The Effects of Nuclear War
Chapter IV
CASE 3: A COUNTERFORCE ATTACK AGAINST THE SOVIET UNION
The First Day
Each of the parameters mentioned in the previous section as affecting the damage to the United States would also affect the damage to the Soviet Union. An additional source of variation is pertinent: the U.S. missiles mostly carry smaller warheads than their Soviet counterparts, but U.S. bombers carry weapons with quite high yields. Ground bursts of bomber-carried weapons (which are especially likely in an attack on Soviet bomber bases) would create very large amounts of fallout.
As in the case of a counterforce attack on the United States, sheltering is preferable to evacuation for protection provided there are no subsequent attacks. Depending on the time of year, the Soviets might have more difficulty than the United States in improvising fallout protection (both frozen earth and mud would create problems); on the other hand, Soviet preparations for such sheltering in peacetime are more extensive than their U.S. counterparts.
The executive branch has performed several calculations of fatalities resulting from counterforce attacks, and variations in the assumptions produce a range of estimates. All these studies except one assume a Soviet first strike and a U.S. retaliatory strike. As a result, estimates of Soviet fatalities are lower than they would be for a U.S. counterforce first strike, partly because the United States would have fewer ICBMS available for a second strike, and partly because the Soviets are more likely to take precautionary civil defense measures before a Soviet first strike than before a U.S. first strike. All of these studies consider only fatalities in the so days following the attack; they exclude later deaths resulting from relatively less intense radiation or the effects of economic disruption.
For both counterforce and countersilo attacks, with an in-place Soviet population, the fatality estimates are very similar: for the former, from less than 1 to 5 percent of the population; for the latter, from less than 1 to 4 percent. The low-end results from using smaller weapons air burst, while the high end results from using larger weapons ground burst. A comprehensive counterforce attack can logically be expected to kill more people than the countersilo attack because the latter is a subset of the former. However, other factors have a greater influence on numbers of fatalities: A full counterforce attack in which the United States deliberately tried to minimize Soviet fatalities by using small weapons air burst, in which winds were favorable, and in which the Soviets had tactical or strategic warning, would kill far fewer people than a counter silo-only attack in which the United States used one large weapon ground burst against each ICBM silo.
An unpublished Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) analysis highlights the importance of sheltering and attack characteristics for fatalities from a U.S. countersilo attack. One estimate is that, with the urban population 90-percent sheltered and the rural population given a PF of 6, Soviet fatalities would range from 3.7 million to 13.5 million, depending on attack parameters. With a degraded shelter posture (urban population 10- percent sheltered and rural population given a PF of 6), fatality estimates for the same set of attacks range from 6.0 million to 27.7 million.