The Effects of Nuclear War
Chapter IV
CASE 3: A COUNTERFORCE ATTACK AGAINST THE UNITED STATES
The Contamination Period
For several days or weeks, radioactive contamination would be so intense that people in fallout areas would have to stay in shelters or evacuate. What might be called the “shelter period” begins at each location when fallout starts arriving and ends when people can leave their shelters long enough to do a day’s work. The length varies from place to place; many places will receive no fallout, and some hot spots will be hazardous long after surrounding areas are safe. Note, however, that people could go outside for brief periods before an 8 hour day outside a shelter became safe, and could not live in houses with a low protection factor for weeks afterwards. After 2 or 3 months people would ignore the residual radiation, though it would be far higher than is considered “safe” in peacetime.
For the first 10 to 30 days, shelterers would have to remain in shelters almost all the time. Brief excursions outside, for example, to obtain water or food, would substantially reduce the effective protection factor. Life in a shelter would be difficult at best. People would not know if the shelter offered a sufficient PF, or whether further attacks were imminent. The shelter might be dark, as power could be out, and windows would be covered with dirt. Unless the shelter had a good air filtration system, the air would become clammy and smelly, and carbon dioxide concentration would increase. Supplies of food and water might or might not be adequate, depending on what people brought and how many people were in a shelter. Unless the shelter were specially stocked, medical supplies would probably be inadequate. This would be a severe problem in light of unhealthy conditions in shelters. People who required special medicines would be threatened unless they could obtain an adequate supply. While most people would have radios to receive broadcasts, few would have two-way radios to transmit. While phones might or might not work, it would be difficult to obtain help, as anyone in a contaminated area who left shelter would be in jeopardy from radiation. In particular, medical care would probably be unavailable because of the radiation risk of going to a hospital and the tremendous number of patients seeking help at the few hospitals that remained open.
Radiation sickness would present special problems. Exposures too low to cause acute radiation sickness nevertheless weaken bodily resistance to infection. Resistance would also be weakened by a deterioration in sanitation, prolonged exposure to heat or cold, lack of medical care, psychological shock, and inadequate food, water, and medicine. Hence shelterers would be especially vulnerable to contagious diseases, ranging from colds and influenza to typhoid fever. There is a trend in the United States away from immunization; as a result, many would contract diseases they otherwise would not.
While many people would contract radiation sickness and live, it is very difficult for the layman to determine whether an individual showing pronounced symptoms of radiation sickness has received a moderate, severe, or lethal dose of radiation. Moreover, acute psychological shock induces symptoms similar to radiation sickness, and vomiting— a symptom of both— is contagious in small spaces. Thus, someone who vomited would not know if he had received a moderate, severe, or lethal dose of radiation; if he had severe psychological shock; if he had vomited because of contagion; or if he had some other illness. This uncertainty about one’s own condition and that of one’s loved ones, and nausea itself, would increase the tension in a shelter. Moreover, nausea weakens people.
Some people will be better off than others: people in adequately equipped shelters of good PF; people who are neither very young, very old, or ill; people who have received little or no radiation before entering the shelter; people in less-crowded shelters. Moderate ambient temperature would be better than hot, and hot would be better than cold. People in snow zones in the winter, however, would be more Iikely than others to have adequate provisions as a precaution against being stranded at home by snow. In addition, much would depend on how shelterers used their time before fallout arrived to prepare the shelter.
Even if the winds were perverse, there would be substantial areas of the country that would receive little or no fallout. In some cases (e. g., Oregon), it would be evident that no fallout could be expected unless the war continued after the counterforce attack; in other cases it would be several days before people in an uncontaminated area were certain that they had been among the lucky ones. Once it became clear that a given area had been spared, the people living there could be expected to step up their normal pace of activity. To the extent possible, help would be offered to the contaminated areas. Depending on circumstances, there might be large numbers of evacuees to care for. The major task, however, would be to keep the country going until the other survivors could emerge from shelters. Intense but rather disorganized activity would be likely, and essential production would probably take place.
Most productive resources would survive unscathed, but would shut down until the threat of attack had ended; those in fallout areas would remain closed until radiation levels had diminished, with the possible exception of such critical services as radio stations, water pumping facilities, and sewage disposal units. Some plants, and some sectors of the economy, would use productive resources as intensively as possible to meet the demands of the damaged areas and the injured, and to compensate for loss of production elsewhere. The burden imposed on the economy by the Armed Forces would depend on the international situation.
Economic Disruption
Most economic damage would occur from lost production, but there would be other losses as well: fires would burn unchallenged, and machinery would suffer damage from being shut down in haste or not at all, or from being left outside unprotected. The major damage to the economy, however, would result from deaths and long-lasting injuries (to consumers and producers), and personaI tragedies and other traumas making people less able to work. The magnitude of economic loss could be expected to vary with the number of deaths.
The attack would cause considerable economic disruption in the uncontaminated area. Facilities there would need to produce a vastly different mix of goods and cope with the absence of goods that normally come from contaminated areas. Until people acted as if they believed the war was over, it could prove difficult to organize production in the uncontaminated areas. Uncertainties about the legal and financial arrangements that support production (money, contracts, credit, etc.) following a nuclear attack might impede production in the uncontaminated areas. Some workers, fearing further attacks, would spontaneously evacuate. Public disorder could also impede production. The changes and uncertainties would cause some economic disruption; however, the greater effort put forth would probably more than compensate for it.