The Effects of Nuclear War

Protection of Industry and Other Economic Resources

Efforts to preserve critical economic assets, and thereby accelerate postattack recovery, could take several forms. For example, if there is warning, railroad rolling stock might be moved from urban classification yards into rural locations, perhaps saving many cars and their cargo. Some industrial equipment and tooling might be protected by burial and sandbagging. Other industrial facilities, such as petroleum refineries and chemical plants, may be impossible to protect. Industrial defense measures include measures to make buildings or machinery more resistant to blast pressure (hardening), dispersal of individual sites and of mobile assets (e. g., transport, tools, equipment, fuel), proliferation of “redundant” and complementary capabilities, and plans to minimize disruption to an economy and its components in wartime by coordinated shutdown of industrial processes, speedy damage control, and plant repair.

There is no practicable way to protect an industrial facility that is targeted by a nuclear weapon with 1980’s accuracy. Protective measures might, however, be helpful at industrial facilities that are not directly targeted, but that are near other targets.

Some equipment within structures can be protected against blast, fire, and debris with suitable measures. Other equipment, especially costly and critical equipment, and finished products, can be sheltered in semi-buried structures and other protective facilities. A recent study¹ demonstrated that special hardening measures could save some machinery at blast overpressures higher than necessary to destroy the building in which the machinery is housed. However, it is unknown whether the amount of equipment that could actually be protected would make much difference in recovery.

Another method of protecting industrial capabilities is the maintenance of stock piles of critical equipment or of finished goods. Stockpiling will not provide a continuing output of the stockpiled goods, but could ensure the availability of critical items until their production could be restarted. Stockpiles can obviously be targeted if their locations are known, or might suffer damage if near other potential targets.

Finally, dispersal of industry, both within a given facility consisting of a number of buildings and between facilities, can decrease damage to buildings from weapons aimed at other buildings. A Soviet text on civil defense notes that:

Measures may be taken nationally to limit the concentration of industry in certain regions. A rational and dispersed location of industries in the territories of our country is of great national economic importance, primarily from the standpoint of an accelerated economic development, but also from the standpoint of organizing protection from weapons of mass destruction.²

However, there is little evidence that the U.S.S.R. has adopted industrial dispersion as national policy. Despite reports of Soviet industrial decentralization over the last decade or so, Soviet industry appears more concentrated than ever. An excellent example is the Kama River truck and auto facility, a giant complex the size of Manhattan Island where about one-fifth of all Soviet motor vehicles is produced. Clearly, Soviet planners have chosen industrial efficiency and economies of scale over civil defense considerations. Similarly, the United States has no directed policy of decentralization, and other facts suggest that nuclear war is not a significant civil planning determinant. There are those who reason that this “disregard” for many of the consequences of nuclear war indicates that policymakers believe nuclear war is a very low possibility.

1. T. K, Jones, “Industrlal Survival and Recovery After Nuclear Attack A Report to the Joint Committee on Defense Production, U.S. Congress” (Seattle, Wash.: The Boeing Aerospace Co , November 1976)
2. P. T. Egorov, I. A. Shlyakov, and N. I. Alabin, Civil Defense. Translated by the Scientific Translation Service (Springfield, Va.: Department of Commerce, National Technical Information Service, December 1973), p 101.

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