Ten years ago, a group of leading American climate scientists decided to conduct new research into the long-term consequences of a possible nuclear war on environment. The work was carried out in the Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, in the Department of Environmental Studies at Rutgers University*, as well as in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Research at UCLA** using the most modern means computer modeling.
The starting point for the research was a hypothetical war in Asia, during which 100 atomic warheads similar to the bomb dropped by the Americans on Hiroshima (equivalent to 15 kilotons of trinitrotoluene - TNT) would be detonated in the cities of India and Pakistan.
When such an atomic bomb detonates, fires immediately begin over an area of 3 to 5 square miles***. As scientists have calculated, in this case, as many people will die from explosions, fires and radiation as during the entire Second World War.
But, in addition, a regional nuclear war of such a scale will lead to long-term disruption of the weather and climate situation on a global scale.
Translation by Sergei Dukhanov.
* State University in New Brunswick, pc. New Jersey. Branches in Camden and Newark. Founded in 1766 by charter of King George III as the colonial Royal College, since 1825 it has been named after the philanthropist Rutgers, and received university status in 1924.
**UCLA - public research university. Logged in state universities USA in 1919.
*** 1 square mile is 2,590,003 square meters.
**** The possibility of a nuclear winter was predicted by G.S. Golitsyn in the USSR and Carl Sagan in the USA, then this hypothesis was confirmed by model calculations of the Computing Center of the USSR Academy of Sciences. This work was carried out by academician N.N. Moiseev and professors V.V. Alexandrov and G.L. Stenchikov.
***** The World Meteorological Organization (WMO, English World Meteorological Organization, WMO) is a specialized UN intergovernmental agency in the field of meteorology. Founded in 1950. WMO headquarters are located in Geneva, Switzerland.
As soon as the international situation sharply deteriorates through the efforts of the West, many begin to think about the possibility of a real nuclear conflict. And figures like Ukrainian Defense Minister Valeriy Geletey even “give answers,” assuring that Moscow has already threatened Kyiv several times with the use of tactical nuclear weapons. He did this on September 1, casting doubt on the adequacy of high-ranking officials of the “new Ukraine.”
“What happens if?” – experts and “ordinary citizens” ask each other. To dismiss is to make a mistake. An even bigger mistake is the belief in the inevitability of a “nuclear apocalypse”, and that it can be avoided only by bringing the process of reducing nuclear weapons to its logical point, to “global nuclear zero”.
These questions arose in the public and scientific consciousness almost simultaneously with the American atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And the first attempts to comprehend the military-political role of the nuclear factor date back to even earlier times. They began on the eve of the first US nuclear test at the Alamogordo test site in July 1945.
Even after World War II, the West could not suddenly abandon the view that was appropriate in Clausewitz’s time: “War is the continuation of politics by other means.”
After Stalingrad and Sevastopol were completely swept away by the war, after the “carpet” bombings of Hamburg and Dresden by the Anglo-Saxons, and especially after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the future war began to be seen, rather, as the final and irrevocable completion of any civilized policy. And some in the West began to understand this. So, John Fuller, author of the work “The Second World War 1939-1945 Strategic and Tactical Review,” published in 1948 in London and in 1956 (in Russian) in Moscow, emotionally and nervously stated: “To complete the moral collapse, atomic bomb, which, almost with magical suddenness, in a few seconds, made possible everything that Douhet and Mitchell (authors of total “aviation” doctrines - S.B.) preached for many years. Without the atomic bomb, their theory was a dream. With her, their theory became the darkest reality that man has ever faced."
John Fuller also quoted the English professor Ernest Woodward, who in his book “Some Political Aspects of the Atomic Bomb” in 1946 noted: “War with the use of atomic bombs, which in 12 days can destroy 12 largest cities the North American continent or the 12 most important cities now remaining in Europe may be too much of a challenge for us. Humanity will not disappear, but people, without help and material resources to restore, go back to something like the end of the Bronze Age.”
What was said was true and, so to speak, “for growth.”
The West could not abandon the idea of war as such, even under the threat of returning to the Bronze Age, or even the Stone Age. But the thought of war now brought me into a state of passion. The oscillation between Clausewitz's thesis and the threat of the apocalypse began to determine the West's views on the nuclear factor.
What happened in the Soviet Union during these years? I.V. Stalin and curator of the Soviet “Atomic Project” L.P. Beria clearly understood the deterrent role nuclear weapons as a guarantor of peace.
In the early fifties, Beria, clearly with the knowledge of Stalin, ordered the preparation for open publication of a collection on the mastery of atomic energy in the USSR.
Unfortunately, after the deaths of Stalin and Beria, this extremely necessary publication did not take place. The latest version of the draft with notes by L. Beria is dated June 15, 1953. It said, in particular: “After the first copies of atomic bombs were manufactured and tested by the United States of America in 1945, aggressive US leaders dreamed of conquering world domination with the help of new weapons... Atomic hysteria was accompanied by widespread propaganda of the inevitability of atomic war and the invincibility of the United States in this war. The peoples of the world are under the immediate threat of a new nuclear war, unprecedented in its destructive consequences. The interests of preserving peace forced the Soviet Union to create atomic weapons."
Further - even more definitely: “In the Soviet Union, long before the war, there was a deep interest in the atomic problem, just as there is interest in everything new, advanced, in all the achievements of science and technology... Without the threat of an atomic attack and the need to create a reliable defense of the socialist states - all the efforts of scientists and technicians would be aimed at using atomic energy for the development of peaceful industries National economy countries. In the USSR, the atomic bomb was created as a means of defense, as a guarantee of the further peaceful development of the country... The Soviet Union urgently needed to create its own atomic bomb and thereby avert the looming threat of a new world war.”
In the West, military theorists, publicists, political and military figures threatened with the coming apocalypse, but the Soviet leadership looked at the problem from the standpoint of eliminating war and ensuring peace. In fact, this was the first formulation of the concept of nuclear deterrence.
In 1955, a native of the former Austria-Hungary, General of the Staff Academy of the Portuguese Army F. Mikshe published the book “Atomic Weapons and Armies” simultaneously in London and New York. Soon it was also published in Paris under the title “Tactics of Atomic War”. In the preface to the French edition, the book was recommended not only to the military, but also to statesmen and politicians in the West. So, despite the seemingly unserious status of the author of the book, serious attention was paid to it in NATO and the United States. In 1956, the book was published in the Soviet Union, and leafing through it is not worthwhile.
The general theorized within the framework of the theory not of peace, but of war, and a nuclear war for him was something like the recently ended Second World War, but only with atomic bombs to boot.
It is curious that the Austro-Portuguese General Staff believed: if after an atomic strike “all short-wave radio stations within a radius of 4 miles fail,” then “the most reliable means of communication” may be messengers...
There was something of paranoia in this efficiency, but the American nuclear war theorist Herman Kahn called one of his long-standing books “Thoughts about the Unthinkable”, and was not recorded as a schizophrenic. This is the subject of the argument: accepting the thesis about the possibility and admissibility of nuclear war, even seemingly quite reasonable in all other respects, serious people begin to reason, to put it mildly, inadequately.
At the same time, General Mikshe played out in great detail and in detail the nuclear war in 1940 on one and a half dozen pages of his book, accepting the assumption that “both belligerents (the Germans and the British and French opposing them. - S.B.) would have armies with modern technology and used atomic weapons." He depicted these hypothetical events in the form of a war correspondent's diary, starting with Tuesday, May 10, 1940. Let me give you a few fragments: the NATO general painted a very vivid picture.
“LA FERTE (Allied Headquarters, Tuesday, May 10, 1940). After the “strange war”, which lasted since the fall of last year, the current day is so eventful that it is difficult to describe them coherently... The 1st Army Group of General Billotte crossed the Belgian border... The population greeted the long impressive columns with stormy applause... The population was especially delighted with the units of the modern atomic artillery."
LILLE AREA (first echelon of Allied headquarters, Saturday, May 14, 1940). The atomic strikes carried out yesterday significantly slowed down the enemy’s advance... Our aerial reconnaissance estimates the number of destroyed vehicles at several thousand...
June 15. From this day forward, the BBC succinctly repeats: “On western front no change." The struggle is increasingly moving deeper into the front. German aircraft dropped atomic bombs on London, Paris, Limoges and Saint-Etienne. Berlin, Dusseldorf, Cologne and other cities suffered the same fate. This is how the war goes. What next?”
The general does not answer his own question about the further development of events. But really, what's next? According to Mikshe, up to 80 atomic charges fell on a small but densely populated part of Europe in a month, European capitals turned into hell, and Mikshe states: “The picture may not be entirely clear, but...”.
Reading all this in the book of a Western theorist, and not in the diary of the doctor on duty at a psychiatric hospital, you refuse to believe your own eyes. All this resembles a hackneyed and gloomy joke. When asked what to do in the event of a nuclear alarm, the answer was given: “Cover yourself with a white sheet and crawl your way to the cemetery.” Needed Caribbean crisis 1962, so that theorists and practitioners of nuclear planning began to realize: a real nuclear war is unacceptable, the policy of the current era can only be nuclear deterrence.
At one time, the theory of mutual assured destruction - MAD - was in vogue in the West, in fact, without public disclosure, which was not denied in the USSR. In the West, it was fashionable to count how many times the Soviet Union could destroy America, and how many times America could destroy the Soviet Union. Each time it turned out that with the total megatonnage of nuclear weapons - dozens of times. But these were idle mind games of amateurs. Yes, the stockpiles of nuclear weapons of the United States and the USSR in the tens of thousands of nuclear warheads that the parties had by the eighties were largely excessive. But there were also certain circumstances that forced us to build up nuclear weapons.
More precisely, the Soviet Union was forced to increase them insofar as the US nuclear policy forced it to do so. The pace, scale and character of the arms race were set by Washington's position.
America's enduring desire to secure overwhelming military superiority over the USSR constantly led to the United States making more and more attempts to become a “world hegemon.” The USSR was forced to respond to them. And this determined the quantitative growth of carriers and warheads.
The ratio of the nuclear arsenals of the USSR and the USA in 1960 was 1605 charges to 20434, that is, approximately 1:13. Even by the beginning of the seventies, the USSR had 10,538 nuclear warheads versus 26,910 US warheads - two and a half times less.
And in the USA at that time the so-called “McNamara criterion” was in use: the thesis about the need to destroy up to 60 percent of the military-economic potential of the USSR to ensure victory in a nuclear war. What could be done to counter this but equal force?
Therefore, Russia had to move towards parity: if in 1977 the ratio of arsenals was 25,099 to 23,044 units in favor of the United States, then by 1979 it changed in favor of the USSR: 27,935 to 24,107. But instead of an equal reduction of existing weapons, America continued to seek new scientific and technical path to a systemic nuclear monopoly. She is busy with this, by the way, to this day.
Washington's desire to create an impenetrable missile defense also played a role in the arms race. This also necessitated the need to improve the Soviet nuclear missile forces to ensure its overcoming. The problem was not being able to "destroy" the United States ten or forty times. And to be able, in the event of a massive US attack on the USSR and its strategic forces, to strike back at the US - once, but guaranteed. This requires a quantitative “margin of safety.” Due to the uncertainty of the result, it was believed that this stock should be multiple - so they increased the number of weapons, which at some point actually turned out to be redundant. After realizing this fact, the process of limiting and reducing arms began on the basis of the concept of nuclear deterrence, essentially the same modified concept of nuclear weapons.
With a clear emphasis primarily on psychological meaning, the US Department of Defense dictionary defines nuclear deterrence as: “The prevention of action in view of threatening consequences. Deterrence is a state of mind caused by the existence of a credible threat of unacceptable counter-action."
It is clear that restraining the US inclination to solve problems by force is only possible if it feels a real, justified threat of unacceptable counter-actions against itself. Minimizing Russia's nuclear weapons against the backdrop of the creation and deployment of a nationwide US missile defense system with the ability to intercept hundreds of Russian ballistic missiles is precisely what can remove the psychological barrier. Give Washington a false sense of invulnerability.
The psychological aspect - as the most important component of the nuclear factor - made itself known during the preparation for the first test of nuclear weapons on US territory, in the Alamogordo desert.
Then the idea was seriously discussed: not to drop a bomb on Japan, but to invite representatives of the Land of the Rising Sun to the American test site, and through a visually terrifying effect, achieve surrender.
This was something completely new in the history of wars! Has it ever been seen before that one warring party expected to win by blowing up something in the presence of the enemy on its own territory thousands of kilometers from the war zone?
Be that as it may, this damned question will torment many of us: “Is it possible to imagine such a situation when... And wouldn’t it be better to simply destroy all nuclear weapons, eliminating the possibility of a nuclear war?”
In principle, “global nuclear zero” is not only acceptable, but also necessary. Accordingly, a reasonable planetary paradigm in the field of armaments is exclusively the idea of general and complete disarmament, first put forward by Russia at the end of the century before last, and then proposed several times by our country ( last time in 1971).
In the meantime, there can be no talk of “global nuclear zero” for Russia. Otherwise, our country risks turning into this very zero itself. As long as Russia has such nuclear missile weapons that provide a deep retaliatory strike against the aggressor even after his first strike, a “nuclear apocalypse” is impossible.
But let's try to imagine a different development of events...
Russia agrees to further reductions in its nuclear missile weapons, increasingly limiting the number of its ICBMs, both silo-based and mobile. At the same time, America is also making reductions, however, retaining its ICBMs, nuclear boats with SLBMs on them, as well as powerful anti-submarine defense - ASW - and a fleet of attack submarines capable of destroying Russian missile boats in the first strike. America also maintains massive high-precision sea-launched cruise missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. Time after time, the United States refuses to include these SLCMs in the overall classification, yet these and other high-precision weapons are effective against Russian mobile ICBMs.
All this is against the backdrop of the development of national missile defense infrastructure in the United States. To make it very simple: America must be sure that after the “button is pressed” and the missiles fly towards Russia, not a single one of our missiles will fall on US territory. Or a few pieces will fall. The missile defense system, according to Washington, should guarantee its security. Possibility to avoid answering.
The scenario is this: US strategic strike assets strike at Russia's strategic retaliatory strike assets. The missile defense system neutralizes Russia's extremely weakened retaliatory strike and thereby ensures the desired impunity. America can have all this by about 2020 or a little later.
And then...
Then everything can begin.
For example, like this.
1. US anti-aircraft defense systems and their attack submarines detect and destroy missile submarines of the Russian Navy that are on combat duty.
2. US ICBMs, their SLBM-carrying missile boats and SLCM attack boats jointly deliver a disarming first strike against Russia's ground-based retaliatory strike assets, that is, silo-based and mobile ICBMs. It is possible that UK nuclear missile submarines will also be involved in this strike.
3. Mobile ICBMs of the Russian Federation are vulnerable, in fact, even to US sabotage groups, so it is possible that they could be hit by “specialists” sent to Russian territory in advance, or a strike on mobile Russian ICBMs by non-nuclear high-precision weapons.
4. Then, even in the event of an extremely weakened Russian retaliatory strike against a nuclear aggressor, the few warheads of Russia’s retaliatory strike are intercepted by the echeloned missile defense system of the US territory.
Previously, everyone imagined the “nuclear apocalypse” as an exchange of massive nuclear strikes on cities and military-economic potential facilities. Today there is reason to believe that the concept of the United States has changed.
In conditions when America would have to destroy thousands of Soviet ICBMs and dozens of Soviet missile boats with many hundreds of SLBMs in the first strike, planning a disarming first US strike on the strategic assets of the USSR was a matter doomed to failure in advance. An inevitably massive retaliatory strike by the surviving part of the Soviet Strategic Nuclear Forces against the cities and facilities of the US military economic power base would definitely put an end to not only the power of America, but also to itself. And this was guaranteed to deter Washington.
In conditions when Russian strategic nuclear forces are minimized, and a considerable part of them are quite vulnerable mobile targets, in the presence of a massive layered missile defense system on US territory, a disarming first US strike on the strategic assets of the Russian Federation becomes possible - with a high chance of success.
There is no need to destroy the VEP of the Russian Federation: why destroy what can be used - it is enough to knock out Russia’s strategic assets.
After this, it will be possible to deal with Russia as the United States wishes. And such a variant of a “nuclear apocalypse” for Russia in the future is not excluded.
This means that we will continue to ask the same question for a long time: “What if...”.
War has become absolutely real. Scientists have studied in detail possible consequences more powerful explosions: how radiation will spread, what biological damage will be, climatic effects.
Nuclear war- How does this happen
A nuclear explosion is a huge fireball that completely burns or chars living and inanimate nature even at a great distance from the epicenter. A third of the explosion's energy is released as a pulse of light that is thousands of times brighter than the sun. This causes all flammable materials such as paper and fabric to catch fire. People get third degree burns.
Primary fires do not have time to flare up - they are partially extinguished by a powerful air blast wave. But due to flying sparks and burning debris, short circuits, household gas explosions, and burning petroleum products, long and extensive secondary fires are formed.
Many separate fires combine into a deadly fire that can destroy any metropolis. Similar firestorms destroyed Hamburg and Dresden during World War II.
In the center of such a tornado there is an intense release of heat, due to which huge masses of air rise upward, hurricanes are formed at the surface of the earth, which support the fiery element with new portions of oxygen. Smoke, dust and soot rise to the stratosphere, forming a cloud that almost completely blocks out the sunlight. As a result, a deadly nuclear winter begins.
Nuclear war leads to long nuclear winter
Due to giant fires, a huge amount of aerosol will be released into the atmosphere, which will cause a “nuclear night.” According to calculations, even a small local nuclear war and the explosions of London and New York will lead to a complete absence of sunlight above for several weeks.
For the first time on devastating consequences massive fires that will provoke a further cascade of irreversible changes in the climate and biosphere, pointed out Paul Crutzen, a prominent German scientist.
The fact that nuclear war inevitably leads to nuclear winter was not yet known in the middle of the last century. Tests with nuclear explosions were carried out single and isolated. And even a “soft” nuclear conflict involves explosions in many cities. In addition, the tests were carried out in such a way that no large fires were caused. And only not so long ago, with the joint work of biologists, mathematicians, climatologists, and physicists, it was possible to put together a general picture of the consequences of a nuclear conflict. explored in detail what the world might look like after a nuclear war.
If only 1% of the nuclear weapons produced to date are used in the conflict, the effect will be equal to 8200 “Nagasaki and Hiroshima”.
Even in this case, a nuclear war will entail the climatic effect of a nuclear winter. Due to the fact that the sun's rays will not be able to reach the Earth, there will be a prolonged cooling of the air. All Live nature, which is not destroyed in fires, will be doomed to freeze out.
Significant temperature contrasts will arise between land and ocean, since large accumulations of water have significant thermal inertia, so the air there will cool much more slowly. Changes in the atmosphere will suppress and severe droughts will begin on the continents, immersed in the night and shackled by absolute cold.
If a nuclear war occurred in the summer in the Northern Hemisphere, then within two weeks the temperature there would drop below zero, and sunlight would disappear completely. In this case, all vegetation in the Northern Hemisphere would die completely, and in the Southern Hemisphere - partially. The tropics and subtropics would die out almost instantly, since the flora there can exist in a very narrow temperature range and a certain light level.
Lack of food will lead to birds having virtually no chance of survival. Only reptiles can survive.
Dead forests that form over vast areas will become material for new fires, and the decomposition of dead flora and fauna will cause the release of huge amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Thus, global carbon content and metabolism will be disrupted. The loss of vegetation will cause global soil erosion.
There will be an almost complete destruction of the ecosystems that currently exist on the planet. All agricultural plants and animals will die, although seeds may survive. A sharp increase in ionizing radiation will cause severe radiation sickness and lead to the death of vegetation, mammals and birds.
Emissions of nitrogen and sulfur oxides into the atmosphere will cause harmful acid rain.
Any one of the above factors would be enough to destroy many ecosystems. The worst thing is that after a nuclear war they will all begin to act together, feeding and strengthening each other’s action.
To pass the critical point, after which catastrophic changes in the climate and biosphere of the Earth begin, a relatively small nuclear explosion - 100 Mt - will be enough. To cause an irreparable disaster, it will be enough to activate just 1% of the existing arsenal of nuclear weapons.
Even those countries on whose territory not a single nuclear bomb will explode will be completely destroyed.
Nuclear war in any form represents a real threat to the existence of humanity and life on the planet in general.
As everyone knows, on this moment There is only one superpower in the world - the USA. shows that all powerful powers tried to expand their possessions (or, as they now say, their sphere of interests) as much as possible. This was the case with the Roman, British and Russian empires. America is no exception: those in power are well aware that stopping the expansion of the sphere of influence in the world means the imminent demise of a superpower.
The difference between the United States and other empires lies in the fact that, firstly, the Americans have a huge nuclear stockpile, and also in the fact that the government still retained firm power within the country, and, most importantly, the foreign policy appetite that has always been inherent in our overseas "partners".
Meanwhile, two other powerful countries are rising to their feet - Russia and China, which do not want to sacrifice their national interests one iota. Like two thunderstorm fronts or two tectonic plates, a clash of interests between the great powers of our time is coming. No matter how intelligent a person is and no matter what brain centers work on both sides of the front, man is not yet able to overcome his old natural instincts. To understand this, it is enough to look at what is happening in the world.
Why will a disaster happen in the near future? Let's look first at the financial markets, which, like the tides, rise and fall. Such cyclicality is inherent in markets, but not only. Similarly, we observe a cyclical pattern in wars: a crisis is followed by a war, after which a period of formation begins. And so on. The same thing happens with earthquakes in seismically unstable areas. Considering that for quite a long time, humanity as a whole lived without major wars or upheavals, it is logical to assume that we have come just to the very cliff when a rapid decline begins. In financial terms, the market has hit a resistance level, which in most cases means a downward rebound. And the stronger the growth, the faster the fall will be.
So, there are historical, natural and even financial signals that a catastrophe is coming. But why, if nuclear war was avoided during the Cuban Missile Crisis, will this not happen now? Paradoxically, the answer lies in the progress of technology and the knowledge that has accumulated since then. The fact is that both the Americans and the Russians realized one simple thing: a nuclear war does not always mean the complete disappearance of humanity or the destruction of the planet. Radiation damage or the consequences of nuclear strikes are overestimated due to the fact that this area is unknown to humanity. And everything unknown is overgrown with myths and horror stories.
Proof of this is Chernobyl disaster or the atomic bombing of Japanese cities in 1945. Few people know that as a result of the Chernobyl accident, only 31 people died in the first 3 months, and up to 100 more within a year. These were the heroes who visited the epicenter of a radioactive fire. And, for example, life returned quite quickly to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and now about 1.6 million people live there with an average life expectancy of 80 years.
In addition to these facts, we must not forget that a certain part of the ballistic missiles or warheads will be shot down. Warning of the missile launch will be given in advance, and most residents will be able to take shelter underground. If we consider the territories of two potential adversaries - the USA and the Russian Federation, then it is also easy to come to the conclusion that after the strikes there will be a place where it will be possible to begin new life. In addition, there are now quite a few effective methods to decontaminate territories after nuclear strikes, after which you can safely return back like the same Japanese.
Both the military and politicians know all this, so the line between the outbreak of a nuclear war has become more vague than before. They are ready to cross the red line more readily. And if the western tectonic plate continues its systematic movement to the east, then an earthquake with nuclear fallout will definitely not be avoided. Which, based on my observations, will happen in the next couple of years.
The bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki would now be lost in the vast nuclear arsenals of the superpowers as insignificant trifles. Now even weapons for individual use are much more destructive in their effects. The trinitrotoluene equivalent of the Hiroshima bomb was 13 kilotons; The explosive power of the largest nuclear missiles that appeared in the early 1990s, for example the Soviet SS-18 strategic missile (surface-to-surface), reaches 20 Mt (million tons) TNT, i.e. 1540 times more.
To understand what the nature of a nuclear war might turn out to be in modern conditions, it is necessary to involve experimental and calculated data. At the same time, one should imagine possible opponents and the controversial issues that could cause them to clash. You need to know what weapons they have and how they can use them. Considering the damaging effects of numerous nuclear explosions and knowing the capabilities and vulnerabilities of society and the Earth itself, one can assess the scale of the harmful consequences of the use of nuclear weapons.
The first nuclear war.
At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was suddenly covered in a dazzling bluish-whitish light. The first atomic bomb was delivered to the target by a B-29 bomber from the US Air Force base on the island of Tinian (Mariana Islands) and exploded at an altitude of 580 m. At the epicenter of the explosion, the temperature reached millions of degrees, and the pressure was approx. 10 9 Pa. Three days later, another B-29 bomber passed its primary target, Kokura (now Kitakyushu), as it was covered in thick clouds, and headed for the alternate target, Nagasaki. The bomb exploded at 11 a.m. local time at an altitude of 500 m with approximately the same effectiveness as the first one. The tactic of bombing with a single aircraft (accompanied only by a weather observation aircraft) while simultaneously carrying out routine massive raids was designed to avoid attracting the attention of Japanese air defense. When the B-29 appeared over Hiroshima, most of its residents did not rush for cover, despite several half-hearted announcements on local radio. Before this, the air raid warning had been announced, and many people were on the streets and in light buildings. As a result, there were three times more dead than expected. By the end of 1945, 140,000 people had already died from this explosion, and the same number were injured. The area of destruction was 11.4 square meters. km, where 90% of houses were damaged, a third of which were completely destroyed. In Nagasaki there was less destruction (36% of houses were damaged) and loss of life (half as much as in Hiroshima). The reason for this was the elongated territory of the city and the fact that its remote areas were covered by hills.
In the first half of 1945, Japan was subjected to intense air bombing. The number of its victims reached a million (including 100 thousand killed during the raid on Tokyo on March 9, 1945). The difference between the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and conventional bombing was that one plane caused such destruction that would have required a raid by 200 planes with conventional bombs; these destructions were instantaneous; the ratio of dead to wounded was much higher; The atomic explosion was accompanied by powerful radiation, which in many cases led to cancer, leukemia and devastating pathologies in pregnant women. The number of direct casualties reached 90% of the death toll, but the long-term aftereffects of radiation were even more destructive.
Consequences of nuclear war.
Although the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not intended as experiments, studying their consequences has revealed much about the characteristics of nuclear war. By 1963, when the Treaty Banning Atmospheric Tests of Nuclear Weapons was signed, the US and USSR had carried out 500 explosions. Over the next two decades, more than 1,000 underground explosions were carried out.
Physical effects of a nuclear explosion.
The energy of a nuclear explosion spreads in the form of a shock wave, penetrating radiation, thermal and electromagnetic radiation. After the explosion, radioactive fallout falls on the ground. U different types weapons, the explosion energy and types of radioactive fallout are different. In addition, the destructive power depends on the height of the explosion, weather conditions, wind speed and the nature of the target (Table 1). Despite their differences, all nuclear explosions have some inherent characteristics. general properties. The shock wave causes the greatest mechanical damage. It manifests itself in sudden changes in air pressure, which destroys objects (in particular, buildings), and in powerful wind currents that carry away and knock down people and objects. The shock wave requires approx. 50% explosion energy, approx. 35% - for thermal radiation in the form emanating from the flash, which precedes the shock wave by several seconds; it blinds when viewed from a distance of many kilometers, causes severe burns at a distance of up to 11 km, and ignites flammable materials over a wide area. During the explosion, intense ionizing radiation. It is usually measured in rem - the biological equivalent of x-rays. A dose of 100 rem causes an acute form of radiation sickness, and a dose of 1000 rem is fatal. In the dose range between specified values The probability of death of an exposed person depends on his age and state of health. Doses even significantly below 100 rem can lead to long-term illnesses and a predisposition to cancer.
| Table 1. DESTRUCTION PRODUCED BY A 1 MT NUCLEAR EXPLOSION | |||
| Distance from the epicenter of the explosion, km | Destruction | Wind speed, km/h | Excess pressure, kPa |
| 1,6–3,2 | Severe destruction or destruction of all ground structures. | 483 | 200 |
| 3,2–4,8 | Severe destruction of reinforced concrete buildings. Moderate destruction of road and railway structures. | ||
| 4,8–6,4 | – `` – | 272 | 35 |
| 6,4–8 | Severe damage to brick buildings. 3rd degree burns. | ||
| 8–9,6 | Severe damage to buildings with wooden frames. 2nd degree burns. | 176 | 28 |
| 9,6–11,2 | Fire of paper and fabrics. 30% of trees felled. 1st degree burns. | ||
| 11,2–12,8 | –``– | 112 | 14 |
| 17,6–19,2 | Fire of dry leaves. | 64 | 8,4 |
In the explosion of a powerful nuclear charge, the number of deaths from the shock wave and thermal radiation will be incomparably greater than the number of deaths from penetrating radiation. When a small nuclear bomb explodes (such as the one that destroyed Hiroshima), a large proportion of deaths are caused by penetrating radiation. A weapon with increased radiation, or a neutron bomb, can kill almost all living things solely through radiation.
During an explosion, more radioactive fallout falls on the earth's surface, because At the same time, masses of dust are thrown into the air. The damaging effect depends on whether it is raining and where the wind is blowing. When a 1 Mt bomb explodes, radioactive fallout can cover an area of up to 2600 square meters. km. Different radioactive particles decay at different rates; Particles thrown into the stratosphere during atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons in the 1950s and 1960s are still returning to the earth's surface. Some lightly affected areas can become relatively safe in a matter of weeks, while others take years.
An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) occurs as a result of secondary reactions - when gamma radiation from a nuclear explosion is absorbed by air or soil. It is similar in nature to radio waves, but the tension electric field it is much higher; EMR manifests itself as a single burst lasting a fraction of a second. The most powerful EMPs occur during explosions at high altitudes (above 30 km) and spread over tens of thousands of kilometers. They do not directly threaten human life, but are capable of paralyzing power supply and communication systems.
Consequences of nuclear explosions for people.
While the various physical effects that occur during nuclear explosions can be calculated quite accurately, the consequences of their effects are more difficult to predict. Research has led to the conclusion that the non-foreseeable consequences of a nuclear war are just as significant as those that can be calculated in advance.
The possibilities of protection against the effects of a nuclear explosion are very limited. It is impossible to save those who find themselves at the epicenter of the explosion. It is impossible to hide all people underground; this is only feasible to preserve the government and the leadership of the armed forces. In addition to the methods of escape from heat, light and shock wave mentioned in civil defense manuals, there are practical methods of effective protection only from radioactive fallout. Can be evacuated a large number of people from high-risk areas, but this will cause severe complications in transport and supply systems. In the event of a critical development of events, the evacuation will most likely become disorganized and cause panic.
As already mentioned, the distribution of radioactive fallout will be affected by weather. Failure of dams can lead to floods. Damage nuclear power plants will cause an additional increase in radiation levels. In cities, high-rise buildings will collapse and create piles of rubble with people buried underneath. In rural areas, radiation will affect crops, leading to mass starvation. In the event of a nuclear strike in winter, the people who survived the explosion will be left without shelter and will die from the cold.
Society's ability to somehow cope with the consequences of the explosion will very much depend on the extent to which government systems of government, healthcare, communications, law enforcement and fire-fighting services will be affected. Fires and epidemics, looting and food riots will begin. An additional factor of despair will be the expectation of further military action.
Increased doses of radiation lead to an increase in cancer, miscarriages, and pathologies in newborns. It has been experimentally established in animals that radiation affects DNA molecules. As a result of such damage, genetic mutations and chromosomal aberrations occur; True, most of these mutations are not passed on to descendants, since they lead to lethal outcomes.
The first long-term detrimental effect will be the destruction of the ozone layer. The ozone layer of the stratosphere shields the earth's surface from most of the sun's ultraviolet radiation. This radiation is harmful to many forms of life, so it is believed that the formation of the ozone layer is ca. 600 million years ago became the condition due to which multicellular organisms and life in general appeared on Earth. According to the report national academy US Sciences, in a global nuclear war, up to 10,000 Mt of nuclear charges could be detonated, which would lead to the destruction of the ozone layer by 70% over the Northern Hemisphere and by 40% over the Southern Hemisphere. This destruction of the ozone layer will have disastrous consequences for all living things: people will receive extensive burns and even skin cancer; some plants and small organisms will die instantly; many people and animals will become blind and lose their ability to navigate.
A large-scale nuclear war will result in a climate catastrophe. During nuclear explosions, cities and forests will catch fire, clouds of radioactive dust will envelop the Earth in an impenetrable blanket, which will inevitably lead to a sharp drop in temperature at the earth's surface. After nuclear explosions with a total force of 10,000 Mt in the central regions of the continents of the Northern Hemisphere, the temperature will drop to minus 31 ° C. The temperature of the world's oceans will remain above 0 ° C, but due to the large temperature difference, severe storms will arise. Then, a few months later, sunlight will break through to the Earth, but apparently rich in ultraviolet light due to the destruction of the ozone layer. By this time, the death of crops, forests, animals and the starvation of people will have already occurred. It is difficult to expect that any human community will survive anywhere on Earth.
Nuclear arms race.
Inability to achieve superiority at the strategic level, i.e. with the help of intercontinental bombers and missiles, led to the accelerated development of tactical nuclear weapons by nuclear powers. Three types of such weapons were created: short-range - in the form of artillery shells, rockets, heavy and depth charges and even mines - for use along with traditional weapons; medium-range, which is comparable in power to strategic and is also delivered by bombers or missiles, but, unlike strategic, is located closer to targets; intermediate class weapons that can be delivered mainly by missiles and bombers. As a result, Europe, on both sides of the dividing line between the Western and Eastern blocs, found itself stuffed with all kinds of weapons and became a hostage to the confrontation between the USA and the USSR.
In the mid-1960s, the prevailing doctrine in the United States was that international stability would be achieved when both sides secured second strike capabilities. US Secretary of Defense R. McNamara defined this situation as mutual assured destruction. At the same time, it was believed that the United States should have the ability to destroy from 20 to 30% of the population of the Soviet Union and from 50 to 75% of its industrial capacity.
For a successful first strike, it is necessary to hit the enemy's ground control centers and armed forces, as well as to have a defense system capable of intercepting those types of enemy weapons that escaped this strike. For the second strike forces to be invulnerable to the first strike, they must be in fortified launch silos or continuously moving. Submarines have proven to be the most effective means of basing mobile ballistic missiles.
Creating a reliable system of defense against ballistic missiles turned out to be much more problematic. It turned out that it can be solved in a matter of minutes the most difficult tasks– detecting an attacking missile, calculating its trajectory and intercepting it is unimaginably difficult. The advent of individually targetable multiple warheads has greatly complicated defense tasks and led to the conclusion that missile defense is practically useless.
In May 1972, both superpowers, realizing the obvious futility of efforts to create a reliable system of defense against ballistic missiles, as a result of negotiations on the limitation of strategic arms (SALT), signed an ABM treaty. However, in March 1983, US President Ronald Reagan launched a large-scale program for the development of space-based anti-missile systems using directed energy beams.
Meanwhile, offensive systems developed rapidly. In addition to ballistic missiles, cruise missiles have also appeared, capable of flying along a low, non-ballistic trajectory, following, for example, the terrain. They can carry conventional or nuclear warheads and can be launched from the air, from water and from land. The most significant achievement was the high accuracy of the charges hitting the target. It became possible to destroy small armored targets even from very long distances.
Nuclear arsenals of the world.
In 1970, the United States had 1,054 ICBMs, 656 SLBMs, and 512 long-range bombers, i.e., a total of 2,222 strategic weapons delivery vehicles (Table 2). A quarter of a century later, they were left with 1,000 ICBMs, 640 SLBMs and 307 long-range bombers - a total of 1,947 units. This slight reduction in the number of delivery vehicles hides a huge amount of work to modernize them: the old Titan ICBMs and some Minuteman 2s have been replaced by Minuteman 3s and MXs, all Polaris-class SLBMs and many Poseidon-class SLBMs. replaced by Trident missiles, some B-52 bombers replaced by B-1 bombers. The Soviet Union had an asymmetrical, but approximately equal nuclear potential. (Russia inherited most of this potential.)
| Table 2. ARSENALS OF STRATEGIC NUCLEAR WEAPONS AT THE HEIGHT OF THE COLD WAR | ||
| Carriers and warheads | USA | USSR |
| ICBM | ||
| 1970 | 1054 | 1487 |
| 1991 | 1000 | 1394 |
| SLBM | ||
| 1970 | 656 | 248 |
| 1991 | 640 | 912 |
| Strategic bombers | ||
| 1970 | 512 | 156 |
| 1991 | 307 | 177 |
| Warheads on strategic missiles and bombers | ||
| 1970 | 4000 | 1800 |
| 1991 | 9745 | 11159 |
Three less powerful nuclear powers - Britain, France and China - continue to improve their nuclear arsenals. In the mid-1990s, the UK began replacing its Polaris SLBM submarines with boats armed with Trident missiles. The French nuclear force consists of M-4 SLBM submarines, medium-range ballistic missiles and squadrons of Mirage 2000 and Mirage IV bombers. China is increasing its nuclear forces.
In addition, South Africa admitted that during the 1970s and 1980s it created six nuclear bombs, but - according to its statement - dismantled them after 1989. Analysts estimate that Israel has about 100 warheads, as well as various missiles and aircraft to deliver them. India and Pakistan tested nuclear devices in 1998. By the mid-1990s, several other countries had developed their civilian nuclear facilities to the point where they could switch to producing fissile materials for weapons. These are Argentina, Brazil, North Korea and South Korea.
Nuclear war scenarios.
The option most discussed by NATO strategists involved a rapid, massive offensive by the Warsaw Pact military forces into Central Europe. Since NATO forces were never strong enough to fight back with conventional weapons, NATO countries would soon be forced to either capitulate or use nuclear weapons. After the decision to use nuclear weapons was made, events could have developed differently. It was accepted in NATO doctrine that the first use of nuclear weapons would be limited-power strikes to demonstrate primarily a willingness to take decisive action to protect NATO interests. NATO's other option was to launch a large-scale nuclear strike to secure an overwhelming military advantage.
However, the logic of the arms race led both sides to the conclusion that there would be no winners in such a war, but that a global catastrophe would break out.
The rival superpowers could not rule out its occurrence even for a random reason. Fears that it would start by accident gripped everyone, with reports of computer failures in command centers, drug abuse on submarines, and false alarms from warning systems that mistook, for example, a flock of flying geese for attacking missiles.
The world powers were undoubtedly too aware of each other's military capabilities to deliberately start a nuclear war; well-established satellite reconnaissance procedures ( cm. MILITARY SPACE ACTIVITIES) reduced the risk of being involved in war to an acceptably low level. However, in unstable countries the risk of unauthorized use of nuclear weapons is high. In addition, it is possible that any of the local conflicts could cause a global nuclear war.
Countering nuclear weapons.
The search for effective forms of international control over nuclear weapons began immediately after the end of World War II. In 1946, the United States proposed to the UN a plan of measures to prevent the use of nuclear energy for military purposes (Baruch Plan), but it was rejected Soviet Union as an attempt by the United States to consolidate its monopoly on nuclear weapons. The first significant international treaty did not concern disarmament; it was aimed at slowing down the buildup of nuclear weapons through a gradual ban on their testing. In 1963, the most powerful powers agreed to ban atmospheric testing, which was condemned because of the radioactive fallout it caused. This led to the deployment of underground testing.
Around the same time, the prevailing view was that if a policy of mutual deterrence made war between the great powers unthinkable, and disarmament could not be achieved, then control of such weapons should be ensured. The main goal This control would be to ensure international stability through measures that prevent the further development of nuclear first strike weapons.
However, this approach also turned out to be unproductive. The US Congress developed a different approach - “equivalent replacement”, which was accepted by the government without enthusiasm. The essence of this approach was that weapons were allowed to be updated, but with each new warhead installed, an equivalent number of old ones were eliminated. Through this replacement, the total number of warheads was reduced and the number of individually targetable warheads was limited.
Frustration over the failure of decades of negotiations, concerns over the development of new weapons and a general deterioration in relations between East and West have led to calls for drastic measures. Some Western and Eastern European critics of the nuclear arms race have called for the creation of nuclear-weapon-free zones.
Calls for unilateral nuclear disarmament continued in the hope that it would usher in a period of good intentions that would break the vicious circle of the arms race.
Experience in disarmament and arms control negotiations has shown that progress in this area is likely to reflect warming conditions international relations, but does not generate improvements in control itself. Therefore, in order to protect ourselves from nuclear war, it is more important to unite a divided world through the development of international trade and cooperation than to follow the development of purely military developments. Apparently, humanity has already passed the moment when military processes - be it rearmament or disarmament - could significantly affect the balance of forces. The danger of a global nuclear war began to recede. This became clear after the collapse of communist totalitarianism, the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the collapse of the USSR. The bipolar world will eventually become multipolar, and democratization processes based on the principles of equality and cooperation may lead to the elimination of nuclear weapons and the threat of nuclear war as such.
