The Effects of Nuclear War
Chapter IV
CASE 4: A LARGE U.S. ATTACK ON SOVIET MILITARY AND ECONOMIC TARGETS
The Shelter Period
By all reports, the Soviets are better prepared than Americans to spend extended periods of time in shelters. In their literature well-conceived protective structures are seen that should afford good survivability. Life in shelters and evacuation areas would in some ways be similar to that described in earlier cases. Actions taken before fallout deposition would affect casualties. Public health, number and quality of shelters, and amount of food and medicine stockpiled are uncertainties. Civil defense and first aid training would mitigate deaths, but to an unpredictable extent. People in uncontaminated areas would be best off, followed by those in fallout shelters in contaminated areas, those in secure fallout shelters in blast areas, and those in hasty shelters in contaminated areas.
One public health problem would be especially acute in this case. Antibiotics, which are invaluable in fighting many diseases, are in short supply in the U.S.S.R. even in peacetime. Antibiotics have a short shelf life and cannot be frozen. Large doses of radiation destroy most of the body’s antibodies, which fight diseases. Antibiotics are typically used to compensate for the drastic decrease in antibodies in radiation victims, as it takes the body a long time to rebuild its antibodies after large radiation doses. Because of the U.S.S.R. ’S limited supply of antibiotics, many people could be expected to die from diseases.
In areas contaminated by fallout but undamaged by blast, shelter life would be less intolerable. Utilities might be working, buildings would be undamaged so would offer better shelter, people would be uninjured, there would be time to prepare and provision shelters, there would be less inclination to evacuate, and there would be less pressure to leave shelters prematurely.
Fallout deposition patterns would become clear in this period, and would largely determine the damage to agriculture and which industries would need to remain closed. Harvesting crops uncontaminated by fallout would be impeded by fuel shortages, but evacuees would be plentiful and could harvest crops by hand. Similarly, evacuees could work in surviving industries in uncontaminated areas.
The key issue that the Government would face would be successful organization. Production would be far below prewar levels. It would take some time before the Government could take inventory, set priorities, arrange for inputs of workers, resources, and power, and transport the outputs. Most needs in this period would be met from inventory. The Government would thus need to establish strict controls over inventory; it could be necessary to implement severe rationing of food, as was done in Leningrad in World War II.
Problems of organization would be especially critical in light of the intense struggle for resources and the need to use resources as widely as possible. The competition for petroleum, discussed previously in Case 2, would be minimal compared to the competition here. The military, agriculture, industry, transportation, and life support systems would all have urgent claims on resources. Everything would be in short supply; there would be hundreds of bottlenecks instead of one. How would the Government mediate among these claims? There would be far less margin for error than in peacetime, and a decision to use resources for one purpose would almost automatically pre elude other courses of action. Viability would be at issue, and deaths would increase because of delays in achieving it.
What sacrifices would the Government demand? Obviously, each critical sector would be called on to make some, and consumer goods would probably be sacrificed completely. Public health would be sacrificed to some extent by starting production in contaminated areas early and by giving people contaminated food rather than nothing.
The Government would probably be able to maintain control. Food rationing, control of transportation and shelters, and internal passports would help the Government restart the economy. Its economic plans would be the only alternative to chaos, and people would expect to obey them and their demands even without controls. Many party members would survive. Contenders for resources would struggle inside the Government, but external threats, the specter of chaos, the urgency of decisions, and the recognized impossibility of getting everything needed would dampen the debate. All sectors would make sacrifices. The military, for example, might be forced to forego fuel-intensive training. In agriculture and industry, manual labor—which would be plentiful – would substitute for machinery. People would use wood for fuel where possible; many would go cold. Coal-burning locomotives woud Iikely be taken from storage. Decisions would be taken quickly and set rigidly, Productivity would decrease before it increased. The standard of living would be far lower, and some would die in this period and the next as a result. The question is— how many?
- Hedrick Smith, The Russians (New York: Ballantine Books, 1977), p. 241.