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SURVIVAL AFTER NUCLEAR ATTACK ON THE UNITED STATES


	There may be a nuclear war involving the United States.  We
take no position on how likely this is or on when it might occur.
It might occur suddenly so that the governments at all levels and
the people are no more prepared than they are now or there may be
days, weeks or months for preparations.  The war may be over
quickly or it may be necessary to continue to fight while repairing
damage.  Help may be available from other countries, e.g. Canada and
Mexico, or it may not be.  We may be in a position to help other
countries or we may not.  The world may be in a mood to recover from
the devastation or there may be nuclear Napoleons out to conquer as
much as possible.
One percent of the population may be dead
or eighty percent may be dead.  Certainly, some parts of the country will have
suffered greater destruction than others.

	Our position is that whatever the damage and whatever the
situation, the survivors should try to maintain or re-establish
a democratic technological society based on the U.S. Constitution
as it may be amended.  Tribalists, Napoleons and messiahs should
be resisted to the extent that they appear.  We mention this not
because we think this will be very prevalent but, because these
are the themes of much science fiction, and science fiction represents
the most widely distributed "thought" on the subject of post-nuclear
survival.

	Another theme of  much present thought is surrender.
 If we are defeated
militarily by a country that can occupy the U.S. militarily without
suffering unacceptable damage to itself, surrender
may be an option.  However, our current probable adversary is the
Soviet Union, a communist country.  The short history of communism
has already demonstrated that it is no guarantee of peace.  In spite
of the ideological affinities of the different varieties of communism,
they are at least as likely to go to war with one another as they
are with non-communist countries.  The very likely result of a surrender
to communism is being drafted into an intra-communist struggle in
which our remaining people and resources are regarded as expendable.
Therefore, if the survivors have that option, they should
regard maintaining the United States Government as worth great
sacrifice.

	Another prevalent theme is tribalism.  This is prominent in
science fiction, but also various small groups have organized for
survival in case of a nuclear or other breakdown of society.
They imagine defending their members and families against the
starving hordes and re-establishing society later according to
whatever principles their leaders favor.  They are often rather
undemocratic in ideology.  Other writers imagine relatively small
tribes forming after the disaster warring with their neighbors.
In my view large scale democratic society will save the most people
and is most desirable.  Moreover, integrating the
majority of the survivors into a reduced version of the prewar
political structure will result in the capability to prevent the
tribalists from doing much harm.

	THE SITUATION AFTER A NUCLEAR ATTACK

	The damage will be different in different places.  Some small
towns will be undamaged except as caused by the loss of supplies
and services from damaged areas.  Some cities may be completely
destroyed with all the population killed or fatally injured.
Some things will be in short supply; others will be plentiful.
Some problems will have to be dealt with in minutes or more
death will result.  (Since they usually won't be dealt with in
minutes, there will be more death).  Other problems have time scales
of days, weeks, months and years.  Here are some examples:

1. Medical.  There will be many injured people who could be saved by medical
attention.  Since doctors and nurses will also be killed and
injured and medical facilities and supplies destroyed, many who
could be saved by medical attention will die.  Nevertheless,
whatever medical capability survives will help others survive
if used effectively.  Some things must be done in minutes
to be effective, others in hours, days, weeks, months and
years.  Most likely, there will always be a shortage of
medical care, and triage will occur.  Some will survive
and some will die, and individuals and society will maximize
survival.  If society is very poor, then many people, who
could survive with expensive care, will die. 

We will discuss medical problems more concretely later.

2. Fallout.  Downwind from the zone of destruction from a nuclear
bomb, there is a zone of fallout.  In this zone, unprotected
people will suffer radiation injury if they go out of shelter.
Where the fallout is intense, proper fallout shelters are necessary.
Where it is less intense, staying indoors will suffice.  After
two weeks, the fallout is insignificant as far as immediate injury
is concerned, but increased risk of delayed cancer persists longer.  The
increased risk of cancer will be accepted as part of the price
of mobility, because other dangers
from the attack will be greater.  People should stay in shelters,
if they have them, or indoors anyway for up to two weeks, even at the
cost of not eating for this period.  Drinking possibly ccntaminated
water should also be postponed as long as possible.  Radiation
detectors and a doctrine describing how to act on the basis of
their readings are one of the most important preparations that
could be made.

3. Food.  The danger of starvation comes to mind readily, and much
science fiction is based on starving hordes.

In most places, food will be one of the lesser problems.  This is because
food production and food storage are more dispersed than the population
as a whole.  Therefore, the loss of food will be less than the loss
of people to eat it.  It will be necessary to re-organize the food
distribution and processing system.  For example, it may be necessary
to temporarily abbreviate the process whereby grain stored in elevators is made
into bread and distributed.  If electric power is lost for prolonged
periods, much food in cold storage will be lost.  Therefore, cold
storage may rate priority in restoration of electric service.

Since people can survive without food for several weeks, and since
there are large supplies of already processed food, the time scale
of re-organizing the food system is weeks and months.  Remember that
food is produced in harvests, and so there is generally enough on
hand to last from one harvest to the next.  In the U.S. there are
usually large carryover stocks of most foods.  With rationing, and in
view of the probable large casualties in cities,
might even be possible to go one or two years before food production
has to be re-established.

Localized severe food problems are more likely, and re-establishment
of a transportation system may require high priority.

4. Shelter.  Earthquake experience suggests that houses are more
destructible than people.  Moreover, people will evacuate damaged
areas, and if there is a danger of further bombing, the population
should be as dispersed as possible.  The solution to this is crowding
many people into housing and public buildings that ordinarily
hold fewer people.  Many countries, including the Soviet Union
have much more crowded housing than we.  Ten times as many people
can be safely crowded into houses than they normally hold, and
this crowding can be maintained for years.

5. Heating fuel.  This is a serious problem, because
fuel is ordinarily transported long distances, there is only limited
storage where fuel is used.  Shortages of fuel may force more crowding
than is forced by shortage of housing itself.  If worst comes to worst
we have to rely on blankets, warm clothing and body heat.

6. Transportation.  There is a great oversupply of transportation in
the U.S., but it will be seriously disrupted by nuclear war.
Railroads, highways and airports will be damaged.
The surviving vehicles will suffice, but the roads etc. will require repair.
This will be one of the major requirements for labor.

The biggest shortage will be of fuel.  The industry is readily disrupted
by the destruction of refineries, pipelines and transportation, and it
keeps very small stocks.  Evacuation and dispersion may place large
demands on fuel.  Providing dispersed stocks of fuel is a very important
form of preparedness.  Proper use of available fuel will be an extremely
important consideration after an attack.

7. Dispersion.  It would be best to disperse now, and many social
thinkers would advocate for reasons apart from defense.  Failing that,
and we don't expect much dispersion, unless the war is over, there
will be a need for additional dispersion after an attack.

8. Civilian defense.  After an attack there will be a motivation to
do many things that should have been done in advance.  It seems likely
that much can be done in the way of providing shelters and stocking
them to reduce the damage from further attack.

Lest some unintended reader of this essay misunderstand, it is an
individual effort not at the behest of anyone else or based on
information supplied by any official source.  In fact I have no
unpublished information.

Notes:

1. Most of this essay is based on the likely assumption that there
will be almost no preparation.  This assumption is based on politics
rather than on a view of what policy would be correct.  My opinion
is that a large scale civilian defense program is desirable, although
it should probably take a different form than it took in the fifties.

2. Readers may be interested in what they can do to prepare.  The
most important way of reducing vulnerability is dispersion.  Any
activity whose location a reader can influence should be as far
from other activities as is economically feasible.  Maximum advantage
should be taken of modern communication facilities to disperse
activities.

3. Private preparedness groups can perhaps be useful.  However,
exclusiveness will doom the group to irrelevance and possibly
subject it to confiscation of its resources.  The best policy is
for the group to assume that after an attack it will have to
expand its numbers by a factor of 100.  The model of building
a military unit from a small cadre should be considered.

4. Publication of a book based on this essay may be useful.  Even
if physical preparation is not undertaken, having a few thousand
mentally prepared people will increase the probability that
individuals, businesses and local governments will act in a way
that will save the largest number of lives immediately and will
co-ordinate their activities as soon as it becomes possible.

5. For example, less damaged areas should be prepared to send
buses to collect survivors from more damaged areas.

6. An inventory of food storage areas, fuel storage and storage
of other supplies will help.

7. In our present society, more than half of the active population
is involved in activities that can be indefinitely postponed in
an emergency.  Thus all teachers, students, employees of entertainment
industries, producers of luxury goods or goods whose stock can
serve for years can be mobilized.  Recall that no automobiles
and large domestic appliances were produced in the U.S. during
World War II.

8. It may also be forgotten to what extent we can get by with
less food, less fuel and less living space.  It will be very
important to make a fast transition to an austere way of life.

9. Secrecy.  If war continues after an attack it will be extremely
important to conceal which areas are damaged and how much.  The
enemy will have limited resources for further attack, and further
damage will be greatly reduced if he has no way of knowing which
missiles malfunctioned.  Shooting down satellites and observing
radio discipline and providing misinformation will all be important.
Even a relatively ineffective ABM program would help enormously
by making it difficult for the enemy to program his second round
missiles.

10. Electromagnetic pulse.  The damage to communications will be
great and probably erratic.  Repair will be important.

11. Time scale of repair of essential facilities.

12. The key point that must be repeatedly emphasized is how little
is known of what could be known, and how little what can be known
in advance amounts to.  The possibilities for devastation are unknown,
the possibilites for accidental escape are unknown, and the
opportunities for reducing damage by intelligent action either
before or after an attack are unknown.

This definitely includes the considerations described in this essay.
Entirely different considerations may dominate the decisions that
will have to be made.

13. Some will claim that this essay should not have been written
and should not be read, because any discussion of how to mitigate
the effects of nuclear war makes it acceptable and detracts from
the efforts to prevent it.  The reply is (a) Some of the efforts
to prevent war have probably increased the probability of war
by increasing the probability that the Soviet Government will
think we can be beaten.  (b) There is little evidence that the
opponents of thinking about mitigating the effects of war have
in fact reduced the probability of war.  (c) The stakes may be
very large.  Effective thought about reducing casualties may make
a difference of tens of percents in the fraction of the American
population that survives.