives, economic capacity, postattack viability, and preattack institutions, authority, and values. The extent to which specific civil defense measures would succeed in doing so is controversial.

Some observers argue that U.S. civil defense promotes deterrence by increasing the credibility of U.S. retaliation and by reducing any Soviet “destructive advantage” in a nuclear war. Others, however, argue that a vigorous civil defense program would induce people to believe that a nuclear war was “survivable” rather than “unthinkable,” and that such a change in attitude would increase the risk of war.