Facing the Atomic Bomb
The Problem of Reducing Vulnerability to Atomic Bombs. By Anstey J. Coale. (Oxford University Press. 10s. bd.) Tins book was prepared under the direction of the Committee on Social and Economic Aspects of Atomic Energy of the Social Science Research Council, under the Chairmanship of W. W. Reefier of the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, U.S.A. It uses only publishea data, but the Committee included men with war-time experience of atomic bombs. Essentially it aims rather at asking the right questions than at finding a final answer to them, and naturally looks at the problem from the U.S. point of view, which differs in some respects from ours. The author considers separately two cases, according to whether or not an effective system of inter- national control of atomic energy has been established before war broke out. People in this country do not perhaps often realise that a system of international control, such as that proposed last year by Mr. Baruch in the name of the United- States, would not prevent some use of atomic bombs if war broke out for other causes. Under such a scheme nations would have in their territory (after whatever lapse of time may turn out to be necessary for their develop- ment) plants to produce power for peaceful purposes from atomic energy. These plants would be run, and perhaps owned, by an international control agency, but if a world war were to occur one side at least would be acting in deffance of the United Nations and could not be expected to honour its engagements to that body. It would presumably seize such plants as were in its territory and make what use of them it could for war. The other countries would be forced to act likewise.
Now plants capable of producing important amounts of energy by atomic processes would contain substantial amounts of bomb material which could be extracted without too much trouble. If raw material was available the plants could also yield, after a time, a steady production of bomb material. An aggressor country—according to the extent to which it had succeeded in making secret preparations for the conversion, and to some extent on the design of the plants— would be able to produce a few bombs in a period varying from a few weeks to a year or more. If, however, no agreement is reached in the next two or three years it is reasonable to suppose that the major Powers will devote a large proportion of their present expendi- ture on armaments to making atomic bombs. If this goes on for, say, ten years of peace, national armouries would contain hundreds and perhaps thousands of bombs. Mr. Coale postulates a few thousand. There would thus be a great difference between the weight of attack- in the two cases. Further, if the international agency did its work properly, it would not be possible for an aggressor nation to start the war with atomic attack—an atomic Pearl Harbour—as it probably would if no agreement were reached. In parenthesis, it is worth pointing out that the greatest value of a satisfactory agreement on atomic energy would be to prevent the ill- feeling and danger of war which a secret armaments race in atomic bombs would be sure to cause.
The effect on war of a few atomic bombs is hard to judge. Much
would depend on whether the combatants had a common land frontier. In the book under review it is tacitly assumed they -have not. Probably atomic bombs in small numbers would not be decisive against land armies ; to take an extreme case, atomic bombs would not have saved Denma41„or Holland from Germany in 1940, unless the knowledge hisAlit'itet would suffer serious damage had been a sufficient deterrent tlFHitler. On the other hand, overseas operations like those in Normandy would be Vulnerable, especially in the early stages when all supplies have to go through a narrow bottleneck, and one may wonder whether any staff would have been bold enough to order them if Germany had been known to have even two or three atomic bombs. Passive defence of a country against atomic bombs has two main aspe.cts—saving life and enabling the essential activities to be carried on. As regards the latter much may be done by stock- piling in time of peace, especially as regards munitions. Important war factories can be put underground. Life can be saved by shelters, by evacuation of towns or by dispersion of large towns in time of peace. The last seems hopelessly too costly. It is estimated that to relocate die- 50,000,000 people at present living in the zoo largest cities of the U.S.A. into more than L000 cities, none with a population in excess of 50,000, would cost 250 billion dollars, and this would onittbe a palliative, for the smaller cities could, after all, still be bombed.,,ji would probably be wiser to use the effort to make bombs and so *are off the enemy.
Shelters could be quite effective if warning could be given. They were not, of course, used at Hiroshima or Nagasaki for lack of warning. Warningis difficult for a single aircraft, and harder still for a rocket. Active defence by shooting down the aircraft or, with much greater difficuttr, intercepting a rocket is 'possible, and will no doubt be tried. But while a steady to per cent. of losses would break sustained bombing attacks of the ordinary 'kind because of the large number of -aeroplanes needed, it would make very little difference to attacks by atomic bombs. Probably even 50 per cent. losses would not prevent the attack, though they would halve its effect, and it is optimistic to suppose the defence will be so effective. In the present writer's' opinion the most important question is a psychological one. How will people in other cities react to the destruction of the first one or two ? It seems very likely that they will flee en masse. If so, the problem reduces itself to that of how to run a country with the main cities deserted, except perhaps for a few soldiers to work the trains through the junctions (railways are not very vulnerable to atomic bombs, at least when burst in the air). If this can be solved, and it does not seem quite hopeless, a war with a few tons of atomic bombs may not involve much loss of life or even property—for :what is the use of destroying a city already denied to your enemy by fear ?
When one comes to the unrestricted case—bombs produced in numbers over a long period of time—things are much less hopeful. There would be enough bombs to destroy even moderate-sized towns, a surprise attack is probable, and the loss of life might be enormous, of the order of 15,000,000 in U.S.A. Such a war might well make both sides so disintegrated that effective government ceased and no peace could be made.
In conclusion it should be said that the book is a careful study of this important and. difficult problem. It points out a number of directions in which fifirther study is required, and calls attention to a number of important aspects which might easily escape notice. It will be very valuable to all those who have need to go into the matter
Previous page
