Replies

Yes. There are people that don't know that the Soviets had Civil Defense television programing to teach Soviet masses how to survive nuclear war. There are people that don't know the Soviets had plans to bury critical heavy equipment and bulldoze mounds of earth over it to allow them to be dug up and used months later after the nuclear weapons have been used. The Soviets had evacuation drills in big cities to prepare for a nuclear war. The Russians are much more aware of methods of living through a nuclear war. That doesn't mean they would succeed in winning a nuclear war, but that isn't the point. It should indicate to us that the Russians would be much more likely to use nuclear weapons than most suspect.

All we have done for sixty or seventy years is tell a joke about bending over, putting our heads between our legs and kissing ourselves goodbye.

Soviet Civil Defense: Objectives, Pace, and Effectiveness

Having pointed out some of the areas where I believe Part II is inadequate as a policy statement, I , nevertheless, believe that the conclusions it reaches that Soviet civil defense measures can objectively be circumvented in a deterrence sense by periodic adjustments in U.S. targeting plans and that an attempt by the United States to match Soviet civil defense efforts would not be advisable are essentially correct. However, what is necessary to successfully meet the challenge in the perceptual realm is an open issue deserving much greater attention by both the Congress and the Administration than it has been given to date.
Edward W. Brooke
United States. Congress. Joint Committee on Defense Production · 1977 ·

The Senator seemed only interested in perception.

Civil Preparedness Review: Industrial defense and nuclear attack

A lot of younger people have not read much history, and have come to expect American wars to be relatively neat & tidy, with comparatively few American casualties. It's been a long time since a thousand or more US service men died in a single day, but if something unexpected happens in a confrontation with a nuclear armed adversary (like Russia), we could have that many killed in the first 30 seconds. Even if just a few tactical nukes were used (no ICBMs, SLBMs, or strategic bomber force involvement), we could lose 10,000-20,000 Americans killed in action before lunch time - those carrier battle groups make tempting targets. And if things escalated from there, you could be into the 6-7 figure range before dinner, just on the first day.

We got way too close to having an accidental nuclear war in the 1960's, during the Cuban missile crisis (most people seem to have forgotten about that). Accidents can still happen, because people are unpredictable, and Murphy's Law is always waiting in the wings for a chance to take center stage. I don't live life in fear of nuclear war, OR in fear of losing my life savings; the latter because I have enough sense not to bet everything I own at the craps table, and the former because (so far at least) this country has had enough respect for the risks involved, to NOT get into a shooting war with a country armed with nukes...