DECLASSIFIED Authorityfg 7 3 OFFICIAL USE ONLY 7 UNITED STATES ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION NGTON D C 20545 November 5 1963 NOTE ON ENCLOSURE Enclosed is an up-to-date statement of our thinking about our study of the postattack environment It extends and replaces earlier statements or outlines Any comments you may have would be welcome 4 4m Hal Hollister Chief Technical Analysis Branch Division of Biology and Medicine Wag 5 5 OFFICIAL USE ONLY 054 UtLU h i it DECLASSIFIED OFFICIAL USE ONLY DRAFT THE TAB STUDY OF THE BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF NUCLEAR WAR A NOTE ON SCOPE AND September 13 1963 U S ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION Division of Biology and Medicine Technical Analysis Branch OFFICIAL USE ONLY DECLASSIFIED OFFICIAL USE ONLY i TABLE OF CONTENTS Page No Summary ii 15 Introduction The Present State of Affairs Limitations of Studies of the Biological and Environ- mental Consequences of Nuclear War 1 3 General Approach Approach to Problems in Economic Biology 7 5 Approach to Problems in Population Biology 0 8 6 Tying Together An Approach Through Systems Analysis 10 7 Conclusions 13 Annexes 1 Outline for an Analysis of the Impact of Nuclear War a 14 2a Illustrative Development of Contextual Situations in Relation to Questions 19 3 A Note on Present Concepts of Operations Research and Systems Analysis with Appli- i cations to the Study of the Biological and Environmental Consequences of Nuclear war OFFICIAL USE ONLY DECLASSIFIED I i 978 OFFICIAL USE ONLY THE TAB STUDY OF THE BIOLOGICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL CONSEQUENCES OF NUCLEAR WAR A NOTE ON SCOPE AND APPROACH Summary The underlying thesis of this program note is that one will get virtually nowhere toward the goal of an improved understanding of the biological and environmental consequences of nuclear war and the impact on national security policy unless he starts out with the point of View that the first step is a major improvement in the analysis of existing information Sooner or later he will expect to find himself at the limits of information Appropriate theoretical or experimental research can be undertaken accordingly In some instances such research shou1d be started as soon as possible because of long lead times The success of the first step analysis will require a considerable effort toward the systematization of data particularly in fields of research where progress has been rapid ii OFFICIAL USE ONLY - DECLASSHHED Authorityfg LJ LI a I y 7 OFFICIAL USE ONLY THE TAB STUDY OF THE BIOLOGICAL AND CONSEQUENCES OF NUCLEAR WAR A NOTE ON SCOPE AND APPROACH 1 Introduction The Atomic Energy Commission Division of Biology and Medicine Technical Analysis Branch TAB is developing a program to study the biological and environmental consequences of nuclear warn The objective is to develop a better understanding of what nuclear war might do to mankind's health and his living environment so that the formulation of national security policy3 for both military and non- military defense can be guidedo The purpose of the program is not to furnish technological detail in support of Operating programs such as civil defense A better understanding of the biological and environmental consequences of nuclear war should contribute to more enlightened decisions on strategy and foreign policy military operations weapons systems evaluation nuclear stockpile composition civil defense arms control and postattack recovery This note expresses our current vieWpoint of what the problem is all about and of the scope of the program and an approach to its developmento 2a The Present State of Affairs Limitations of Studies of the Biological and Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War Let us consider the present state of affairs firsto Strictly speaking one cannot in clarity set forth to assess the consequences biological or otherwise of a nuclear war -- or to compare nuclear attacks for the use of clean versus normal nuclear attacks for the use of clean versus normal fission yield weapons -w without some advance specification of purposea The purpose will affect the degree of attention to detail to assumptions and to error or sensitivity to assumptions For a full appraisal of the longer-term aftermath of a nuclear war assumptions need to be made about what people will be doing to help themselves out of their predicamento If for example a nation's economy w- and presumably therefore the social and political system m- breaks down the question will not merely be what the radiation or secondary fires might do to cr0planda range- land or foresta There will be the further question of the fate of those normal activities of man that relate to his health and his biological environment and that may be discontinued for some time postattack irrigation that ceases pesticides and fertilizers not applied land cultivation not carried out forest fires not fought etca It should be clear that there is a close tie between OFFICIAL USE ONLY - DECLASSIFIED Authority mg 997-4731 OFFICIAL USE ONLY the industrial or narrowly the economic aspects of agriculture or forestry anesthe biological aSpects A similar argument applies to the protection of the public health where the object often is the control suppression of certain biological populations for example disease organisms or insect carriersm If the nutritional status of the human sur- vivors is depressed if sanitary standards are lowered and if Specific public health measures such as immunization are curtailed or eliminated postattack if all of these things happen at once -- what will the biological consequences be Some relevant information is available for example information on the effect of ionizing radiation on the immune response of certain laboratory animals It has become papular to cite the essence of the biological consequences of a nuclear attack as a reversion by the survivors to a more primitive method of living meaning the life of 50 to 100 years agoa Such a statement is vague at best We regard it an Open question whether a mere reversion to the past is even possible biologically speakinga Reversion should not be assumed uncritically Our biological environment is many things 1 plants and animals that are grown cultured under more or less controlled conditions for food or fibre crops livestock and poultry etc populations that man would presumably wish to re-establish postattack 2 plants and animals that are partially or near totally controlled suppressed in numbers because they interfere with the production of food or fibre or because they interfere with human health directly weeds plants insects bacteria fungi etc populations that man would presumably wish to suppress postattack 3 plants and animals whose numbers are essentially un- controlled by man but nonetheless harvested for food or fibre fish from the sea trees from the forest etc 4 plants and animals of no intrinsic importance to man but constituting key elements in the natural regulation of eco- systems of importance to man either because he regards them as useful or harmful A meaningful appraisal of the longaterm biological consequences of a nuclear attack on health and the living environment would thus require 1 industrial -2- OFFICIAL USE ONLY DEELASSIFIED VJ OFFICIAL USE ONLY damage or more broadly economic damage in terms of implications on health and the living environment a 2 interpretation of biological damage in terms of impact on a nation primarily in terms of health agriculture forestry and similar activities which are at least partly social or economic in character In short biological and nonbiological factors are in- separable The longer term biological consequences follow from the initial biological and nonbiological damage and all the subsequent interactions including what man does about the situation A meaningful study of the long-term biological or bioenviron mental consequences of a nuclear attack requires furthermore an appraisal of the initial or prompt biological damage to people and their living environment from blast thermal radiation and ionizing radiation separately and combined and 2 the consequences of multiple sources of damage to biological populations interacting with each other and with their physical environment These appraisals have never been made to our knowledge We are presently unable mostly for lack of information suitable for application to appraise adequately the consequences of the residual injury to surviving people or livestock from blast We are similarly unable to appraise nonaurban firespread and its biological consequences except to note somewhat superficially that an absolute upper limit is probably set by the fact that much of a Nation as large as the United States is not burnable by secondary firespread at any particular time In the summer much land is either in soil or young green crops many areas are receiving much rainfall and there are always the rocky areas deserts etc We particularly need to pull together and examine the available information on the biological aftermath of non-urban fireo The casualty estimates usually made available to us from the damage assessment calculations carried out by others are based upon oversimplified criteria that ignore thermal radiation and prompt ionizing radiation and that do not consider the combined injury from exposure to blast plus heat plus ionizing radiationa Such an approach not only raises doubt about the validity of the fatality estimates but also gives little information on the health status of the survivors We are unable to appraise the effect of large areas of high radi- ation levels on the wild and controlled-but-undomesticated biological populations insects weed plants forests mammals birds etc This includes damage to a nation's ability to produce and transport and store food - 3 - OFFICIAL USE ONLY DECLASSIFIED Authority bJ Hallja x USE ONLY There are two problems both difficult 1 how to estimate effective radiation exposure 2 how to predict the dynamics of these pepulations given their relative degree of depletion from radiation or fire Ex- posure is hard to predict because for exm e nmny of the animals are partly below ground or close to the ground Natural shielding against radiation may exist but on the other hand insects close to the ground and plants may be subject to a beta dose because tissues are within the range of the beta particles By population dynamics we simply mean the number-time variation including reproduction mortality migration etc of a biological papulation for any given area These quantities for any Species will be determined by the interaction of the species with its physical environment and with other Species ats are hard to come by pre- diction from studies of isolated populations as in the laboratory or controlled field experiment appears to be irrelevant simulation by actually setting up realistic field experiments appears difficult Certain generalizations about the number-time variations to be ex pected are-offered not asndootrinenbut as incentive for speculation 1 an over-all limit to expansion of a biological pOpu- lation is food supply pepulations can be thought of of how far removed they are from direct feeding on plants herbivores carnivores etc 2 a population surge -- up or down -- by Species A may be followed by one for species which is parasitic on A 3 those environments having relatively few species deserts tundra etc are in some sense simpler environments and as such are regarded as more susceptible to fluctuations of those popu- lations that live there the important point is that man's own historical influence on earth -- especially inrcivilized countries -- has been to simplify his biological environment so that agriculture could be established 4 radiation from a nuclear attack or fire will tend to still further simplify the environment that is these agents can only reduce numbers or species not create them 5 but to repeat the great unknown is what man himself can be expected to do postattack control measures meaning a broad spectrum of activities including the ordinary practice of farming poStattack as opposed to stopping farming would appear to make a great difference The major scientific obstacle to carrying out adequate appraisals is the lack of means for validation The following biological problems are listed to explain this point all of these problems are essentially unexplored OFFICIAL USE ONLY DECLASSIFIED OFFICIAL USE ONLY 1 The status of communicable diseases involving populations of biological organisms including baoteria and viruses and their hosts including animals and man in a situation where people and livestock are injured suffering from degrees of shock Subjected to substandard sanitary conditions and living on an inadequate diet with some degree of radiation exposureo 2 The status of wild and controlled-but-undomesticated free- liying populations of insects plants and mammals for which a popu- lation equilibrium preattack has been disturbed and may be further disturbed in the postattack period depending upon what man does with his environment 3 The-extent of radiation exposure to plants and plant seeds not only from external gamma radiation but from beta radiation emitted by fallout deposited directly upon the plants allowing for the fact that terrain and ground cover and other factors attenuate the radiation 4 The extent of radiation exposure to insects and other small creatures on or under the grOund but close to the fallout particles beta plus gamma radiation 5 The radiosensitivity of both plants and animals exposed to radiation under the natural circumstances of their life cycles We are presently unable to study effectively the economic geography or the plant geography or the regional pattern of agri- culture of a nation except in a limited way This means that relatively little regional detail is provided in our study reports beyond such things as a series of-maps that show in a general way the portions of a country subjected to given consequences immediately after the attack up to one year from accumulated dose Possibly the most significant omission from our study reports is an analysis or estimate of error BaSed upon our knowledge of the assumptions used in damage assessment calculations carried out by others to make estimates of the immediate effects of weapons and the immediate consequences of an attack we find it hard to believe that the casualty numbers have an associated error of less than f_40% In addition to errors in the technical assumptions now used in the computer-damagewassessment programs and errors of fact in the data-base pertaining to the economic geography of a nation additional error is introduced into the computer program itself by the grid-lumping procedurea Considering the difficulties outlined in the preceding paragraphs our approach has been to make the minimum number of numerical calcu- lations sufficient to draw conclusions with due allowance for the errors carried in the estimateso - 5 - OFFICIAL USE GREY 3 I -- sacrum 1 kg key OFFICIAL USE ONLY The net result of our current studies turns out to be as follows l -we are able to draw some inferences from the damage-assessment estimates by others about the status of the survivors and their we are able-to make a rough estimate of the internal emitter radiation exposure dose so as to enable comparison with the external gamma dose received by the survivors 3 we make at least a qualitative assessment of the expected health of the survivors for the short- and long-term including the latent effects of radiation 4 we make a general statement concerning the ecological situation postattack including some preliminary remarks about the radiosensi tivity of plants and 5 we draw those conclusions that we think most clearly follow from the estimates in such a way as to be rela- tively insensitive to the many arbitrary assumptions Thus at present we do not purport to make full appraisals of the longeraterm consequences of nuclear attacks on the health of people orion their living environment In our Opinion such an appraisal needs to be made and to our knowledge has never been made in this country The 1959 Congressional Hearings on the biological and environmental consequences of nuclear war for example emphasize the shortuterm direct damage and virtually ignore the interactions pointed out above 3 General Approach What do we do to change this state of affairs We start out by adopting the point of View that given our objectives -- the greatest significance of biological damage to food and agriculture public health land forests etc for national policy lies in its economic consequences We insist here that economic be interpreted broadh'to mean an important aspect of the social consequence and not to mean an antithesis of the social consequences Analyses of the biological effects can start with assumptions about the immediate damage postattack then it should be possible to characterize the subsequent biological damage and its significance for recovery Ultimately one would also look back- wards to see which preattack and attack conditions can result in given levels of damage or prospects for recovery These analyses should be addressed to a range of contextual war situations of general and sustained interest We believe that such an approach will aid in directing the focus of what is inherently a biological study to important problems and impose barriers against digressions into unnecessary detailo In comparative case studies we find ourselves suggesting that only at the extremes can any two cases be told apart See Annexes 1 and 2 -5- OFFICIAL J DECLASSIFIED OFFICIAL USE ONLY The biological study itself would emphasize l the health of the surviving peeple including such directly related factors as nutrition sanitation and immunity and 2 the economic prospects for the living environment as expressed by its ability to act or to be restored to act as a source of habitation food fibre wood products disposal of biological waste etc Both of these broad problems can be conveniently and usefully designated as problems in economic biologyu 4 Approach to Problems in Economic Biology Suppose for illustration we start off with the point of view borrowed from Winter that the impact of a nuclear war on a nation can be assessed by making a comparison of human survival interpreted as a set of requirements for consumption with surviving inventories and means of production particularly technological means Require- ments for consumption compared with preattack may be increased medical care or decreased food in particular circumstances As pointed out by Winter stable sustained support of the survivors postattack implies the existence of a viable economic system Or practically Speaking that a stable solution has been found to the problem of using the surviving resources in such a way that adequate production rates are re established before surviving inventories are exhausted It would seem that our interest lies in knowing something about economic viability in association with various levels of attack damage about the role that biological and bioenvironmental damage plays in_affecting economic viability and about the role that economic viability plays in affecting the later deferred biological damage to health and environment Is as has been suggested the dominant uncertainty to re establishing a viable economy the re establishment of agricultural production And is the re-establishment of agricultural production in turn primarily uncertain because of unCertainties in biological ecological factors And are such factors associated with the direct damage from such effects as fire and ionizing radiation or more with the subsequent biological effects of a malfunctioning economy such as lack of certain technological inputs to agriculture or simply the cessation of farming In more detail can we say that the availability of farm crops is more likely to depend upon radiosensitivity than upon radionuclide contributions to the human diet Perhaps even more critical than either is the availability as opposed to denial of the land to the farmers who must work it What then are the foundations for a re lationship between the establishment of radiation exposure tolerances Winter Sidney G 'Economic Viability After Thermonuclear War The Limites of Feasible Productiono September 1963 -7 OFFICIAL USE ONLY I DECLASSIFIED Authority Li 7 8 OFFICIAL USE ONLY land denialstimes and postattack economic viability Can we say that any land that can be worked within the first growing season postattack for a springtime attack say 1 will produce crops undamaged by radiation to any significant extent 2 will result in levels of radionuclides in the diet not considered intolerable provided the need for food is uppermost Can we say that the internal emitter dose except for iodine perhaps to people would be a small fraction of the external gamma dose already sustained unless present conditions of shelter protection are greatly changed Can we wrap all of this up by concluding that a nation attacked would be fortunate to be able to afford the luxury of making its decisions about the post attack economic recovery -- including decisions as to which land to produce food on on the basis of minimizing radiation exposure from internal emitters This would be because if the contamination levels are low in association with relatively low levels of attack damage in general then the nation will have and be able to exercise many Options whereas if the contamination levels are high in association with high damage levels the nation will have few options to exercise and little ability to exercise them Turning to a healthudisease problem as a second illustration can we say that the long-term health hazards from the immediate and prde tracted exposure to radiation the so-called latent effects and the genetic effects are of little consequence in comparison with the immediate health hazards and their consequences associated with blast andn irefand a malfunctioning economy including lack of sanitation and medical care Such consequences include effects on the mortality and morbidity of the surviving population as well as genetic effects from nonequilibrium depletion of the preattack population In short even if radiation exposure is taken out of the problem the problem remains we want somehow to ascertain the important biological limitations if any upon the ability offman to restore his environment if not to preattack status than to something familiar enough so he can manage it or at least to something vaguely recognizable This objective suggests the need for studies of plants and animals in cluding insects bacteria and viruses at the population level What are the conseqUences of the selective depletion or of course enrichment of Species 5 Approach to Problems in Population Biology we arrive at the suggestion that problems in population biology need to be understood if the broader study as a whole is to lead to useful results For pepulation biology more than for any other bio logical subject matter applicable to the TAB study limitations in basic knowledge hamper efforts to estimate the outcome of the attack as it affects health and the living environment Section 1 gave a OFFICIAL USE ONLY DECLASSIFIED a k Authority L H73 1 OFFICIAL USE ONLY rough but useful classification scheme according to which populations can be regarded as to various degrees 1 freeoliving 2 economi- cally important and 3 important for the internal regulation of an ecosystem Ordinarily agricultural land carries pepulations in all these categories which are not mutually exclusive It is useful to regard the preattack populations as in approxi mate dynamic equilibrium If trends exist the rates of change would be slow compared with the sudden changes caused by the attack itself if not this is equivalent to suggesting that the attack had relatively little immediate effect and that there is time to counteract any long-term trends that might have set in These changes would either be in the populations themselves selective depletion primarily or in their associated physical environment Given some more-or-less sudden abrupt and large changes in the population composition of the biosphere and of the associated physical environment what are the consequences Special aSpects of the general question include the consequences to the gene pool There is not only the effect of radiation but of high nonrandom mortality in the population at the time of the attacko An- other aspect is demographic What will the life expectancy of the survivors be if the preattack pepulation is heavily depleted For a freesliving population we might assume that the bio- logical end point of interest is the size of the population in time and Space Our interest would center in birthadeath and growth and interaction processes We would then assume that if we use data from observations of freewliving p0pulations under natural circum- stances the intraspecific and interspecific interactions are all accounted for in effect though our observations may not be suf- ficient to let us sort these interactions outa If population homeostasis is the rule by action of negative feedback mechanisms of regulation then outbreaks or depressions could occur transiently because of nonequilibrium conditions but there would be no divergence Extinction or other irreversible phenomena would otcur if at all because the populations were finite A general problem is to discover how many equilibrium states there are for the systems studied and what the rules are by which a nonequilibrium state changes to a particular equilibrium stateo Energy flow concepts may also be relevant and so in the future may be information flow concepts a measure of complexity or -- in ecology diversity Some progress is being made toward viewing biological populations from the standpoint of statistical mechanics that is as ensembles in phase Space In this way - OFFICIAL USE ONLY DECLASSIFIED MM ll OFFICEAL USE ONLY certain macropopulation relationships can be ascertained without reference to the overwhelming complexity of the microphenomenan As an example what does simplicity mean as a description of biomes Is the desert the tundra or a climax forest more simple Do we mean paucity of species Does such simplicity correlate with the likelihood of severe fluctuations Is diversity protective Have man's historical activities Served primarily to simplify his environment Is an equilibrium community simpler or more complex than a successional stage community Are equilibrium communities better described as mosaics than continuums What is the significance of mosaics from the standpoint of information content Some more specific problems include asking whether there is a correlation between the degree of control exerted by one species in an ecosystem with the fraction of the biomass comprised by the specieso And finally of course we wonder how to use data from the laboratory or controlled field experiment in predictions for free living populations in their environment 6 Tying Together An Approach Through Systems Analysis With the background of Sections 1 4 we perceive a proliferation of questions and of subject matter that could easily get out of hand lose form and thus become hopeless to work with It is necessary to have some scheme for weeding out irrelevant or trivial questions at least provisionally -- and for thus minimizing large accumulations of data of questionable utilityo A central part of the study program might therefore take the form of a more rigorous formal study such as the approach of so called systems analysis In particular the appreciation of good systems for the -role in problem solving of uncertainty 2 error and 3 sensitivity of results to assumptions can lead to more useful results and conclusions about the biological and environmental consequences of nuclear war A further discussion of systems analysis and its possible usefulness appears in Annex 3 Systems analysis is not the end of the matter however It will be necessary to collect and systematize and interpret a great deal of information data now in the scientific literature in many disciplines One thinks of the past but somewhat forgotten practice of monograph-writing wherein a broad view of subject matter is taken with as little loss of analytic insight as possible The essence of such systematization is empirical data analysis and theory In some in the classical sense of science having little to do with systems analysis OFFICIAL USE ONLY _naa - Authority Lil I147 a It as OFFICIAL USE ONLY instances research aids such as computing and data processing would 7 be needed But we would emphasize that neither extensive computations nor intricate mathematical manipulations nor complex and extensive data processing should be regarded as necessary or sufficient activities for an adequate study Since we can not show that these activities are unnecessary we do not exclude them eithero Various degrees and kinds of statistical data analysis and theoretical work will be essential For illustration some fairly obvious needs for systematizing data -- and some lines of approach -- are suggested below these illustrations apply primarily to subjects of interest to the Division 70f Biology and Medicine research program but other illustrations could equally well have been chosen 1 The available information on the radiosensitivity of plants and animals needs to be systematized In mammals for instance one might start with acute lethality then consider the acute leading to either death or recovery then the latent effects including nonspecific lifesPan shortening Interest is in the quantitative prediction of reaponse or pattern of occurrence of response for radiation exposures over a wide range of species gamma doses and bio- logical endpoints There would be less interest in such problems as the relative biological effectiveness of radiations of differing physical properties at least such interest would be deferred For plants we wonder how far the concept of a rank-order list of radiation effects can be related to increasing dose and whether such a list is invariant by Species versus a radiation dose parameter such as fraction of the 100% of species lethal dose Statistical processes like death need to be related to physio- logical processes as a basic approach to a major improvement in our understanding Interspecies comparison techniques need to be developed so that we can use all of the televant knowledge about mammalian dose-effect relationships to get the best estimates of radiosensitivity in man in economically important animals such as livestock and in animals that play an important part in the regu- lation of ecosystems A possible approach to interspecies comparisons is through the use of dimensional analysis based upon arguments of biological homology 2 The available data on in the atmos- phere and biosphere needs to be systematized One objective is to compare the relative contribution of the several nuclides to the total exposures Another objective is the development of a scheme for systematically eliminating many of the nuclides from detailed consideration as a source of hazard -- because certain of their -11 USE ONLY Illa DECLASSHHED AuthorityL LIL H7 9x OFFICIAL USE ONLY properties lead directly to conclusive argument At least we should be able to rise above ad_hominem argument over which nuclides are hazardous 3 The data on measured or calculated radiation exposures for example in or rad units resulting from previously Specified internal or exterhal radiation sources needs to be systematized We need to know how to estimate the beta and gamma exposure to plants for instance allowing for the attenuation of terrain and ground cover Likewise we need to estimate the exposure to insects and other small creatures living on or under the ground but close to fallout particles and thus to beta as well as gamma radiation 4 We need a review and appraisal of knowledge theory plus data on the dynamics of biological pepulations including popu lations of genes Attention needs to be given to the question of scale We want for instance to estimate the status of communi cable diseases involving populations of biological organisms such as bacteria and viruses and their hosts including animals and man We also want to estimate the status of wild and controlled-but- undomesticated free-living populations of insects plants and animals for which a preattack equilibrium of sorts has been abruptly disturbed and may be further disturbed in the postattack period Properly systematized current knowledge in agriculture forest and range management soil conservation wildlife management water resource management public health and vital statistics can also help to provide an adequate background description of the preattack undisturbed environment and thus give a basis for estimating the effects of a nuclear attack A study that is ecological sociOn logical and anthropological in nature can draw some applicable information from historical processes behind the changing face of the earth whether man caused and therefore most likely a long- term repeated insult or natural and therefore possibly abrupt or catastrophic Our hepe is that the two aSpects of the study -- formal rigorous systems analysis and the general systematization of data in certain fields would proceed together each contributing to the other Flexibility of method a willingness to explore problems and ample provision for feedback of results and revision of ideas and method are important Provisional ideas about requirements for new research will develop Because of lead times it will not always be reasonable to postpone starting new research projects until the need is well justified by the analysis From the start a part of the study should be the provisional listing of certain problems for which it is reasonably certain that new experimental work will be required before much progress can be made New research work would be sponsored through the normal research programs of ABC and other agencies -12 OFFICIAL USE ONLY DECLASSIFIED i -- OFFICIAL USE ONLY 7 Conclusions See the Summary p ii - 13 OFFICIAL USE ONLY DECLASSIFIED 17 73 OFFICIAL USE ONLY Annex 1 OUTLINE FOR AN ANALYSIS OF THE IMPACT OF NUCLEAR WAR I Prewar situation A Military 1 Strategic doctrines and war plans 2 Capabilities of weapon stockpiles and delivery systems B Civilian preparations 1 Warning time 2 Shelter 3 Evacuation 4 Recovery plans and preparations a Paper b Stockpiles of recovery items likely to be critical C Economic conditions II Wartime situation A Precipitating force five general possibilities 1 Inadvertence 2 Miscalculation 3 Escalation 4 Soviet first strike 5 United States retaliation B Attack pattern 1 Distribution by targets a Military - OFFICIAL USE ONLY DECLASSHHED mammquqq7a 50 6 OFFICIAL USE ONLY 1 Strategic-air forces and air defense forces 2 Other forces and-installations b Civilian 1 People 2 Cities 3 Economic resources 4 Political authority 'Size of attack Yield of weapons and accuracy of delivery Types of burst air land surface sea height of burst Fission yield fission to fusion ratios Duration of attack C Attack environment 1 2 3 4 Weather winds Season or time of year Ground cover Shelter D Prompt effects of the weapons 1 2 3 4 5 Blast Fire Prompt ionizing radiation Residual radiation Indirect effects fire E Termination of war three general possibilities I Short term defeat of one side -15- OFFICIAL USE ONLY DECLASSHHED Authority LJ 1473 W OFFICIAL USE ONLY 2 Mutual agreement to end devastation 3n Exhaustion of belligerents as a result of a spasm war F Short-term primary damage to biological and envirOnmental resources 1 People and their health and vigor 2 Livestock and crops 3 Forests and ranges 4 Land and water G Short-term primary damage to the economy technological conditions for production and potential for recovery 1 Agriculture 3 aViaolefarms b Food processing plants c Storage and distribution 2 Network industry a Transportation b Communications c Government 3 Energy industry a Petroleum b Electricity 4 Other industry a Machine tool b Etc 5 Population a Labor force b Skills - 15 - OFFICIAL USE ONLY DECLASSIFIED Health 7' Postwar situation Ll OFFICIAL USE ONLY A Survival and reorganization 1 People 2 Preservation and restoration of essential economic assets and medical facilities 3 Maintenance of civic order B Secondary damage to people and their living environment as a sequel to the short-term primary damage to biological and environmental resources and a malfunctioning economy 1 Medical and health problems a Radiation hazards b Communicable diseases c Malnutrition d Physical exposure e trauma f Life shortening g Cancer h Synergistic effects 2 Genetic problems 3 Ecological changes a Life forms affected b Inter-species relations c Population changes depressions and eruptions l Infestations 2 Epidemics 3 Extinctions 4 Cambined biological stresses - 17 OFFICIAL USE ONLY DECLASSIFIED x a OFFICIAL USE ONLY IV The long-time aftermath problems of recovery and reconstruction re-establishment of a viable economy A Agriculture Some specific examples 1 Animal husbandry 20 Soil management 3 Crop ecology 4 Irrigation Fertilization 6 Disease control 7 Pest control 8 Food processing and distribution 9 Nutrition B Land and water resources Some specific examples 1 Range management 2 Forest management 3 River basin management 4 Wild lands management 5 Reservoir management C Ecological engineering D Medical and public health E Genetic F Other recovery problems 1 Economic 2 Social and 3o Political -18- OFFICIAL USE ONLY 1'1 U 51 3 P4 19 etc biological in nature Vulnerability that are a b c 0 ASP Other military objectives A nation's population A nation's economy ects of a nation's 0 Air defense forces Strategic bombers and miss es 2 Targets 6 do e 9 War in the Caribbean War in the Far East War in the Mediterranean an Geographical areas war in WEstern Europe USA exchange 1 CONTEXTS QUESTIONS 1 To what extent are the biological and environ mental consequences of nuclear war primarily the sequelae of a malfunctioning economy 2 How important a factor economically and other- wise is man's response to the immediate damage of an attack 3 To What extent would the consequences be less severe if the attack was made with nuclear weapons producing no radiation exposure whatever -4 To what extent is agriculture limiting in postattack recovery 5 To what extent do uncertainties in biological information limit ability to predict the conse quences to agriculture etc ILLUSTRATIVE DEVELOPMENT OF CONTEXTUAL SITUATIONS IN RELATION TO QUESTIONS Annex 2 OFFICIAL USE OHLY DECLASSIFIED Authority 1 H9 978 DECLASSIFIED 1 9 OFFICIAL USE ONLY Annex 3 A note on present concepts of operations research and systems analysis with applications to the study of the biological and environmental consequences of nuclear war I What is a system No specific answer will be suggested here Much philosophical argument is devoted to deciding such qeustions One related view is that systems analysis is a broader development of Operations analysis of the practical World War 11 sort I pre- sume bearing Ehe relationship to its predecessor that strategy does to tactics m Some of the World War II Operations being analyzed could of course be regarded as instances of systems Both oper- ations analysis and systems analysis are currently viable irreSpective of whether they can be defined The notion of a system is not of course new even to science Perhaps the most useful conceptual treatments have been those de- veloPed by the thermodynamicists They seem to appreciate and stress that a system is a product of mankind's need for thinking in terms of categories and therefore can be anything we say it is so long as we are definitive and explicit At any rate the system may simply be matter in multicomponent multiphase equilibrium an atomic nucleus 3 metal conducting heat an electronic network a cafeteria waiting line a group of children with a teacher or the money and credit flow And systems analysis and operations research clearly relate to such diverse subjects as mathematics and statistics thermodynamics and statistical mechanics ecometrics behavioral sciences information theory and cybernetics general semantics and the management sciences One point of viewE that may be fruitful is to note the particu larly close relationship between systems analysis and practical decision-making and those aspects of mathematics statistics and economic theory having to do with a formal theory of decision making Operations analysis in particular is often revered for its down-to-earth associations in World War there was less concern then about the role of the analyst vis-a-vis the guy doing the shooting A system and systems analysis is also regarded as a concept designed to overcome traditional approaches to analysis where 3 1114-1678 -20- OFFICIAL USE ONLY OFFICIAL USE ONLY isolation was-readily possible the system implies overlapping of many elements ordinarily studied separatelyo In thermodynamics however perhaps a better perSpective is put on matters the system involves the notion of isolation but the isolation need not be complete provided the terms of the interactions with the environment are Sp Cifiedo It then makes sense to think of a system as something to which definable properties can be attri- buted in a formal sense conservatism determinism etco A system would furthermore then bear analogy with mathematical sets there may be subsets or the set itself may be a subset of some other set in brief the elaborateness or complexity of one's system is likely to be arbitrary and the choice to depend upon the purpose of studying ita Ideally the purpose defines the system For our study of the biological and environmental consequences of inuclear war we suSpect that practically speaking we have yet to define the system s to be studied and this may mean we haven't defined our purposes well enough eithera The question is bound to be raised whether a system can be effectively'analyzed by using information about If the system can be regarded deterministically and if the complexi- ties are not too great the answer is that it can and in fact this is the common approach to the analysis of most problems in science and technologyo If however the system possesses random components or better exhibits random behavior or if the compleXity is so great that the interactions are not understood then the answer is probably n0 Statistical mechanics describes certain macrophenomena in- volving mass and energy transport without recoorse to an exhaustive description of the micrOphenomena and such an approach also leads us to an appraisal of the limits of deterministic statemento Now what of this is or could be useful for the study of the biological and environmental consequences of nmclear war Certain problems such as the macroscale dynamics of single and multiple biological populations with strong or weak interactions including interactions with the physical environment boundaries may be amenable to an analogous approach We would be especially interested in the formulation of negative exclusion laws whose role is so fundamental'in the physical scienceso These laws would be satis factory for our purposes even if applicable only over restricted domains Ii Damage assessments or vulnerability analyses might properly be viewe'1 as studies of the effects of severe disturbances as from l That is they ought to be done ideally not as done currently -21- USE ONLY DECLASSHHED 41- Authorityf 1g 147 3x - OFFICIAL USE ONLY nuclear War to the works of man or his social and economic systems to his health and to his environment including his living environment or on certain biological systems As a problem in systems analysis each estimate of the effects of a disturbance on some one major system would in realism need to be made with due regard for interactions with other systemsa Most of the existingrapproaches to damage assessment or vulnerability analysis developed thus far under the military'or civil defense agencies center in elaborate data processing schemes and stop at the point of enumerating damage to physically existing objects people oil refineries acres of land etca o Most of the current data processing schemes have been de veloped without consideration of what modeling of social economic or biological phenomena might be apprOpriate for the underlying problem being studied whatever that might be It is assumed that enumeration of physical objects is the first and only approach Tkzend product of the data processing is a tally of damaged objects This approach leads to the accumulation of a large data base not an adequate substitute for needed modeling in the field of economic geography The end product is commonly inapplicable for studies of the major problems in agriculture forestry public health etc A proper analysis of the consequences of nuclear war including the biological consequences and their relationship to the total requires we conclude an integrative system approach whether or not formal data processing schemes are utilized A distinction should be made between meaningful complexity to be taken into account in describing the dynamics of these systems as opposed to the complexity of the elaborate data base associated with current data processing schemes The latter represents complexity without compensating added information An important point in the approach is to reject at the start the idea that a quantitative time-space description of all the consequences is to be develoPed More likely we will be interested in limiting cases including reverse cases of showing that certain consequences are REE likely to happen The approach also assumes that there is a limit practical and conceptual in character to the degree to which equivocation can be eliminated from statements about the biological consequences of nuclear war and even to the freedom to arbitrarily designate the points where equivocation will be-toleratedo Both of these points are difficult to understand or accept A key factor in determining what the ultimate consequences of a nuclear attack will be appears to be the role that man himself plays -22- OFFICIAL use ONLY DECLASSIFIED OFFICIAL USE ONLY postattack This factor is in turn related to the state of the 7 environment We want to learn the conditions under which these factors interact to a destructive or constructive end It may be useful to ask abstractly which is more vulnerable the social and economic systems of man or the biological systems of his environment A measure of vulnerability may be the capacity for information processing - 23 OFFICIAL USE ONLY I DECLASSIFIED Authority Nu 991479 i 4% Sr Vi OFFICIAL USE ONLY 7 BACKGROUND Literature on systems analysis including RM-1678 RM-1937 books ORSA journal etc 1 Literature of earlier RAND civil defense studies including R9322- -RC RM-ZZOG-RC PR etc and the Pnseries for the 1961 Con- gressional Hearings Hardin Garret t Nature and Men's Fate Mentor Books A book developing Cybernetic notions of biological pepulations tying to theory of evolution the role of isolation in speciation genetic drift etc Thomas W L Man's Role in Changing the Face of the Earth -An international symposium of the-wenner-Gren Foundation University of Chicago Press 1956 A social anthr0pological biological View of our world and how it got that-way rMathematical Theories-of Biological Phenomena rAnnals of the New York Academy of Science Vol 96 Art 4 -pp 89541116 March 2 1962 Includes discussion of analogy between Gibbs ensemble and biological ensemble and discussion of mortality as an inherently stochastic process Neyman Jerry Proceedings of the 4th Berkeley Symposium of Mathematical Statistics and Probability Vol IV Contributions to Biology and Problems of Medicine University of California Press 1961 Many provocative articles on problems of populations trans- port physiology etc Bartlett M 8 Stochastic Population Models in Ecology and Epi- demiology Methuen 1960 Boulding Kenneth E Conflict and Defense A General Theory Harper Torchbooks 1963 Includes discussion of ecological and epidemiological models The Yearbooks of the U S Department of Agriculture from 1938 to now offer as good a way as any-of ensuring that one gets back down to earth Topics include soils weather forests animal diseases agricultural economics and marketing land management and soil conservation 1 This list almost certainly should becexpanded -24- OFFICIAL USE ONQY                     National Security Archive    Suite 701  Gelman Library  The George Washington University    2130 H Street  NW  Washington  D C  20037    Phone  202 994‐7000 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