flink@umcp-cs.UUCP (11/15/83)
Peter Rowley requested information on nuclear overkill. The evidence I have seen suggests that the U.S. does indeed have more than enough nuclear weapons to achieve its deterrence objective. (That objective is defined by U.S. military planners as the ability to destroy a certain percentage of USSR industry and population in a second-strike attack, according to a Scientific American article.) Scientific American has had several articles on the subject in the last few years. (Sorry, I don't know which dates.) Also, a recent scientific study concluded that particulates in the upper atmosphere after a nuclear war would block out up to 99% of incoming light. (Somewhat less in a less-than-all-out war. However, even a small fraction of the superpowers' nuclear arsenals would have almost as serious an effect.) Carl Sagan reported the study in The Washington Post, Sunday Nov. 6, 1983, "Parade Magazine" section (or maybe it was "The Washington Post Magazine" section, I'm not sure). Temperatures would plummet and almost all plants would die in the Northern hemisphere, according to the report. The darkness would last for months. The Southern hemisphere would be less severely affected, and it would take longer for the dark clouds to spread there, but temperatures there would also drop severely. Few humans would survive the cold (the number would depend on what season it was at the time, what targets were nuked, and whether airbursts or groundbursts were used). Those who did might starve (what with all or most vegetation dead). If this is correct, worries about the Soviets someday attaining first-strike ability are misplaced. A first strike would require enough weapons to trigger the "Nuclear Winter," and would therefore amount to suicide. In fact -- a rather perverse thought here -- either nation could assure the destruction of its adversary by dropping a fraction of its nukes on ITSELF. --Paul Torek, U of MD College Park ..umcp-cs!flink