Tab. 1.
Damage levels from a limited nuclear strike
| Damage Categories | Damage levels to targeted nation by national objectives | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
| Political Control | No change | Protests and demonstrations against the government | Civil unrest; Stress maintenance of law-and-order | Significant insurgency exists | Revolution to remove regime | End of regime |
| Conventional Military | No change | Local military capability impaired | Regional or theater military capability significantly degraded | Regional or theater offensive military capabilities disabled | Regional or theater military capability ineffective | National conventional military capabilities are ineffective |
| Economy | No change | Regional economy suffers <10% | Regional economy depressed 10%–25% | Market recession/supply chains interrupted 10%–25%/regional economy suffers 25%–50% | Market depression; supply chains interrupted 25%–50%; regional economy suffers 50%–90% | Sustained market collapse/supply chains greatly interrupted; gross domestic product decreases over 25% |
| Civilian Casualties | No change | <5,000 | 5,000–10,000 | 10,000–50,000 | 50,000–1,00,000 | >100,000 |
Tab. 2.
Notional damage levels for various limited nuclear strikes
| Type of strike | Damage political control | Conventional military damage | Economic damage | Civilian causalities |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Demonstration | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Strategic military | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Conventional military | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| War supporting infrastructure | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| HAB | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| Economic | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
| Cities | 0 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
Tab. 3.
Limited nuclear attack and response outcome deltas (sanctions, conventional military impact, economic effect and civilian causalities)
| Response Options | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Strictly Compliant with LOAC | Relaxed LOAC | Belligerent Reprisals | |||||||||||||||||||||||
| Demonstration or Conventional Counterattack | Conventional Military | War Supporting Industry | High Altitute Burst (HAB)* | Economic or Infrastructure | Cities | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Sanctions | Military | Economic | Casusalities | Sanctions | Military | Economic | Causalities | Sanctions | Military | Economic | Causalities | Sanctions | Military | Economic | Causalities | Sanctions | Military | Economic | Causalities | Sanctions | Military | Economic | Causalities | ||
| Attack Options | Demo | < | > | --- | > | -- | - | - | > | - | -- | > | --- | - | > | -- | --- | ||||||||
| Military | < | +++ | < | = | > | + | - | - | > | ++ | -- | > | +++ | --- | - | > | +++ | -- | --- | ||||||
| War Supt | < | ++ | + | + | < | - | + | + | < | = | = | = | > | + | - | + | > | +++ | -- | = | > | ++ | - | -- | |
| HAB | < | + | + | < | -- | ++ | > | - | + | - | < | = | = | < | + | - | - | > | + | = | --- | ||||
| Ecomonic | < | +++ | + | < | --- | +++ | + | < | -- | ++ | = | > | - | + | + | < | = | = | > | + | -- | ||||
| Cities | < | ++ | +++ | < | --- | ++ | +++ | < | -- | + | ++ | < | - | = | +++ | < | - | ++ | < | = | = | ||||
1 Attacker prefers larger positive values indicated by plus signs ‘+’; sanctions represents repercussions where ‘<’ applied to the attacker, ‘>’ applied to the responder; outcome with ‘=’ means both incur similar levels of damage. Colours categorise results, with red responder dominates (unjust response), orange attacker dominates (insufficient deterrence), yellow mixed outcomes and green commensurate outcomes. Asterisk ‘*’ indicates a HAB response is very difficult to isolate effects to the country of the attacker.
HAB, high-altitude burst; LOAC, law of armed conflict.