Counterforce is indistinguishable from countervalue attacks OR it fails.

If we look at the four categories in which SIOP targets were grouped by the Cold War’s end (US GAO 1991: 2), we can easily see that moving from the first to any of the next three— and especially the fourth— amounted to countervalue targeting: (1) Nuclear Forces (ballistic missiles and their launch facilities and con- trol centers; nuclear weapons storage sites; airfields supporting nuclear- capable aircraft; ballistic missile submarine bases); (2) Leadership (command posts; key communication facilities); (3) Other Military Forces (barracks, supply depots, marshaling points; airfields not supporting nuclear forces; ammunition storage facilities; tank and vehicle storage yards); and (4) War- Supporting Industrial and Economic Factories (industrial: ammunition factories, tanks and armored per- sonnel carrier factories, petroleum refineries, railway yards and repair facilities; eco- nomic: coal, basic steel, basic aluminum, and electric power).

We could argue that “Nuclear Forces” are counterforce targets, but even that distinction takes no account of their vast number, or locations proximate to urban areas. Indeed, a counterforce strategy aimed “strictly” at nuclear- force targets would require many more times the weapons needed to destroy Soviet cities (Lortie 2001: 23). Thus, the United States could not destroy military targets without imposing significant “value” damage through errant blasts, fallout, and the destruction of collocated targets (McKinzie et al. 2001). Although warfighters touted the idea of counterforce exchanges that would “spare” urban targets, the indirect and collateral effects on cities— ensuing, for instance, from the spread of fallout from “surgical strikes” on nuclear missiles— would include the deaths of millions of Soviet and US citizens. The destruction of roads, governmental facilities, communi- cation links, vital industries, and so forth would destroy critical economic, societal, and governmental nodes, with (cumulative) contagion effects that would, in turn, destroy society as it previously existed.

Adding targets to the US strike list, from any of the three other categories— despite a military rationale (“war supporting industry”)— would enormously increase the human toll. The SIOP arguably served, then, as a blueprint for an in- discriminate war: “When you’re talking about thousands of nuclear weapons— and the mass fires, fallout, and destruction that they can cause— the differences between counterforce and countervalue quickly begin to blur. Millions are going to die— instantly or over time— either way” (Lortie 2001: 26)