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Civil Defense Now! U.S. Civil Defense History
By Richard A. Fleetwood - May 2001
Civil Defense has a LONG history in this nation. It goes all the way back to the revolutionary war, with citizens of the 13 colonies taking up arms, and uniting, to fight a common foe. Though it was only a very small fraction of the total population of americans, the 13-17 percent who fought, hurt, and died in the conflict, gave this nation a long lasting legacy...one of honor, integrity, and freedom...the last one being one of the most sought after rights in human history.
We enjoy living in this nation...the freedom giving us the right to travel coast to coast, thousands of miles, virtually unimpeded. It is truly wonderful. Sure, there are some things that the now overgrown federal government tries to do to limit our abilities in myriad small things, but overall, that freedom, that deep cup of human need, still hangs with us, and will for a long time to come.
However, with that freedom, has come great responsibility. Not just for government wonks and politicians, but for every citizen, in almost daily life. Security is one of the things that keeps freedom at our doorstep. National security...community security...personal security. The term Civil Defense, one that nowadays seems to ring with a long standing threat that there are things "evil" in this world that we'd rather NOT know about, still is a viable, timely, and well sought area that people SHOULD be interested in. People pulling together in hard times, in every possible artery and vein of human activity, is what has made THIS nation one of the greatest civilations in all of human history. After WWII, with all the tens and millions of deaths, and the billions and trillions of US dollars spent waging war against totalitarian regimes in two theatres of war, THIS nation provided the manpower, the skills, the knowledge, and the drive to HELP many other nations rebuild the infrastructure of everyday commerce, lifestyle, and human need, that had been taken away by all the weapons of war.
We did it because it was right, it was just, and it was needed to make life worthwhile again to all those who had lost everything. In doing so, the US saw a need to put into place many plans, projects, and safety catches to try to keep us, the US citizen, the average Joe, the little guy who does the little things that bigger guys make into bigger things, that end up as ALL THOSE THINGS we need to live comfortably, if not safely.....from having to rebuild OURSELVES if things every turned around in the NEXT world war...and WE were the victims...or targets....and the bad guys succeeded.
This turned into what we now call Civil Defense. It was what *I* like to term as CITIZEN PREPAREDNESS. Of all the things that have happened anywhere on the face of this planet in historical times...whether its war, famine, natural disaster, or anything of that nature...it has always been things that had happened BEFORE...and therefore would without a doubt, happen again. Some of this threats could be foreseen and effects lessened. Other threats could be completely avoided with simple planning and massive followthru. Still other threats would happen many times without warning, and the resulting mess contended with with whatever manpower, state and federal assistance, and human innovation was required to return things to normal again....the status quo.
During these past few decades, the directions our government took, the paths they blazed, and the turns and backtracks they decided had to be done, left a trail that is fairly easy to follow. This path goes left and right, up and down, following the whims of administrations, natural phenomena, and global threat conditions. Some were reactions to external political ploys, and some were ill-advised wastes that took years to recover from. And even now...some programs that were started and should have been brought to completion, linger on the backshelf, or in complete limbo...still waiting for the worst to happen, so that long made plans can be TESTED to see if they're worthwhile and actually do what they were designed to.
So, where does this bring us? To a place in history where global meandering and interference, overworked and tired ideals, and just plain stupid decisions, bring us, the US citizen, to a higher state of threat than this nation has seen since the ORIGINAL Cold War.
Below is a bit of data that lets you follow along a little, down the meandering path of National Civil Defense...tagging along as threats came and went, and goals to save the nation is various ways and means...changed with the times. You will find some fairly complete background information on several aspects of civil defense, as well as historical aspects of both US and Soviet civil defense strategies. It is by no means complete, but is still an area that can be studied and problems avoided in the furture by seeing the mistakes that were made...UP TO THIS POINT...in mid-2001.
( from the book, The Effects
of Nuclear War, which you can download the full book, in PDF format, by clicking on the title.)
Chapter III
CIVIL DEFENSE
INTRODUCTION
Effective civil defense measures have the potential to reduce drastically
casualties and economic damage in the short term, and to speed a nation’s economic
recovery in the long term. Civil defense seeks to preserve lives, economic capacity,
postattack viability, and preattack institutions, authority, and values. The extent to
which specific civil defense measures would succeed in doing so is controversial.
Some observers argue that U.S. civil defense promotes deterrence by increasing
the credibility of U.S. retaliation and by reducing any Soviet “destructive advantage”
in a nuclear war. Others, however, argue that a vigorous civil defense program would
induce people to believe that a nuclear war was “survivable” rather than “unthinkable,”
and that such a change in attitude would increase the risk of war.
CIVIL DEFENSE MEASURES
Civil defense seeks to protect the population,
protect industry, and improve the quality
of postattack life, institutions, and values. This
section considers several measures that support
these goals.
Population Protection
People near potential targets must either
seek protective shelter or evacuate from
threatened areas to safer surroundings; if not
at risk from immediate effects, they must still
protect themselves from fallout. Both forms of
protection depend on warning, shelter, supplies,
life-support equipment (e. g., air filtration,
toilets, communication devices), instruction,
public health measures, and provision for
rescue operations. In addition, evacuation involves
transportation, This section examines
each form of protection.
Blast Shelters
Some structures, particularly those designed
for the purpose, offer substantial protection
against direct nuclear effects (blast, thermal
radiation, ionizing radiation, and related effects such as induced fires). Since blast is
usually the most difficult effect to protect
against, such shelters are generally evaluated
on blast resistance, and protection against
other direct effects is assumed. Since most urban
targets can be destroyed by an overpressure
of 5 to 10 psi, a shelter providing protection
against an overpressure of about 10 psi is
called a blast shelter, although many blast
shelters offer greater protection. Other shelters
provide good protection against fallout,
but little resistance to blast–such “fallout
shelters” are disccused in the next section.
Blast shelters generally protect against fallout,
but best meet this purpose when they contain
adequate Iife-support systems. (For example, a
subway station without special provisions for
water and ventiIation wouId make a good blast
shelter but a poor fallout shelter. )
Nuclear explosions produce “rings” of various
overpressures. If the overpressure at a
given spot is very low, a blast shelter is unnecessary;
if the overpressure is very high (e. g.,
a direct hit with a surface burst), even the best
blast shelters will fail. The “harder” the blast
shelter (that is, the greater the overpressure it
can resist), the greater the area in which it
could save its occupants’ lives. Moreover, if
the weapon height of burst (HOB) is chosen to
maximize the area receiving 5 to 10 psi, only a
very smalI area (or no area at all) receives more
than 40 to 50 psi. Hence, to attack blast shelters
of 40 to 50 psi (which is a reasonably attainable
hardness), weapons must be detonated
at a lower altitude, reducing the area
over which buildings, factories, etc., are destroyed.
The costs of blast shelters depend on the
degree of protection afforded and on whether
the shelter is detached or is in a building constructed
for other purposes. However, a large
variation in costs occurs between shelters
added to existing buildings and those built as
part of new construction. The installation of
shelters in new construction, or “slanting,” is
preferable, but it could take as long as 20 years
for a national policy of slanting to provide ade-quate
protection in cities.
An inexpensive way to protect population
from blast is to use existing underground facilities
such as subways, where people can be
located for short periods for protection. If people
must remain in shelters to escape fallout,
then life-support measures requiring special
preparation are needed.
Other lethal nuclear effects cannot be overlooked.
Although, as noted above, blast shelters
usually protect against prompt radiation,
the shelters must be designed to ensure that
this is the case.
Another problem is protection against fallout.
If a sheltered population is to survive fallout,
two things must be done. First, fallout
must be prevented from infiltrating shelters
through doors, ventilation, and other conduits.
Other measures to prevent fallout from being
tracked or carried into a shelter must also be
taken. More important, the shelter must enable
its occupants to stay inside as long as outside
radiation remains dangerous; radiation doses
are cumulative and a few brief exposures to
outside fallout may be far more hazardous
than constant exposure to a low level of radiation
that might penetrate into a shelter.
Since radiation may remain dangerous for
periods from a few days to several weeks, each
shelter must be equipped to support its occupants
for at least this time. Requirements include
adequate stocks of food, water, and necessary
medical supplies, sanitary facilities, and
other appliances.
Equipment for controlling termperature, humidity, and “air quality”
standards is also critical. With many people
enclosed in an airtight shelter, temperatures,
humidity, and carbon dioxide content increase,
oxygen availability decreases, and fetid
materials accumulate. Surface fires, naturally
hot or humid weather, or crowded conditions
may make things worse. If unregulated, slight
increases in heat and humidity quickly lead to
discomfort; substantial rises in temperature,
humidity, and carbon dioxide over time could
even cause death. Fires are also a threat to
shelterers because of extreme tern peratures
(possibly exceeding 2,000” F) and carbon
monoxide and other noxious gases. A large fire
might draw oxygen out of a shelter, suffocating
shelterers. World War I I experience indicates
that rubble heated by a firestorm may remain
intolerably hot for several days after the
fire is put out.
Fallout Shelters
In the United States, fallout shelters have
been identified predominantly in urban areas
(by the Defense Civil Preparedness Agency
(DCPA) shelter survey), to protect against fallout
from distant explosions, e.g., a Soviet attack
on U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles
(ICBMs). On the other hand, Soviet fallout
shelters are primarily intended for the rural
population and an evacuated urban population.
Fallout protection is relatively easy to
achieve. Any shielding material reduces the
radiation intensity. Different materials reduce
the intensity by differing amounts. For example,
the thickness (in inches) of various substances
needed to reduce gamma radiation by
a factor of 10 is:
steel, 3.7;
concrete, 12;
earth, 18;
water, 26;
wood, 50.
Consider an average
home basement that provides a protection factor
(PF) of 10 (reduces the inside level of radiation to one-tenth of that outside).
Without additional
protection, a family sheltered here
could still be exposed to dangerous levels of
radiation over time. For example, after 7 days
an accumulated dose of almost 400 reins inside
the basement would occur if the radiation
outside totaled 4,000 roentgens. This could be
attenuated to a relatively safe accumulation
of 40 reins, if about 18 inches of dirt could be
piled against windows and exposed walls before
the fallout begins. Thirty-six inches of dirt
would reduce the dose to a negligible level of 4
reins (400 - 100). Thus, as DCPA notes,
“fallout protection is as cheap as dirt. ” Moving
dry, unfrozen earth to increase the protection
in a fallout shelter requires considerable time
and effort, if done by hand. A cubic foot of
earth weighs about 100 lbs; a cubic yard about
2,700 Ibs. Given time, adequate instructions,
and the required materials, unskilled people
can convert home basements into effective
fallout shelters.
The overall effectiveness of fallout shelters,
therefore, depends on: (a) having an adequate
shelter—or enough time, information, and
materials to build or improve an expedient
shelter; (b) having sufficient food, water, and
other supplies to enable shelterers to stay sheltered
until the outside fallout decays to a safe
level (they may need to remain in shelters for
periods ranging from a few days to over 1
month, depending on fallout intensity); and (c)
entering the shelter promptly before absorbing
much radiation. (An individual caught by fallout
before reaching shelter could have difficulty
entering a shelter without contaminating
it. )
Over the years, home fallout shelters have
received considerable attention, with the Government
distributing plans that could be used
to make home basements better shelters. Such
plans typically involve piling dirt against windows
and (if possible) on fIoors above the shelter
area, stocking provisions, obtaining radios
and batteries, building makeshift toilets, and
so forth. Such simple actions can substantially
increase protection against radiation and may
slightly improve protection against blast. However, few homes in the South and West have basements.
With adequate time, instructions, and materials,
an “expedient” shelter offering reasonable
radiation protection can be constructed.
This is a buried or semi buried structure,
shielded from radiation by dirt and other
common materials. Expedient shelter construction
figures prominently in Soviet civil defense
planning.
Evacuation
Evacuation is conceptually simple: people
move from high-risk to low-risk areas. In effect,
evacuation (or crisis relocation) uses safe
distances for protection from immediate nuclear
effects. The effectiveness of crisis relocation
is highly scenario-dependent. If relocated
people have time to find or build shelters, if
the areas into which people evacuate do not
become new targets, and if evacuated targets
are attacked, evacuation will save many lives.
Although evacuating is far less costly per
capita than constructing blast shelters, planning
and implementing an evacuation is difficult.
First, people must be organized and transported
to relocation areas. This is a staggering
logistics problem. Unless people are assigned
to specific relocation areas, many areas could
be overwhelmed with evacuees, causing severe
health and safety problems. Unless private
transportation is strictly controlled, monumental
traffic jams could result. Unless adequate
public transportation is provided, some people
would be stranded in blast areas. Unless necessary
supplies are at relocation areas, people
might rebel against authority. Unless medical
care is distributed among relocation areas,
health problems would multiply.
Once evacuated, people must be sheltered.
They might be assigned to existing public shelters
or to private homes with basements suitable
for shelter. If materials are available and
time permits, new public shelters could be
built. Evacuees require many of the same life-support
functions described previously under
fallout shelters; providing these in sufficient
quantity would be difficult.
Evacuation entails many unknowns. The
time available for evacuation is unknown, but
extremely critical. People should be evacuated
to areas that will receive little fallout, yet
fallout deposition areas cannot be accurately
predicted in advance. Crisis relocation could
increase the perceived threat of nuclear war
and this might destablize a crisis.
Whether people would obey an evacuation
order depends on many factors, especially
public perception of a deteriorating international
crisis. If an evacuation were ordered and
people were willing to comply with it, would
time allow compliance? If the attack came
while the evacuation is underway, more people
might die than if evacuation had not been
attempted. Sufficiency of warning depends on
circumstances; a U.S. President might order an
evacuation only if the Soviets had started one.
In this case, the United States might have less
evacuation time than the Soviets. The abundance
of transportation in the United States
could in theory permit faster evacuation, but
panic, traffic jams, and inadequate planning
could nullify this advantage. Disorder and
panic, should they occur, would impede evacuation.
The success of evacuation in the United
States would likely vary from region to region.
Generally, evacuation requires little planning
in sparsely populated areas. In some areas,
especially the Midwest and South, evacuation
is feasible but requires special planning because
fallout from attacks on ICBMs might
mean longer evacuation distances. Evacuation
from the densely populated Boston-to-Washington
and Sacramento-to-San Diego corridors,
with their tens of millions of people and limited
relocation areas, may prove impossible.
The Soviet Union reportedly has plans for
large-scale evacuation of cities, and recent debate
on its effectiveness has stimulated discussion
of a similar plan, known as “crisis relocation”
for the United States. Some key considerations
are:
l-Tactical warning of a missile attack does
not give enough time for an evacuation.
Evacuation plans thus assume that an intense
crisis will provide several days’ strategic
warning of an attack, and that the
leadership would make use of this warning.
2-Unlike inplace blast sheltering, peacetime
expenditures on evacuation are relatively
small, since most expenditures
occur only when a decision has been
reached to implement plans.
3-
Evacuation involves considerably more
preattack planning than a shelter-based
civil defense plan, as logistical and other
organizational requirements for moving
mill ions of people in a few days are much
more complex. Plans must be made to
care for the relocated people. People
must know where to go. Transportation or
evacuation routes must be provided. A recent
survey of the U.S. population revealed
that many would spontaneously
evacuate in a severe crisis, which could interfere
with a planned evacuation.
Some U.S. analysts argue that detailed
Soviet evacuation plans, together with evidence
of practical evacuation preparations, indicate
a reasonable evacuation capability,
Others claim that actual Soviet capabilities
are far less than those suggested in official
plans and that, in particular, an actual evacuation
under crisis conditions would result in a
mixture of evacuation according to plan for
some, delay for others, and utter chaos in some
places. In any case, a large evacuation has
never been attempted by the United States.
The extent of Soviet evacuation exercises is a
matter of controversy.
Crisis relocation of large populations would
have major economic impacts. These are the
subject of a current DCPA study in which the
Treasury, Federal Reserve Board, and Federal
Preparedness Agency are participating. Results
to date indicate that economic impacts of relocation,
followed by crisis resolution and return
of evacuees, could continue for 1 to 3 years,
but that appropriate Government policies
could significantly reduce such impacts. If
blast shelters for key workers are built in risk
areas, and if workers are willing to accept the
risks, essential industries couId be kept functioning
while most people were in relocation
areas. Such a program would substantially reduce
the economic impacts of an extended
crisis relocation.
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 semiburied structures
and other protective facilities. A recent
study 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 stockpiles 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 stand-point
of organizing protection from weapons
of mass destruction.
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
betieve nuclear war is a very low possibility.
Planning for Postattack Activities
The economic and social problems following
a nuclear attack cannot be foreseen clearly
enough to permit drafting of detailed recovery
plans. In contrast, plans can be made to preserve
the continuity of government, and both
the United States and the Soviet Union surely
have such plans.
U.S. AND SOVIET CIVIL DEFENSE
U.S. Civil Defense
U.S. attitudes have been ambivalent toward
civil defense ever since the Federal Civil Defense
Act of 1950 responded to the first Soviet
test of atomic bombs in 1949. Indeed, much of
the U.S. civil defense was a reaction to external
factors rather than part of a carefully-thought-
through program. The “duck and cover”
program and the evacuation route program,
both of the early 1950’s, responded to
the threat of Soviet atomic bombs carried by
manned bombers. Lack of suitable protection
against fire and blast led to plans for rapid
evacuation of cities during the several hours
separating radar warning and the arrival of
Soviet bombers.
The first Soviet test of thermonuclear weapons
in 1953 necessitated changes in these
plans. The much higher yield of these weapons
meant that short-distance evacuations and
modestly hard blast shelters in cities were ineffective
for protecting people, and that simply
“ducking” in school corridors, while perhaps
better than nothing, was not part of a serious
civil defense plan. H-bombs also raised the
specter of radioactive fallout blanketing large
areas of the country. Previously, civil defense
could be conceptualized as moving people a
short distance out of cities, while the rest of
the country would be unscathed and able to
help the target cities.
Fallout meant that large
areas of the country— the location of which
was unpredictable— would become contaminated,
people would be forced to take shelter
in those areas, and their inhabitants, thus
pinned down, would be unable to offer much
help to attacked cities for several weeks.
The advent of ICBMs necessitated further
changes. Their drastically reduced warning
times precluded evacuations on radar warning
of attack.
With previous plans made useless by advances
in weapons technology, the United
States cast around for alternative plans. One
approach was to identify and stock fallout
shelters, while recognizing the impracticability
of protecting people from blast. After the
Berlin crisis of 1961, the President initiated a
program to provide fallout shelters for the entire
population. The National Shelter Survey
Program was commenced on a crash basis. The
President proposed:
1. the survey, identification, and stocking of
existing shelters;
2. the subsidization of fallout shelter in-stalIation
in new construction; and
3. the construction of single-purpose fallout
shelters where these were needed.
Only the first step in this program was authorized.
The Government also urged people to
build home fallout shelters.
The civil defense program was broadened in
the early 1970’s to include preparedness for
peacetime as well as wartime disasters. The
1970’s also saw a new emphasis on operational
capabilities of all available assets, including
warning systems, shelters, radiological detection
instruments and trained personnel, police
and fire-fighting forces, doctors and hospitals,
and experienced management. This development
program was called On-Site Assistance.
In the mid-1970’s, contingency planning to
evacuate city and other high-risk populations
during a period of severe crisis was initiated.
At present, U.S. civil defense has the following
plans and capabilities:
Organization.
– The Federal civil defense
function has been repeatedly reorganized
since the Federal Civil Defense Act of 1950.
The most recent organization gave prime responsibility
for civil defense to the Defense
Civil Preparedness Agency (DCPA), housed in
the Defense Department. The Federal Preparedness
Agency (FPA) in the General Services
Administration conducts some planning
for peacetime nuclear emergencies, economic
crises, continuity of Government following a
nuclear attack, and other emergencies. The
Federal Disaster Assistance Administration
(FDAA), in the Department of Housing and Urban
Development, is concerned with peacetime
disaster response. In 1978, Congress
assented to a Presidential proposal to reorganize
civil defense and peacetime disaster functions
into a single agency, the Federal Emergency
Management Agency, which will incorporate
DCPA, FPA, FDAA, and other agencies.
Civil Protection.
-The United States is looking
increasingly at crisis relocation (CR), under
which city-dwellers would move to rural
“host” areas when an attack appeared likely.
CR would require several days of warning, so it
would be carried out during a crisis rather than
on radar warning of missile launch. The United
States has conducted surveys to identify
potential fallout shelters in host areas, and
blast and fallout shelters in risk areas.
Through FY 1971, about 118,000 buildings had been
marked as shelters; about 95,000 other buildings
have been identified as potential shelters
but have not been marked. Marking would be
done in crises. In the early 1960’s, the Federal
Government purchased austere survival supplies
for shelters. The shelf life of these supplies
has expired; shelter stocking is now to be
accomplished during a crisis.
Direction and Control.
–The Federal Government
has several teletype, voice, and radio
systems for communicating in crises between
DCPA, FDAA, and FPA headquarters, regional
offices, States, and Canada. State and local
governments are planning to integrate communication
systems into this net. DCPA has eight
regions, each with emergency operating centers
(EOCs). Six of these centers are hardened
against nuclear blast. Forty-three States have
EOCs, and EOCs with fallout protection are
operational or under development in locales
including about half the population.
Attack Warning
–Warning can be passed
over the National Warning System to over
1,200 Federal, State, and local warning points,
which operate 24 hours a day. Once warning
has reached local levels, it is passed to the
public by sirens or other means. Almost half of
the U.S. population is in areas that could
receive outdoor warning within 15 minutes of
the issue of a national warning. Dissemination
of warning to the public, however, is inadequate
in many places.
Emergency Public Information.
–Fallout protection,
emergency power generators, and remote
units have been provided for radio stations
in the Emergency Broadcast System, to
permit broadcast of emergency information
under fallout conditions. About a third of the
stations are in highrisk areas and could be
destroyed by blast. A program has been initiated
to protect 180 stations from electromagnetic
pulse (EMP). About one-third of the more
than 5,000 localities participating in the civil
defense program have reported development
of plans to provide the public with information
in emergencies.
Radiological Defense.
— This function encompasses
radiological detection instruments,
communication, plans and procedures, and
personnel trained to detect and evaluate radiological
hazards. Between FY 1955-74, the Federal
Government had procured about 1.4 million
rate meters, 3.4 million dose meters, and
related equipment. Effective radiological defense
would require an estimated 2.4 million
people to be trained as radiological monitors
in a crisis.
Citizen Training.
–The civil defense program
once provided substantial training for the
public via newsmedia
must now be relied on to educate citizens on
hazards and survival actions. DCPA offers
classroom and home study training for civil defense
personnel.
Several points emerge from this discussion:
1. On paper, civil defense looks effective.
The United States has more than enough
identified fallout shelter spaces for the entire
population, which include underground
parking, subways, tunnels, and
deep basement potential blast shelters.
The United States has a vast network of
highways and vehicles; every holiday
weekend sees a substantial urban evacuation.
CB and other radios can aid communication
after an attack. The United
States has enormous resources (food,
medical supplies, electrical-generating
capability, etc. ) beyond the minimum
needed for survival.
2. However, no one at all thinks that the
United States has an effective civil defense.
3. U.S. civil defense capability is weakened
because some elements are in place while
others are not or have not been maintained.
Shelters will not support life if
their occupants have no water. Evacuation
plans will save fewer people if host
areas have inadequate shelter spaces and
supplies, or if people are poorly distributed
among towns.
4. Faced with drastic technological change,
moral and philosophical questions about
the desirability of civil defense, and budgetary
constraints, Federal plans have been
marked by vacillation, shifts in direction,
and endless reorganization.
Soviet Civil Defense
Soviet civil defense has faced the same technical
chalIenges as the United States — atomic
bombs, hydrogen bombs fallout, ICBMs, limited
warning, and so on. The Soviet Union has
consistently devoted more resources to civil
defense than has the United States, and has
been more willing to make and follow long-term
plans. However, it is not known how
Soviet leaders evaluate the effectiveness of
their civil defense.
The Soviet civil defense organization is a
part of the Ministry of Defense and is headed
by Deputy Minister Colonel-General A. Altunin.
Permanent full-time staff of the organizaiion
is believed to number over 100,000.
Some civil defense training is compulsory for
all Soviet citizens, and many also study first
aid. There has also been a large shelter-building
program.
The Soviets reportedly have an extensive urban
evacuation plan. Each urban resident is
assigned to a specific evacuation area, located
on collective farms; each farmer has instructions
and a list of the people he is to receive. If
fallout protection is not available, it is planned
that simple expedient shelters would be constructed
quickly. Soviet plans recommend that
shelters be located at least 40 km [25 miles]
from the city district to provide sufficient protection
against the effects of a l-Mt weapon
exploding at a distance of 10 to 20 km [6 to 12
miles].
In July 1978, the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) released its unclassified study, “Soviet
Civil Defense. ” In brief, the report finds that
Soviet civil defense is “an ongoing nationwide
program under military control. ” It notes several
motivations for the Soviet program: the
traditional Soviet emphasis on homeland defense,
to convince potential adversaries they
cannot defeat the Soviet Union, to increase
Soviet strength should war occur, to help maintain
the logistics base for continuing a war effort
following nuclear attack, to save people
and resources, and to promote postattack recovery.
It observes that Soviet civil defense “is
not a crash effort, but its pace increased beginning
in the late 1960’ s.” It points to several difficulties
with the Soviet program: bureaucratic
problems, apathy, little protection of economic
installations, and little dispersal of industry.
According to the report, the specific goals of
Soviet civil defense are to protect the leadership,
essential workers, and others, in that priority
order; to protect productivity; and to sustain
people and prepare for economic recovery
following an attack. In assessing Soviet efforts
to meet these goals, the CIA found:
The Soviets probably have sufficient blast-shelter
space in hardened command posts for
virtually all the leadership elements at all
levels (about 110,000 people) Shelters at
key economic installations could accommodate
about 12 to 24 percent of the total work
force.
A minimum of 10 to 20 percent of the total
population in urban areas (including essential
workers) could be accommodated at present
in blast-resistant shelters
The critical decision to be made by the
Soviet leaders in terms of sparing the population
would be whether or not to evacuate
cities. Only by evacuating the bulk of the urban
population could they hope to achieve a
marked reduction in the number of urban
casualties. An evacuation of urban areas could
probably be accomplished in two or three
days, with as much as a week required for full
evacuation of the largest cities.
Soviet measures to protect the economy
could not prevent massive industrial damage
(Regarding postattack recovery), the coordination
of requirements with available supplies
and transportation is a complex problem
for Soviet planners even in peacetime, let
alone following a large-scale nuclear attack
Assessing the effectiveness of Soviet civil
defense, the CIA study found that a worst case
attack could kill or injure welI over 100 million
people, but many leaders would survive; with a
few days for evacuation and shelter, casualties
could be reduced by more than 50 percent;
and with a week for preattack planning, “Soviet
civil defenses could reduce casualties to
the low tens of millions. ”
This study concluded that Soviet civil defense
could do Iittle to mitigate the effects of a major
attack. Blast shelters might reduce fatalities
to 80 percent of those in an unsheltered
case, but this could be offset by targeting additional
weapons (e. g., those on bombers and
submarines that would be alerted during a
crisis) against cities. Evacuation might reduce
fatalities to a range of 25 million to 35 million,
but if the United States were to target the
evacuated population, some 50 million might
be killed. Furthermore, civil defense could do
little to protect the Soviet economy, so many
evacuees and millions of injured could not be
supported after the attack ended.
The sharp disagreement about Soviet civil
defense capability revolves around several key
issues:
Can the Soviets follow their stated civil defense
plans? Some believe that the Soviets would fill
their urban blast shelters to maximum occupancy
rather than leave unevaluated people
without protection and would evacuate all
persons for whom no urban shelter spaces
were available. Others believe that administrative
confusion and other difficulties might render
the Soviets far more vulnerable in practice.
How widely would evacuees be dispersed? It
is obvious that the more widely dispersed an
urban population is, the fewer casualties an attack
on cities will produce. It is equally obvious
that the more time there is for an evacuation,
the more widely people can disperse.
Nevertheless, there is great uncertainty over
how well an evacuation would perform in
practice. A Boeing study estimates that if urban
dwellers walked for a day away from the
cities, the population of cities would be more
or less distributed over a circle of radius 30
miles [48.3 km].
If they did not dig shelters, a
U.S. attack would kill about 27 percent of the
Soviet population; if they dug expedient shelters,
the attack would kill about 4 percent. If
the Soviets fulIy implemented their evacuation
plans but the evacuees were not protected
from fallout, then 8 percent of the total population
would die; if they constructed hasty
shelters, 2 percent would die. ACDA, however,
argues that even if the Soviet Union is totally
successful in implementing its evacuation, the
United States could, if the objective is to kill
people, use its reserve weapons against the
evacuated population and ground burst its
weapons, thus inflicting from 70 million to 85
million fatalities.
How well would evacuees be protected from
fallout? Some believe that Soviet evacuees
could be fully protected against very high
radiation levels if they are allowed a 1- to 2 -week
preattack “surge” period. (Tests conducted
by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory
have shown, for example, that American families
can construct adequate fallout shelters in
24 to 36 hours, if they are issued the necessary
tools and instructions.)
The ACDA study assumes that from one-third to two-thirds of the
evacuees would have little protection against
fallout. The two cases are not necessarily exclusive,
since the ability to dig in depends on
assumptions, especially time available for
preparations before an attack. Some assume a
lengthy and deepening crisis would precede
nuclear strikes. Others believe that error or
miscalculation would lead to nuclear war,
leaving the United States or the Soviet Union
unprepared and not having ordered evacuation.
In addition, should an attack occur
when the earth is frozen or muddy, construction
of expedient shelters would be difficult.
How effective is Soviet industrial hardening?
Soviet civil defense manuals provide instructions
for the last-minute hardening of key industrial
equipment in order to protect it from
blast, falling debris, and fires. A considerable
controversy has developed in the United States
as to how effective such a program would be.
The Boeing Company and the Defense Nuclear
Agency carried out a number of tests that led
them to conclude that “techniques similar to
those described in Soviet Civil Defense manuals
for protecting industrial equipment appear
to hold great promise for permitting early
repair of industrial machinery and its restoration
to production.’” Others have challenged
this conclusion: for example, the ACDA civil
defense study concluded that “attempts to
harden above-ground facilities are a futile exercise,
and that even buried facilities which
are targeted cannot survive. ”
To understand this issue, one must recognize
that it is virtually impossible to harden an
economic asset so that it would survive if it
were directly targeted. By lowering the height
of burst, the maximum overpressure can be increased
(at a small sacrifice to the area covered
by moderate overpressures), and even
missile silos can be destroyed by sufficiently
accurate weapons. However, many economic
targets are relatively close together (for example,
separate buildings in a single factory), and
it is possible and efficient to aim a single
weapon so that it destroys a number of targets
at once. If each target is adequately hardened,
then the attacker must either increase the
number or yield of weapons used, or else accept
less damage to the lower priority targets.
However, the practicability of hardening entire
installations to this extent is questionable, and
the more likely measure would be to harden
key pieces of machinery. The uncertainties
about the Soviet program include the following:
- How much hardening could be done in
the days before an attack?
- Would the United States target additional
or larger weapons to overcome the effects
of hardening?
- To what extent would the survival of the
most important pieces of machinery in the
less important Soviet factories contribute
to economic recovery?
CONCLUDING NOTE
These pages have provided a brief description
of civil defense as it might affect the impact
of nuclear war. However, no effort has
been made to answer the following key questions:
- Would a civil defense program on a large
scale make a big difference, or only a marginal
difference, in the impact of a nuclear
war on civil society?
- What impact would various kinds of civil
defense measures have on peacetime diplomacy
or crisis stability?
- What civil defense measures would be appropriate
if nuclear war were considered likely in the next few years?
- What kind and size of civil defense program
might be worth the money it would cost ?
Updated May 2001 - © 2001 By Richard A. Fleetwood |
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