Editing Nuclear winter (section)

== Policy implications ==
During the [[Cuban Missile Crisis]], [[Fidel Castro]] and [[Che Guevara]] called on the USSR to launch a nuclear [[Pre-emptive nuclear strike|first strike]] against the US in the event of a US invasion of Cuba. In the 1980s, Castro was pressuring the Kremlin to adopt a harder line against the US under President [[Ronald Reagan]], even arguing for the potential use of nuclear weapons. As a direct result of this, a Soviet official was dispatched to Cuba in 1985 with an entourage of "experts", who detailed the ecological effect on Cuba in the event of nuclear strikes on the United States. Soon after, the Soviet official recounts, Castro lost his prior "nuclear fever".<ref>{{cite book |first=Andrian |last=Danilevich |chapter=3 |title=Evolution of soviet strategy|page=24|chapter-url=http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb285/doc02_I_ch3.pdf |access-date=2016-12-05|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161101014139/http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb285/doc02_I_ch3.pdf |archive-date= 2016-11-01 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=September 11, 2009 |editor-last=Burr |editor-first=William |editor2=Savranskaya |editor2-first=Svetlana |title=Previously Classified Interviews with Former Soviet Officials Reveal U.S. Strategic Intelligence Failure Over Decades |url=http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv//nukevault/ebb285/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110805060352/http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb285/ |archive-date=2011-08-05 |work=National Security Archive}}</ref> In 2010, Alan Robock was summoned to Cuba to help Castro promote his new view that nuclear war would bring about Armageddon. Robock's 90 minute lecture was later aired on the nationwide state-controlled television station in the country.<ref>{{cite web |author=Roane |first=Kit R. |date=April 6, 2016 |title=Nuclear Winter's Cuban Connection |url=http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/nuclear-winters-cuban-connection |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161202165746/http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/nuclear-winters-cuban-connection |archive-date=2016-12-02 |website=Pulitzer Center}}</ref><ref name="nature">{{cite web |url= http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/NatureNuclearWinterComment.pdf |title= Comment |date=19 May 2011 |volume=473 |website=Nature |page=275 |access-date=11 June 2014 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20131001213509/http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/NatureNuclearWinterComment.pdf |archive-date= 1 October 2013 |url-status= live}}</ref>

However, according to Robock, insofar as getting US government attention and affecting nuclear policy, he has failed. In 2009, together with [[Owen Toon]], he gave a talk to the [[United States Congress]], but nothing transpired from it and the then-presidential science adviser, [[John Holdren]], did not respond to their requests in 2009 or at the time of writing in 2011.<ref name="nature"/>
[[File:US and USSR nuclear stockpiles.svg|thumb|United States and Soviet Union nuclear stockpiles. The effects of trying to make others believe the results of the models on nuclear winter, does not appear to have decreased either country's nuclear stockpiles in the 1980s,{{Sfn | Badash |2009 | p = 315}} only the failing [[Soviet economy]] and the [[dissolution of the Soviet Union|dissolution of the country between 1989 and 1991]] which marks the end of the [[Cold War]] and with it the relaxation of the "[[arms race]]", appears to have had an effect. The effects of the electricity generating [[Megatons to Megawatts]] program can also be seen in the mid-1990s, continuing the trend in Russian reductions. A similar chart focusing solely on quantity of warheads in the multi-megaton range is also available.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Johnston |first=William Robert |title=Multimegaton Weapons |url=http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/nuclear/multimeg.html |access-date=2023-12-16 |website=www.johnstonsarchive.net}}</ref> Moreover, total deployed US and Russian [[strategic weapon]]s increased steadily from 1983 until the Cold War ended.<ref>Hans M. Kristensen 2012, [http://krepon.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/3524/worth-the-wait "Estimated US-Russian Nuclear Warhead Inventories 1977–2018.] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150112224012/http://krepon.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/3524/worth-the-wait|date=2015-01-12}}".</ref>]]

In a 2012 "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" feature, Robock and Toon, who had routinely mixed their disarmament advocacy into the conclusions of their "nuclear winter" papers,<ref name="Robock"/> argue in the political realm that the hypothetical effects of nuclear winter necessitates that the doctrine they assume is active in Russia and US, "[[mutually assured destruction]]" (MAD), should instead be replaced with their own "self-assured destruction" (SAD) concept,<ref name="Robock Toon 2012"/> because, regardless of whose cities burned, the effects of the resultant nuclear winter that they advocate would be, in their view, catastrophic. In a similar vein, in 1989 [[Carl Sagan]] and [[Richard P. Turco|Richard Turco]] wrote a policy implications paper that appeared in ''[[Ambio]]'' that suggested that as nuclear winter is a "well-established prospect", both superpowers should jointly reduce their nuclear arsenals to "[[Minimal deterrence|Canonical Deterrent Force]]" levels of 100–300 individual warheads each, such that in "the event of nuclear war [this] would minimize the likelihood of [extreme] nuclear winter."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Turco |first1=Richard |last2=Sagan |first2=Carl |date=13 September 1989 |title=Policy Implications of Nuclear Winter |journal=Ambio |volume=18 |issue=7 |pages=372–376 |jstor=4313618}}</ref>

An originally classified 1984 US [[United States Intelligence Community|interagency intelligence]] assessment states that in both the preceding 1970s and 1980s, the Soviet and US military were already following the "''existing trends''" in [[Nuclear weapon design#Fusion-boosted fission weapons|warhead miniaturization]], of higher accuracy and lower yield nuclear warheads.{{sfn|Interagency Intelligence Assessment |1984|p=20}} This is seen when assessing the most numerous [[physics package]]s in the US arsenal, which in the 1960s were the [[B28 nuclear bomb|B28]] and [[W31]], however, both quickly became less prominent with the 1970s mass production runs of the 50 Kt [[W68]], the 100 Kt [[W76]] and in the 1980s, with the [[B61 nuclear bomb|B61]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Yield-to-weight ratios|website=Nuclear secrecy |url=http://nuclearsecrecy.com/betas/yieldtoweight/ |access-date= 2016-12-18|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20161025101934/http://nuclearsecrecy.com/betas/yieldtoweight/|archive-date=2016-10-25|url-status=live}}</ref> This trend towards miniaturization, enabled by advances in [[inertial guidance]] and accurate [[GPS]] navigation etc., was motivated by a multitude of factors, namely the desire to leverage the physics of equivalent megatonnage that miniaturization offered; of freeing up space to fit more [[MIRV]] warheads and [[Penetration aid|decoys]] on each missile. Alongside the desire to still destroy [[missile silo|hardened targets]] but while reducing the severity of fallout [[collateral damage]] depositing on neighboring, and potentially friendly, countries. As it relates to the likelihood of nuclear winter, the range of potential [[Effects of nuclear explosions|thermal radiation]] ignited fires was already reduced with miniaturization. For example, the most popular nuclear winter paper, the 1983 TTAPS paper, had described a 3000 Mt [[counterforce]] attack on [[ICBM]] sites with each individual warhead having approximately one Mt of energy; however not long after publication, Michael Altfeld of [[Michigan State University]] and [[Political Scientist|political scientist]] Stephen Cimbala of [[Pennsylvania State University]] argued that the then already developed and deployed smaller, more accurate warheads (e.g. W76), together with [[airburst|lower detonation heights]], could produce the same counterforce strike with a total of only 3 Mt of energy being expended. They continue that, ''if'' the nuclear winter models prove to be representative of reality, then far less climatic-cooling would occur, even if firestorm prone areas existed in the [[Single Integrated Operational Plan|target list]], as lower fusing heights such as surface bursts would also limit the range of the burning thermal rays due to terrain masking and shadows cast by buildings,{{Sfn | Badash |2009 | p = 235}} while also temporarily lofting far more [[nuclear fallout|localized fallout]] when compared to [[airburst]] fuzing – the standard mode of employment against un-hardened targets.[[File:UncleNuclearTest1951.jpg|thumb|left|The 1951 [[Operation Buster-Jangle|''Shot Uncle'' of Operation ''Buster-Jangle'']], had a yield about a tenth of the 13 to 16 Kt Hiroshima bomb, 1.2 Kt,<ref name="Jangle Uncle 2001">Some sources refer to the test as ''Jangle Uncle'' (e.g., Adushkin, 2001) or ''Project Windstorm'' (e.g., DOE/NV-526, 1998). Operation ''Buster'' and Operation ''Jangle'' were initially conceived as separate operations, and ''Jangle'' was at first known as ''Windstorm'', but the AEC merged the plans into a single operation on 19 June 1951. See Gladeck, 1986.</ref> and was detonated 5.2 m (17 ft) beneath ground level.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Adushkin |first1=Vitaly V. |last2=Leith |first2=William |date=September 2001 |title=USGS Open File Report 01-312: Containment of Soviet underground nuclear explosions |url=http://geology.er.usgs.gov/eespteam/pdf/USGSOFR01312.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130509080818/http://geology.er.usgs.gov/eespteam/pdf/USGSOFR01312.pdf |archive-date=2013-05-09 |publisher=US Department of the Interior Geological Survey}}</ref> No thermal flash of heat energy was emitted to the surroundings in this shallow buried test.<ref name="Jangle Uncle 2001"/> The explosion resulted in a cloud that rose to 3.5 km (11,500 ft).<ref>{{cite book |title=Shots Sugar and Uncle: The final tests of the Buster-Jangle series (DNA 6025F) |first= Jean |last=Ponton |display-authors= etal |date=June 1982 |publisher=Defense Nuclear Agency |url= http://www.dtra.mil/rd/programs/nuclear_personnel/docs%5CT24299.PDF|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20070710110311/http://www.dtra.mil/rd/programs/nuclear_personnel/docs%5CT24299.PDF|archive-date= 2007-07-10}}</ref> The resulting crater was 260 feet (79 m) wide and 53 feet (16 m) deep.<ref>{{cite web |title=Operation Buster-Jangle |publisher=The Nuclear Weapons Archive |url= http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Busterj.html |access-date=2014-11-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141014123759/http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Usa/Tests/Busterj.html |archive-date=2014-10-14 |url-status= live}}</ref> The yield is similar to that of an [[Atomic Demolition Munition]]. Altfeld and Cimbala argue that true belief in nuclear winter might lead nations towards building greater arsenals of weapons of this type.{{Sfn | Badash | 2009 | p = 242}} However, despite being complicated due to the advent of [[Dial-a-yield]] technology, data on these low yield nuclear weapons suggests that they, as of 2012, make up about a tenth of the arsenal of the US and Russia, and the fraction of the stockpile that they occupy has diminished since the 1970–1990s, not grown.<ref>{{cite web|url= https://fas.org/_docs/Non_Strategic_Nuclear_Weapons.pdf|title=Non-strategic nuclear weapons, Hans M. Kristensen, Federation of American Scientists, 2012|access-date=2016-06-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160423194001/http://fas.org/_docs/Non_Strategic_Nuclear_Weapons.pdf|archive-date=2016-04-23|url-status=live}}</ref> A factor in this is that very thin devices with yields of approximately one kiloton of energy are nuclear weapons that make very inefficient use of their nuclear materials, e.g. [[two-point implosion]]. Thus a more [[psychological warfare|psychologically detering]] higher efficiency/higher yield device, can instead be constructed from the same mass of [[fissile material]].]] This logic is similarly reflected in the originally classified 1984 ''Interagency Intelligence assessment'', which suggests that targeting planners would simply have to consider target combustibility along with yield, height of burst, timing and other factors to reduce the amount of smoke to safeguard against the potentiality of a nuclear winter.{{sfn|Interagency Intelligence Assessment |1984|p=20}} Therefore, as a consequence of attempting to limit the target fire hazard by reducing the range of thermal radiation with fuzing for surface and [[Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator|sub-surface bursts]], this will result in a scenario where the far more concentrated, and therefore deadlier, ''local'' fallout that is generated following a surface burst forms, as opposed to the comparatively dilute ''global'' fallout created when nuclear weapons are fuzed in air burst mode.{{Sfn | Badash |2009 | p = 235}}<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Solomon |first1=Fredric |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NUUrAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA106 |title=The Medical Implications of Nuclear War |last2=Marston |first2=Robert Q. |date=1986-01-01 |publisher=National Academies Press |isbn=978-0-309-03692-4 |pages=106 |language=en-us}}</ref>

Altfeld and Cimbala also argued that belief in the possibility of nuclear winter would actually make nuclear war more likely, contrary to the views of Sagan and others, because it would serve yet further motivation to follow the ''existing trends'', towards the [[Circular error probable|development of more accurate]], and even lower explosive yield, nuclear weapons.{{Sfn | Badash | 2009 | p = 242}} As the winter hypothesis suggests that the replacement of the then Cold War viewed [[strategic nuclear weapons]] in the multi-megaton yield range, with weapons of explosive yields closer to [[tactical nuclear weapons]], such as the [[Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator]] (RNEP), would safeguard against the nuclear winter potential. With the latter capabilities of the then, largely still conceptual RNEP, specifically cited by the influential nuclear warfare analyst [[Albert Wohlstetter]].{{Sfn | Badash | 2009 | pp = 238–239}} Tactical nuclear weapons, on the low end of the scale have yields that overlap with large [[conventional weapons]] and are therefore often viewed "as blurring the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons", making the prospect of using them "easier" in a conflict.<ref>{{cite web|title=Nuclear Weapon Initiatives: Low-Yield R&D, Advanced Concepts, Earth Penetrators, Test Readiness |website= Congressional research |url= http://congressionalresearch.com/RL32130/document.php|access-date=2014-11-01|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141109095233/http://congressionalresearch.com/RL32130/document.php |archive-date=2014-11-09}}</ref><ref>[http://capitolwords.org/date/2005/07/22/S8717_national-defense-authorization-act-for-fiscal-year/ National Defense Authorization Act For Fiscal Year 2006] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150805023431/http://capitolwords.org/date/2005/07/22/S8717_national-defense-authorization-act-for-fiscal-year/ |date=2015-08-05}}</ref>

===Alleged Soviet exploitation===
{{See also|Soviet influence on the peace movement#Claims of wider Soviet influence}}
In an interview in 2000 with [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] (the leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991), the following statement was posed to him: "In the 1980s, you warned about the unprecedented dangers of nuclear weapons and took very daring steps to reverse the arms race", with Gorbachev replying "Models made by Russian and American scientists showed that a nuclear war would result in a nuclear winter that would be extremely destructive to all life on Earth; the knowledge of that was a great stimulus to us, to people of honor and morality, to act in that situation."<ref>[http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2000/09/07/gorbachev/ Mikhail Gorbachev explains what's rotten in Russia] {{webarchive|url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090210165853/http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2000/09/07/gorbachev/ |date=2009-02-10}}</ref>

However, a 1984 US Interagency Intelligence Assessment expresses a far more skeptical and cautious approach, stating that the hypothesis is not scientifically convincing. The report predicted that Soviet [[nuclear policy]] would be to maintain their strategic nuclear posture, such as their fielding of the high [[throw-weight]] [[SS-18]] missile and they would merely attempt to exploit the hypothesis for propaganda purposes, such as directing scrutiny on the US portion of the [[nuclear arms race]]. Moreover, it goes on to express the belief that if Soviet officials did begin to take nuclear winter seriously, it would probably make them demand exceptionally high standards of scientific proof for the hypothesis, as the implications of it would undermine their [[military doctrine]] – a level of scientific proof which perhaps could not be met without field experimentation.{{sfn|Interagency Intelligence Assessment |1984|pp=18–19}} The un-redacted portion of the document ends with the suggestion that substantial increases in Soviet Civil defense food stockpiles might be an early indicator that Nuclear Winter was beginning to influence Soviet upper [[wikt:echelon|echelon]] thinking.{{sfn|Interagency Intelligence Assessment |1984|p=20}}

In 1985, ''[[Time magazine|Time]]'' magazine noted "the suspicions of some Western scientists that the nuclear winter hypothesis was promoted by Moscow to give [[campaign for nuclear disarmament|anti-nuclear groups]] in the U.S. and Europe some fresh ammunition against America's arms buildup."<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Lamar Jr. |first1=Jacob V. |last2=Aikman |first2=David |last3=Amfitheatrof |first3=Erik |name-list-style=amp |date=2007-09-30 |orig-date=October 7, 1985 |title=Another Return From the Cold -- Printout -- TIME |url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,960025,00.html |access-date=2023-12-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070930040755/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,960025,00.html |archive-date=September 30, 2007 }}</ref> In 1985, the [[United States Senate]] met to discuss the science and politics of nuclear winter. During the congressional hearing, the influential analyst [[Leon Gouré]] presented evidence that perhaps the Soviets have simply echoed Western reports rather than producing unique findings. Gouré hypothesized that Soviet research and discussions of nuclear war may serve only Soviet political agendas, rather than to reflect actual opinions of Soviet leadership.<ref>United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Armed Services. ''Nuclear Winter and Its Implications Hearings before the Committee on Armed Services, United States Senate, Ninety-Ninth Congress, First Session, October 2 and 3, 1985.'' U.S. G.P.O., 1986.</ref>

In 1986, the [[Defense Nuclear Agency]] document ''An update of Soviet research on and exploitation of Nuclear winter 1984–1986'' charted the minimal [public domain] research contribution on, and Soviet propaganda usage of, the nuclear winter phenomenon.{{sfn|Goure|1986|p={{page needed|date=September 2021}}}}

There is some doubt as to when the Soviet Union began modelling fires and the atmospheric effects of nuclear war. Former Soviet intelligence officer [[Sergei Tretyakov (intelligence officer)|Sergei Tretyakov]] claimed that, under the directions of [[Yuri Andropov]], the [[KGB]] invented the concept of "nuclear winter" in order to stop the deployment of NATO [[Pershing II]] missiles. They are said to have distributed to peace groups, the environmental movement and the journal ''Ambio'' disinformation based on a faked "doomsday report" by the [[Russian Academy of Sciences|Soviet Academy of Sciences]] by Georgii Golitsyn, [[Nikita Moiseyev]] and Vladimir Alexandrov concerning the climatic effects of nuclear war.<ref name="Comrade J">Pete Earley, "Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War", Penguin Books, 2007, {{ISBN|978-0-399-15439-3}}, pp. 167–177.</ref> Although it is accepted that the Soviet Union exploited the nuclear winter hypothesis for propaganda purposes,{{sfn|Goure|1986|p={{page needed|date=September 2021}}}} Tretyakov's inherent claim that the KGB funnelled disinformation to ''Ambio'', the journal in which Paul Crutzen and John Birks published the 1982 paper "Twilight at Noon", has not been corroborated {{As of|2009|lc= y}}.{{Sfn | Badash |2009 | p = {{page needed|date=September 2021}}}} In an interview in 2009 conducted by the [[National Security Archive]], Vitalii Nikolaevich Tsygichko (a Senior Analyst at the [[Academy of Sciences of the USSR|Soviet Academy of Sciences]] and military mathematical modeler) stated that Soviet military analysts were discussing the idea of "nuclear winter" years before U.S. scientists, although they did not use that exact term.<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv//nukevault/ebb285/ |title=Candid Interviews with Former Soviet Officials Reveal U.S. Strategic Intelligence Failure Over Decades | publisher = GWU |access-date= 2012-05-06 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110805060352/http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nukevault/ebb285/ |archive-date= 2011-08-05|url-status= live}}</ref>