Civil Defense—the New Debate: The Misguided Concept

In: Worldview, Volume 22, Issue 1-2, p. 44-44

Abstract

Anyone who believes that the Soviet Union, because of its civil defense program, is better able to survive a nuclear war than the United States is totally misguided. And anyone willing to accept such a foolish argument is blind to three basic facts.First, the massive urban evacuation program would have limited effectiveness in reducing the disastrous effects of a nuclear attack on the general population, even supposing that such a scheme could be effectively carried out on a national scale. Second, targeting for population destruction is not in any case a primary goal of our current strategic planning. Third, if Soviet strategic planners are contemplating a first-strike scenario against the United States (as many American hawks state in their arguments for an American civil defense evacuation scheme), they would be unable to employ their urban evacuation plan, because to do so would obviously destroy the element of surprise needed for any first strike to succeed.