Terrorism causes extinction.

Nuclear terrorism could even spark full-scale nuclear war between states. Such war could involve the entire spectrum of nuclear conflict possibilities, ranging from a. nuclear attack upon a nonnuclear state to systemwide nuclear war. How might such far-reaching consequences of nuclear terrorism come about? Perhaps the most likely way would involve a terrorist nuclear assault against a state by terrorists "hosted" in another state. For example, consider the following scenario:

Early in the 1980s, Israel and her Arab state neighbors finally stand ready to conclude a comprehensive, multilateral peace settlement. With a bilateral treaty between Israel and Egypt already several years old, only the interests of the Palestinians—as defined by the PLO— seem to have been left out. On the eve of the proposed signing of the peace agreement, half a dozen crude nuclear explosives in the one kiloton range detonate in as many Israeli cities. Public grief in Israel over the many thousand dead and maimed is matched only by the outcry for revenge. In response to the public mood, the government of Israel initiates selected strikes against terrorist strongholds in Lebanon, whereupon the Lebanese government and its allies retaliate against Israel. Before long, the entire region is ablaze, conflict has escalated to nuclear forms, and all countries in the area have suffered unprecedented destruction.

Of course, such a scenario is fraught with the makings of even wider destruction. How would the United States react to the situation in the Middle East? What would be the Soviet response? It is certainly conceivable that a chain reaction of interstate nuclear conflict could ensue, one that would ultimately involve the superpowers or even every nuclear weapon state on the planet.

What, exactly, would this mean? Whether the terms of assessment be statistical or human, the consequences of nuclear war require an entirely new paradigm of death. Only such a paradigm would allow us a proper framework for absorbing the vision of near-total obliteration and the outer limits of human destructiveness. Any nuclear war would have effectively permanent and irreversible consequences. Whatever the actual extent of injuries and fatalities, it would entomb the spirit of the entire species in a planetary casket strewn with shorn bodies and imbecile imaginations.

This would be as true for a "limited" nuclear war as for an "unlimited" one. Contrary to continuing Pentagon commitments to the idea of selected "counterforce" strikes that would reduce the chances for escalation and produce fewer civilian casualties, the strategy of limited nuclear war is inherently unreasonable. There is, in fact, no clear picture of what states might hope to gain from counterforce attacks. This understanding is reflected by Soviet military strategy, which is founded on the idea that any nuclear conflict would necessarily be unlimited.

Nuclear War Between the Superpowers

The consequences of a strategic exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union have been the object of widespread attention. One account of these consequences is offered by Andrei D. Sakharov, the brilliant physicist who played a leading role in the development of Russia's thermonuclear capacity:

A complete destruction of cities, industry, transport, and systems of education, a poisoning of fields, water, and air by radioactivity, a physical destruction of the larger part of mankind, poverty, barbarism, a return to savagery, and a genetic degeneracy of the survivors under the impact of radiation, a destruction of the material and information basis of civilization—this is a measure of the peril that threatens the world as a result of the estrangement of the world's two superpowers. 13

Presently, U.S. strategic arsenals contain approximately 9,000 strategic weapons and 4,000 megaton equivalents. Soviet strategic forces number approximately 3,000 weapons and about 5,000 megaton equivalents.14 An exchange involving any substantial fraction of these forces could promptly destroy more than half of the urban populations in both countries. The subsequent fallout could be expected to kill upwards of 50 percent of the surviving rural inhabitants as well as create worldwide contamination of the atmosphere.15

To better understand the effects of fallout, it is useful to recognize that radiation effects have three basic forms: (1) radiation directly from the explosion; (2) immediate radioactive fallout (first twenty-four hours); and (3) long-term fallout (months and years). In areas where radioactive fallout is of particularly high intensity, individuals will be exposed to high doses of radiation regardless of shelter protection. Those who do not become prompt or short-term fatalities and have suffered radiation exposures above 100 REMs will undergo hemo tological (blood system) alterations that diminish immunological capabilities. The resultant vulnerability to infection will seriously impair prospects for long-term recovery.

The effects of a nuclear war between the superpowers, however, cannot be understood solely in terms of projected casualties. Rather, these effects must also include quantitative effects (i.e., availability of productive capacity, fuel, labor, food, and other resources); qualitative effects (i.e., political, social, and psychological damage); and interactive effects (i.e., the impact on the relationships between the social and economic factors of production).17 When these corollary effects are taken into account, it is easy to see that policy makers and public alike have typically understated the aggregate impact of nuclear war.

This point is supported by a 1975 study of the National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, entitled Long- Term Worldwide Effects of Multiple Nuclear Weapons Detonations. Going beyond the usual litany of crude physical measures of destruction (e.g., number of human fatalities, number of cities destroyed), the report portrays the long-term, worldwide effects following a hypothetical exchange of 10,000 megatons of explosive power in the northern hemisphere. These effects are cast in terms of atmosphere and climate, natural terrestrial ecosystems, agriculture and animal husbandry, the aquatic environment, and both somatic and genetic changes in human populations.

While the report recognizes that the biosphere and the species Homo sapiens would survive the hypothesized nuclear war, it recognizes that the very idea of survival in such a context is problematic. Building upon this recognition, a more recent study prepared for the Joint Committee on Defense Production of the Congress—Economic and Social Consequences of Nuclear Attacks on the United States—identifies four discrete levels of postattack survival. This new taxonomy permits a more subtle look at the interactive effects of nuclear war and allows more precise judgments about the acceptability or unacceptability of nuclear attack damage. According to the study, there are four levels of survival, in decreasing order of damage.

1. Biological Survival of Individuals. Individuals or groups of individuals survive but not necessarily within the organized political, social, and economic structure of a modern society.

2. Regional Survival of Political Structures. Some subnational political units survive as viable entities, but without a functioning central government.

3. Survival of a Central Government. Some form of viable, central control over all preattack national territory survives, but the effectiveness of this control may vary over an extremely wide range, depending on the specific nature and pattern of the attack(s).

4. Survival Intact of Basic Societal Structure. Damage to the nation is characterized as relatively limited socially, politically and economically; nevertheless, the attack is militarily destructive. This is the concept of survival envisioned in the notion of limited or controlled nuclear war. However, it should be noted that the idea that effective strategic military attacks can be benign in their impacts on society is in dispute. It is used here as a criterion without any implicit acceptance that it can be achieved. 19

There are, however, levels of strategic exchange at which even the first listed category of survival might not be relevant. At such levels, the species itself—let alone organized political, social, and economic structures—would disappear. The plausibility of such levels is underscored by the fact that the magnitude of exchange postulated in the NAS report is really quite low. Were the superpowers to exchange between 50,000 and 100,000 megatons of nuclear explosives, rather than the 10,000 megatons assumed by the report, worldwide climatological changes would imperil the physical existence of Homo sapiens.

Worldwide Nuclear War

If nuclear terrorism should lead to worldwide nuclear war, the results would represent humankind's last and most complete calamity, defying not only our imaginations of disaster, but our customary measurements as well. As the culmination of what Camus once described as "years of absolutely insane history," worldwide nuclear war would represent the final eradication of the very boundaries of annihilation.

In technical terms, the consequences of systemwide nuclear war would include atmospheric effects; effects on natural terrestrial ecosystems; effects on managed terrestrial ecosystems; and effects on the aquatic environment.

Atmospheric effects would be highlighted by greatly reduced ozone concentrations producing increased ultraviolet radiation and a drop in average temperature. Even the possibility of irreversible climatic shifts cannot be ruled out.

Natural Terrestrial Ecosystems would be affected by systemwide nuclear war through three principal stress factors: ionizing radiation; uv-B radiation; and climatic change. The cumulative effect of these three factors would render the entire planet a "hot spot" where even vast forests would show physiological and genetic damage.21

Managed Terrestrial Ecosystems would be affected by systemwide nuclear war by radionuclide contamination of foods, chromosome breakage and gene mutations in crops, and yield-reducing sterility in seed crops. The cumulative effect of these changes would be the disappearance of the technology base for agriculture. Even if there were any significant 11 survivors, a return to normal world food production would be unimaginable.22

Aquatic effects of a systemwide nuclear war would stem from ionizing radiation from radionuclides in marine waters and fresh waters; solar uv radiation; and changes in water temperatures associated with climate. Irreversible injuries to sensitive aquatic species could be anticipated during the years of large transient increase in uv-B isolation. And the range of geographic distribution of sensitive populations of aquatic organisms could be reduced.23