CRP-2B (Crisis Relocation Program 2B) is a hypothetical scenario of

nuclear war Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a theoretical military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear wa ...

between the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

and the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

that was created in 1976 by the

Federal Emergency Management Agency The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS), initially created under President Jimmy Carter by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 3 of 1978 and implemented by two Ex ...

. It involved the detonation of 1444 weapons, with a yield of 6559 megatons, and projected an American death toll of between 85 and 125 million. CRP-2B predicts a "

countervalue In military doctrine, countervalue is the targeting of an opponent's assets that are of value but not actually a military threat, such as cities and civilian populations. Counterforce is the targeting of an opponent's military forces and facilitie ...

" attack (an attack targeting cities instead of military and industrial infrastructure). The program was referred to as a "study", but in fact it was the product of a computer simulation. It was also the source of an 80% survival rate figure that was quoted by many people in the years afterwards. The 80% survival rate was an initial assumption, built into the parameters of the computer simulation by its designers. The assumption stems from the conditions of the scenario, with historical precedence in the

Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United S ...

: FEMA assumes that the nuclear exchange would be preceded by 3–5 days of "heightened tensions" that would give Americans time to evacuate major cities. But as the program came to be a "study", so the survival rate figure came to be the "finding" of the study. Charles F. Estes Jr., director of strategic police at the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, stated: This 80% figure was quoted in the 1980s by U.S. congresspeople and other officials.

Criticism

The 80% survival rate assumption has since came under significant criticism from academics and organizations like the

Federation of American Scientists The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is an American nonprofit global policy think tank with the stated intent of using science and scientific analysis to attempt to make the world more secure. FAS was founded in 1946 by scientists who w ...

(FAS). FAS criticized CRP-2B for failing to consider the potential ecological impacts of nuclear war, including

nuclear winter Nuclear winter is a severe and prolonged global climatic cooling effect that is hypothesized to occur after widespread firestorms following a large-scale nuclear war. The hypothesis is based on the fact that such fires can inject soot into t ...

, disruptions to agriculture, and the radioactive contamination of water supplies. It further criticized CRP-2B for studying only direct and immediate consequences of the attacks, ignoring the long-term threats to human health posed by

ionizing radiation Ionizing radiation (or ionising radiation), including nuclear radiation, consists of subatomic particles or electromagnetic waves that have sufficient energy to ionize atoms or molecules by detaching electrons from them. Some particles can travel ...

and social problems caused by breakdowns in law and order, strife between relocated populations and host communities, and disruptions to the supply of medical equipment.

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

radiologist and anti-nuclear activist

Herbert L. Abrams Herbert Leroy Abrams (August 16, 1920 – January 20, 2016) was an American medical doctor. After establishing a career as a radiologist at Harvard Medical School and the Stanford University School of Medicine, Abrams became involved in the anti-n ...

was particularly critical of the scenario's assumptions regarding the injured. He noted that hospitals would quickly be overwhelmed by the number of victims, particularly burn victims, who already face shortages of beds, medical personnel, and resources. Abrams estimated that because 80% of hospitals are in urban areas and would so be destroyed in the attack, there would 1 bed for every 563 severely injured patients. Hospitals would face similar post-attack shortages for blood, plasma, and other fluids and drugs and bandages, which would prevent effective treatment of the wounded and patients with chronic illnesses.{{cite book, last1=Abrams, first1=Herbert, author-link1=Herbert L. Abrams, editor1-last=Marston, editor1-first=Solomon, title=The Medical Implications of Nuclear War, date=1986, publisher=National Academies Press (US), location=Washington, DC, url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK219179/, accessdate=25 April 2018, chapter=Medical Supply and Demand in a Post-Nuclear-War World Taking into account these impacts on medical facilities, Abrams estimates that only 60 million Americans would survive in the CRP-2B scenario, before nuclear winter, social strife, and disruptions to the food supply are considered.

References

Federal Emergency Management Agency Nuclear warfare

Criticism

See also

References