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Threat Assessment: Few Weapons Needed for Destroying Nations Destroying the United States would take only 124 nuclear weapons, and destroying Canada would take only 11, according to a new study by the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has developed a computer program to predict the number of nuclear weapons necessary to destroy a country. The council developed the software to raise questions about the large nuclear stockpiles the United States and Russia possess, according to the Ottawa Citizen. The program was based on the concept of mutual assured destruction, known as MAD. Former U.S. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara defined MAD as the ability to kill 25 percent of a country’s population and destroy 50 percent of its industry with nuclear weapons. The theory holds that countries would not strike with nuclear weapons if they knew their opponent could strike back and destroy them. Using that definition, a large number of nuclear weapons would do little to increase security, said Matthew McKinzie, a physicist who helped develop the computer program. “The first 11 weapons [used] on Canada kills 25 percent of the population … But 22 weapons would only kill 30 percent of the population,” he said. Under the Canadian simulation, Canada’s major cities and military installations were attacked with 475-kiloton warheads. “If you take out Canada’s major centers, what is there left in terms of medical and rescue services, government, industry and other functions?” McKinzie said. “There is not enough to continue functioning as a country. For Canada, 11 weapons will do that … Why do we need several thousand deployed nuclear weapons when even a few hundred would assure an overwhelming loss of life?” The program is similar to the highly secret U.S. Single Integrated Operational Plan, which projects the likely consequences of attacks. Developers of the National Resources Defense Council’s program used declassified U.S. documents, such as radioactive fallout projections and census data, to develop the program. McKinzie said he planned to eventually distribute the program to the public. The program predicted it would take 51 weapons to destroy Russia, 368 to destroy China, 300 to destroy all NATO countries and as few as four to destroy small countries, such as Iraq or North Korea (David Pugliese, Ottawa Citizen, Jan. 2).
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