Report of the 

Joint Defense Science Board/ 

Threat Reduction Advisory Committee 

Task Force on 

The Nuclear Weapons 

Effects National 

Enterprise

 

June 2010 

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense 

For Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics 

Washington, D.C. 20301-3140 
This report is a product of the Defense Science Board (DSB). 

The DSB is a Federal Advisory Committee established to provide independent advice to 

the Secretary of Defense. Statements, opinions, conclusions, and recommendations in 

this report do not necessarily represent the official position of the Department of 

Defense. The task force on the Nuclear Weapons Effects National Enterprise completed 

its information-gathering in June 2007. 

This report is unclassified and cleared for public release.
OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE 

3140 DEFENSE PENTAGON 

WASHINGTON, DC 20301–3140 

May 28, 2010

MEMORANDUM FOR UNDER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR 

ACQUISITION, TECHNOLOGY & LOGISTICS 

SUBJECT: Final Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Nuclear 

Weapons Effects National Enterprise 

I am pleased to forward the final report of the Defense Science Board Task 

Force on Nuclear Weapons Effects National Enterprise. This report offers 

important considerations regarding the state of the nuclear weapons effects 

enterprise and the need for leadership awareness and intervention. 

Nuclear weapons remain a serious threat to our nation’s security. The 

nation’s capability to deter against this threat and provide assurance to our allies 

requires that US nuclear and conventional forces are able to operate in a nuclear 

environment. Unfortunately, the nation’s expertise and capability to operate in 

a nuclear environment have decayed. As a result the Department of Defense and 

the nation are not as well prepared as it should be to deter, defend, and mitigate 

an attack. 

This study serves to renew attention on the nation’s nuclear weapons 

effects enterprise. It offers recommendations for rebuilding critical capabilities, 

for improved collaboration throughout government stakeholders, and for 

enhanced attention at the leadership level. I endorse all of the study’s 

recommendations. 

Paul G. Kaminski 

DEFENSE SCIENCE 

BOARD

Chairman 



TABLE OF CONTENTS I v

Table of Contents 

Executive Summary ......................................................................................................vii

Chapter 1. Introduction .................................................................................................. 1

Chapter 2. Threats and Challenges.................................................................................3

Chapter 3. Assessment of Radiation Survivability of Critical Capabilities..................14

Chapter 4. Military Operations and Capabilities .........................................................18

Chapter 5. The National Nuclear Weapons Effects Enterprise .................................. 28

Chapter 6. Findings and Recommendations............................................................... 40

Chapter 7. Summary .................................................................................................... 50

Appendix A. A Primer on Nuclear Weapons Effects....................................................53

Appendix B. Hardening Microelectronics....................................................................65

Appendix C. Radiation Hardened Foundries...............................................................67

Terms of Reference ...................................................................................................... 69

Task Force Membership ...............................................................................................73

Presentations to the Task Force ...................................................................................75

Glossary.........................................................................................................................79
vi I TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY I vii

Executive Summary 

Actions—both by others and of our own doing—are combining to create 

potentially tragic consequences on military operations involving the effects of 

nuclear weapons on the survivability of critical systems for mission assurance. 

 Regional proliferation risks are growing, accompanied by nation state 

policy and doctrine that acknowledge limited nuclear use as a legitimate 

war fighting option. 

 U.S. counters, especially defensive measures to ensure continued 

operations in radiation environments, are being reduced—by our own 

choices. 

 Intelligence resources are focused elsewhere. 

 Leadership is poorly educated on military operations in nuclear 

environments. 

 The reliance on commercial off-the-shelf components in U.S. military 

systems has grown while nuclear survivability requirements, testing, and 

evaluation have declined–both dramatically. 

As a result, the nation lacks a clear understanding of the response to nuclear 

radiation exposure of general purpose forces, the Global Information Grid (GIG) 

and the GIG-edge, and critical infrastructure on which the Department of 

Defense (DOD) relies. Moreover, the technical expertise and infrastructure to 

help remedy the situation has decayed significantly. Investments in addressing 

nuclear survivability have declined precipitously. 

How did this atrophy of attention and capability come about? The root 

causes seem to lie deep in the corporate point of view among DOD 

leadership that has developed since the end of the Cold War about 

these matters. A number of factors have contributed. Nuclear weapons have 

not been used, other than in deterrence, for over sixty years. And for the past 

twenty years, even the deterrent uses have been less immediate and direct, and 

have seemed less important than before. Since the first Gulf War, conventional 

operations of great difficulty and importance have consumed DOD and national 

attention, and have displaced nuclear deterrence as the reigning paradigm. 

Furthermore, there seems to be widespread belief that the United States will be 

able to deter enemy use of nuclear weapons. For all these reasons, the possibility 

that U.S. forces would have to operate effectively in a nuclear environment simply 
viii I EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

seems, in this view, to be extremely remote. Finally, the costs of hardening 

military systems, and the difficulty of developing ways of operating forces to be 

effective in a nuclear environment, seem larger to many than the likelihood of the 

threat warrants—and are assumed to be greater in real dollars than they actually 

are. The complicated—and, to many decision-makers, arcane—nature of 

assessing the nuclear cost/risk trades exacerbates the problem. As a result, fewer 

and fewer military and civilian leaders in DOD have had experience with nuclear 

weapons and issues around them ... and the downward spiral continues. 

The task force believes that this point of view, though generally tacit (and 

often denied when alleged) holds sway widely in DOD—how else could one 

explain what has happened? The task force also believes this point of view is 

profoundly wrong and dangerous. It is wrong in part because, although 

deterrence seems to have worked during the Cold War, the situation is different 

today. Some adversaries today are prima facie undeterrable. Some may be 

desperate. Some may believe that asymmetries in the perceived political stakes of 

war, perhaps compounded with perceived U.S. unwillingness to break the 

“nuclear taboo,” will prevent the United States from retaliating forcefully against 

their use of nuclear weapons. 

One of the enduring lessons from the Cold War is that for deterrence and 

assurance of allies to be effective, the United States must be able to control 

escalation, which in turn requires—for deterrence—U.S. nuclear and conventional 

forces to be able to operate in a nuclear environment. Furthermore, the shoe is 

now on the other foot: it is precisely the superior capability of U.S. conventional 

forces that contributes to making nuclear weapons attractive to adversaries. 

Finally, hardening against, and operating effectively in, a nuclear environment is 

not as costly as often assumed, and technologies are emerging to further reduce 

the cost. All in all, we believe it is a prudent price to pay. 

The task force is not sure how to change the mind-set just described, other 

than to urge DOD leadership to heed the wake-up call that this report is intended 

to provide by looking at the strategic landscape with fresh eyes and thinking 

harder about the risks of allowing the erosion to continue. But if DOD leadership 

does want to heed the wake-up call, the task force offers many recommendations 

for action in the body of this report, summarized as follows. 
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY I ix

What needs to be done now: 

The following is the first and most crucial of all the recommendations in this report: 

 Make nuclear survivability a routine issue for leadership attention as it 

used to be during the Cold War, but focused in the current context of 

growing horizontal proliferation by both state and non-state actors. 

 Ensure balanced investments among all weapons of mass destruction 

modalities, which means—at a minimum—increasing resources 

focused on nuclear survivability, both funding and personnel. 

 Require routine reporting on survivability of critical fielded 

capabilities in the Defense Readiness Reporting System. 

 Restore operational knowledge and reflect it in the planning and 

training base. 

 Understand the operational limitations in a nuclear environment of 

existing and near-term additions to general purpose forces, the 

Global Information Grid, GIG edge, and critical infrastructure needed 

to generate and sustain forces. 

 Take the first step in establishing a “national enterprise” by forging an 

agreement with the Department of Energy to reverse the decline in the 

nuclear weapons effects enterprise. Begin discussions with the Director of 

National Intelligence to expand the agreement to the intelligence 

community. 

What needs to be done in the near term: 

 Formulate with the Department of Energy a professional nuclear 

weapons effects collaboration and mentoring program to expand and 

advance the human skills base. Over time expand this to the military and 

private sectors. 

 Improve understanding of both strategic and general purpose force 

operations reliant on net-centricity and unmanned systems in nuclear 

environments. 

 Establish on-going reviews and threat assessments to update survivability 

standards. 

 Pursue radiation hardened advances better coupled to commercial 

suppliers. 
x I EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 

 Expand the agreement with the Department of Energy to the intelligence 

community. 

 Ensure funding to upgrade and especially sustain existing nuclear 

simulators and prevent shutting down existing simulators. 

What needs to be done in the longer term: 

 Move to a model-based approach for the weapons effects enterprise to 

make up for the lack of underground testing. The approach should take 

advantage of advances in both aboveground simulators and high 

performance computing developed as part of the Department of Energy’s 

Science Based Stockpile Stewardship Program. 

 Expand agreements with the Department of Energy and the intelligence 

community to other agencies with a stake in the enterprise, especially the 

Department of Homeland Security. 

 Ensure that the minimum “national enterprise” capability in trained 

expertise and aboveground simulators is sustained. 

If the recommendations of the task force are implemented, the posture of 

critical capabilities for national security can be significantly improved. But more 

importantly, leadership will move a long way toward reversing the atrophy in 

attention and understanding of nuclear issues that characterize—dangerously—

the mindset today. 
INTRODUCTION I 1

Chapter 1. Introduction 

The Nuclear Weapons Effects National Enterprise task force was formed at 

the request of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and 

Logistics; the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and 

Biological Matters; and the Director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Its 

purpose was to assess progress against an earlier report of the Defense Science 

Board, Nuclear Weapons Effects Test, Evaluation, and Simulation (published 

April 2005), and to expand upon that report’s identification of the need for a 

“national enterprise” across appropriate departments and agencies in the 

government. The task force enjoyed the support of the Department of Energy’s 

Under Secretary for Nuclear Security, who also serves as the Administrator of the 

National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). 

In this study, “enterprise” means the full set of expertise, facilities and other 

capabilities that can support military planners, acquirers, and operators in 

assessing the ability to operate in a radiation environment. That set includes: 

 knowledgeable military operators and specialists (within the military 

services) 

 assessment and evaluation expertise in key agencies and laboratories 

(human and computational) 

 simulation testing and experimental capabilities (physical machines and 

the expertise to operate them) 

 science and technology, research and development (expertise and 

programs) 

The terms of reference for the study, purposely construed to cast a wide net, 

called for the task force to: 

 Assess standards for nuclear survivability based on an assessment of 

current and emerging nuclear capabilities of potential adversaries. 

 Review the lists of the critical war fighting and enabling systems and 

capabilities that must function through, or immediately after, a nuclear 

event. 

 Assess these critical systems and capabilities against the applicable 

standards and how well vulnerabilities are being addressed through the 

tradeoffs between hardening and other mitigation schemes. 
2 I CHAPTER ONE 

 Recommend a “national enterprise” emphasizing a modeling and 

simulation based approach augmented by the necessary experimental 

capability required to develop, validate, and verify the models. 

 Propose a viable business model that would provide sustained support for 

a baseline effort coupled to “campaigns” for new or modified major 

systems and surveillance programs that would utilize the “national 

enterprise.” 

 Evaluate the need for an ongoing oversight body to assure that the 

needed transformation to the modern “national enterprise” occurs. 

This broad directive was established because, at the outset of the study, the 

sponsoring leadership felt that little progress had been made since publication of 

the earlier report. Moreover, proliferation by actors outside of the original five 

nuclear powers (United States, Russia, China, United Kingdom, and France) 

seemed to be getting more serious. At the same time, Russia was pursuing 

modernization of its theater forces and China was expanding its strategic 

capabilities. Both concerns—lack of progress within the U.S. enterprise and 

growing horizontal and vertical proliferation—proved well founded. 

The chapters that follow document the analysis, findings, and 

recommendations that result from the task force deliberations. Chapter 2 

describes the current and emerging threat environment and the challenges facing 

the United States in the nuclear arena. Based on this environment, Chapter 3 

contains an assessment of the radiation survivability of critical U.S. capabilities—

a reality that calls for action on the part of the Department of Defense and the 

nation. Key factors that contribute to this assessment—our current military 

operational approaches and capabilities, and the health of the nuclear weapons 

effects national enterprise—are discussed in more detail in Chapters 4 and 5. 

Findings and recommendations are presented in Chapter 6; the final chapter 

summarizes how implementing these recommendations in a time-phased 

manner would improve our nation’s radiation survivability posture. 
THREATS AND CHALLENGES I 3

Chapter 2. Threats and Challenges 

The current and emerging threat environment has become more diffuse, 

uncertain, and difficult to characterize. Over the past decade the United States has 

built up a highly capable conventional force, surpassing that of any other nation. 

The strategy of employing nuclear weapons as a hedge against overwhelming U.S. 

conventional force superiority has become important to current and potential 

adversaries. In fact, the limited use of nuclear weapons as a potential war fighting 

tool appears acceptable by many nations and groups, in sharp contrast to the 

strategic deterrent role for nuclear weapons in the United States. 

Consequently use of a nuclear weapon on the general purpose battlefield is a 

growing possibility. Space systems and missile defense must also account for 

operations in a radiation environment and, of course, strategic offensive systems 

must continue to be survivable to nuclear effects. Besides nuclear weapons, other 

radiation threats, both natural and man-made, are creating survivability challenges 

that must be addressed. Each system generates its own set of unique requirements, 

and many systems, both nuclear and non-nuclear, must be capable of operating in 

a nuclear environment. Hardening, redundancy, operational changes from current 

baselines, rapid reconstitution, or combinations of these may be necessary to 

achieve a sound strategy for operating effectively in a nuclear environment. 

In conducting this study, the task force chose to categorize the broad array of 

radiation environments into three classes: 

 Category A. Environments where exposure is certain and the impact 

potentially significant. 

 Category B. Strategic nuclear engagements, where the probability is 

extremely low, but the consequences too severe to take the risk. 

 Category C. Limited use of nuclear weapons by regional powers and 

proliferators, with the potential for substantial loss of life, operational 

impacts on U.S. general purpose forces and supporting assets, and 

escalation to nuclear war. 

The task force addressed all three categories, but concentrated on the third 

because of growing concerns about proliferation and the accompanying issues 

associated with survivability of U.S. conventional war fighting capabilities. 
4 I CHAPTER TWO 

Appendix A provides a primer on the range of nuclear effects that forces might 

face.1

Category A: Certain Exposure 

This class of survivability challenges is characterized by exposure that is 

guaranteed and whose consequences, either immediate or over time, can be 

serious. Natural radiation exposure in space is one example. It has long been 

understood and accommodated in satellite design. 

Department of Defense (DOD) forces operate in substantially varied settings 

that result in assured exposure to natural and man-made environments. As a 

result, they must be designed, fielded, and operated to mitigate or insulate 

operators and operations from the effects generated by these environments. A large 

number of these effects are similar to those produced by nuclear weapon 

detonations with respect to the fundamental particle (e.g., proton, electrons, 

neutron, charged nuclei) interactions with the systems or components exposed. 

However, environmental magnitudes, time histories, and areas of exposure differ 

such that hardening against, or mitigating the effects produced by Category A 

sources does not necessarily guarantee survivability to nuclear weapons effects. For 

purposes of this report, cases cited and comparisons are confined to classes of socalled radiation effects—those produced by environments and their effects derived 

from interactions with fundamental particles and electromagnetic radiation. 

As an example, the earth, its people, and man-made creations are subjected to 

cosmic radiation—that is, extremely high energy nuclei originating galactically and 

beyond. These also produce atmospheric showers of high energy fundamental 

particles. All create environments of concern, especially for integrated circuit 

elements of the electronics proliferated in the world today. The feature size of 

components of these elements is now small enough (~ 200 to 300Ao) so that 

switching and other operations can be upset by cosmic ray interactions. 

Clear cases in this category involve space-based platforms, systems, and 

systems-of-systems (e.g. Global Positioning System). These systems are subjected 

to the solar wind, consisting principally of protons and the environments caused 

by its interaction with the earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field. In addition, 

solar flares or coronal mass ejections (heavy ions and electrons) also produce 

widespread electromagnetic fields exposing vast areas to an analog of a wide area 

nuclear weapon environment—electromagnetic pulse. On a much smaller and 



1. More in-depth threat assessments than presented in this report are classified. 
THREATS AND CHALLENGES I 5

localized scale, both lightning and high-powered microwaves produce similar 

electromagnetic field amplitudes, but different time histories. 

Some civilian and a variety of military equipment have the potential to either 

deliberately or accidentally cause the imposition of high amplitude transient 

and/or steady state electromagnetic fields on personnel and/or military equipment 

in the vicinity of the generated radiation field. Examples include: 

 proximity to high-powered radars or communications transmitters 

 deliberate jamming by traditional and nontraditional means and pathways 

 employment of non-lethal devices using electromagnetic radiation for 

crowd control or security 

 high power microwave sources, both pulsed and continuous wave 

 high energy lasers, including short-pulsed and continuous wave 

In summary, DOD personnel and equipment are subjected to certain or 

highly probable radiation environments—both natural and man-made. These 

form an exposure base case. DOD has for the most part established and, when 

needed, updated standards for design, test, and evaluation to provide adequate 

performance for mission assurance. Where technical protection and mitigation 

are limited, appropriate architectures (including redundancy); concepts of 

operation; and tactics, techniques, and procedures must be employed. The 

approaches adopted are usually not sufficient to ensure survivability to radiation 

effects produced by a nuclear weapon, however, because the magnitude and 

dynamics differ significantly. 

Category B: Strategic Nuclear Engagements 

This class of survivability challenges focuses on strategic nuclear engagements. 

The emergence of stealth, precision, and speed within conventional forces has 

blurred the Cold War distinction between strategic and tactical forces. Indeed, the 

role of conventional offensive forces for strategic engagements has long been 

recognized and reinforced in recent defense policy. As but one example, the 2010 

Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) directed further expansion of “future longrange strike capabilities” as “one means of countering growing threats to forwarddeployed forces and bases and ensuring U.S. power projection capabilities.”2 For 

the purposes of this report, the task force considered the following assets as critical 



2. U.S. Department of Defense, Quadrennial Defense Review Report (Washington, D.C.: 

Government Printing Office, 2010), p. 32. 
6 I CHAPTER TWO 

to strategic war fighting—that is, their functions must be guaranteed survivable in 

order to hold at risk the adversaries’ highest value targets: 

 U.S. offensive nuclear forces,3 including the warheads, missiles, basing, 

bombers, and national command and control with supporting 

intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and networks 

 strategic missile defense, even against light attacks 

 conventional strike assets and supporting command, control, 

communications, computers, and intelligence, surveillance, and 

reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems with strategic missions 

While the probability of nuclear attack or exchange can be considered very low, 

the consequences of inviting such a scenario by failing to rigorously ensure the 

survivability of our own strategic forces would be too enormously damaging to take 

the risk. However, since the end of the Cold War, there has been significant 

retrenchment from concerns about nuclear survivability of strategic military forces. 

Some will claim that the exceptions are U.S. nuclear weapons and related 

command and control systems, but even in this case, the attention to individual 

elements has become a subject of variation (see Chapters 4 and 5). 

Category C: Regional Engagements 

The class of survivability challenges of most concern, in the judgment of this 

task force, is the growth in regional contingencies in which nuclear weapons 

would be in play. Trends that contribute to this possibility are serious. 

For the past three decades, U.S. general purpose forces and assets overseas 

have been successfully attacked by nation states and terrorists. Iran’s attack on the 

U.S. embassy in Tehran, 241 service members killed in Lebanon, 19 Air Force 

personnel killed and 64 wounded at Khobar Towers, 17 sailors killed and 30 

wounded on the USS Cole, all serve as examples. While these attacks made use of 

conventional explosives, nation states are also facilitating regional nuclear 

proliferation. Terrorists are intent on attacking U.S. forces, the homeland, and 

allies, by any means and the Taliban have stated their interest in nuclear weapons. 

At the top of U.S. concerns should be the fact that foreign nuclear activities 

worldwide are not negligible in either size or potential consequence for the 



3. The most challenging survivability demands are placed on nuclear warheads and some of the 

delivery platforms when required to function in environments that include both adversary 

nuclear defensive interceptors and U.S. fratricide effects (from multiply targeted warheads on 

the same target). 
THREATS AND CHALLENGES I 7

United States. It is clear that the foreseeable future will not be nuclear free. 

Although our nation no longer seems to face the immediate threat of a massive 

nuclear exchange, we now live in a much more complex and unpredictable 

nuclear world. There has been an unprecedented proliferation of nuclear 

technology, nuclear weapons, and potential delivery platforms. The United States 

now faces smaller arsenals but more numerous real and potential adversaries 

that possess or may acquire nuclear weapons in a geopolitical world where 

alliances can, and do, change rapidly. 

In addition to traditional powers that are developing nuclear doctrine and 

capabilities to match, the United States must effectively deal with nation state 

proliferators whose capabilities and intentions are not well understood, as well as 

with terrorists with a declared intent to acquire and use nuclear weapons. While 

command and control of nuclear weapons remains strong in the United States 

and in some of the other major nuclear powers, proliferation in less stable 

nations could produce a higher probability of loss of control of special nuclear 

materials or of a nuclear weapon itself. 

Two concrete examples illustrate the concern. One is the growing potential for 

conventional conflict along Russia’s periphery—as shown by the 2008 RussiaGeorgia war—that could ensnare the United States in a spiral of escalation that 

could cross the nuclear threshold. A second potential scenario envisions an 

adversary country detonating a nuclear device at high-altitude to deter further U.S. 

aid to a potential ally. The burst would produce an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) of 

energy that would disrupt electronic systems and impact the infrastructures 

required to support U.S. operations in both military and civilian sectors. This type of 

high-altitude threat would also likely enhance the earth’s radiation belts with fission 

electrons. Such a phenomenon would reduce satellite lifetimes over subsequent 

weeks and months with potentially significant consequences for the reconnaissance, 

communications, navigation and commercial space communities... all with no direct 

loss of life. There would almost certainly be an asymmetric impact on exposed 

electronic systems since the United States and its forward deployed forces are 

disproportionately dependent on advanced electronics and supporting networks. 

Traditional Powers with New Doctrine: A Mirror 

Image of NATO Theater Nuclear Forces of the Cold 

War? 

Russia and China, as well as France and the United Kingdom, continue to 

invest in and upgrade their nuclear weapons capabilities. In both Russia and 
8 I CHAPTER TWO 

China, although more so with Russia, there is a troubling consistency in matters 

associated with nuclear weapons among: 

 post-Cold War public rhetoric 

 expert U.S. analysis and observed peer country research, development, 

test, and evaluation (RDT&E) programs 

 military field exercises and field testing in related programs of new missiles 

Taken together, they depict a nuclear weapons future that puts U.S. resources 

and interests at risk. 

Statements about Russia’s increased reliance on nuclear weapons have become 

commonplace since 1993, when Russia formally dropped its policy of “no first use.” 

Analysis of official documents, as well as official and unofficial statements, suggests 

that the main innovation has been a new mission assigned to nuclear weapons, that 

of deterrence of—and use during—limited regional wars.4,5,6 This new policy has 

been codified in the 2010 Russian Military Doctrine7 after debate during the Putin 

presidency. Missions assigned to nuclear weapons have been confirmed and 

detailed. Formal, unclassified Russian statements and official documents 

underscore the importance of nuclear use in regional engagements involving 

general purpose forces if an adversary were to threaten Russia’s continued 

existence. Even if the United States were not involved in the initial stages of these 

kinds of regional conflicts, there is the potential to be drawn in to aid U.S. allies or 

friends. The 2008 Russia-Georgia war highlights the growing likelihood of such 

conflicts along Russia’s periphery. 

The Russian technical community, in addition to addressing stockpile safety 

and reliability issues, is working on modernized designs over a range of 

applications.8,9 In addition, since 1999, the Russian military has regularly 

conducted large-scale maneuvers that have played out several conflict scenarios, 



4. Nikolai Sokov, Russia’s Nuclear Doctrine, Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) 

Report, August 2004. 

5. Kontseptsiya natsionalnoy bezopasnosti Rossiikoy Federatsii Utverzhdea Ukazom 

Prezidenta RF ot 17 dekabrya 1997 g. No 1300, (http://www.scrf.gov.ru/documents/ 

decree/2000/24-1/html). 

6. Voyennaya Doktrina Rossiiskoy Federatsii, Utverzhdena Ukazom Prezidenta, RF ot 21 

aprelya 2000 g. No. 706. 

%

	#%!$

	
" ! 

7. America’s Strategic Posture: The Final Report of the Congressional Commission on the 

Strategic Posture of the United States, Hon. William Perry, Chairman, United States Institute 

of Peace Press, 2009. 

8. U.S. Nuclear Deterrence in the 21st Century: Getting It Right, report of the New Deterrent 

Working Group, Center for Security Policy Press, 2009. 
THREATS AND CHALLENGES I 9

including those with the use of nuclear weapons. As a result, many maneuvers 

held in the past five years or so, provide important insights into the doctrinal and 

operational details missing from key policy documents.10,11,12,13,14 Russian 

strategies, doctrine, training, and new low yield weaponry are maturing in a 

manner that reinforces preparation for operations in a nuclear environment, even 

on their own soil, across a range of engagements. 

The numbers of public statements that supplement the actions described above 

are considerable. For example, in May 1999, during the NATO bombing of the 

former Yugoslavia, high-ranking members of the Russian Duma, meeting with a 

U.S. congressional delegation to discuss the Balkans conflict, raised the specter of a 

Russian EMP attack over the continental United States that would paralyze our 

nation. In response to possible U.S. deployments of missile defense systems in 

Europe, Russia announced the testing of new missiles that Kremlin officials boast 

could penetrate any defense system. First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov has 

also repeatedly said that Russia would continue to improve its nuclear arsenals, 

including newer, lower yield, advanced nuclear weapons to be delivered with 

precision.15 Finally, in a related dispute over the 1990 Conventional Forces in 

Europe (CFE) Treaty, Moscow in 2007, suspended observance of the treaty and has 

threatened to withdraw from CFE altogether if the United States and other CFE 

states parties do not ratify the 1999 Adapted CFE Treaty.16,17

The evolution of China’s nuclear doctrine and programs are similarly 

ambitious but discussed less openly. Unclassified analyses on China’s nuclear 

capabilities have identified numerous institutes and researchers involved in areas 

related to nuclear weapon programs, including electromagnetic pulse research, 

sub-critical testing and nuclear materials programs.18,19 



10. Nikolai Sokov, Russia’s New National Security Concept: The Nuclear Angle, Center for 

Nonproliferation Studies Report, January 2000. 

11. Statement by Sergey Ivanov, available at http://www.mil.ru/articles/article3667.shtml 

12. Vladimir Putin, “Zakluychitelnoe Slovo na Soveshchanii s Rukovodyashim Sostovom 

Vooruzhennykh Sil Rossii”, October 2, 2003 (available at htpp://www.president.kremlin.ru/ 

text/appears/2003/10/53277.shtml). 

13. Yuriy Golotuyk, “I v Vozdukhe Tozhe Problemy” Vremya novostey, February 19, 2001. 

14. “Strategicheskaya Komandno-Shtabnaya Treniroivka VS Rossii”, Nezavisimaya gazeta, 

February 17, 2001. 

15. Remarks of Defense Minister Ivanov: “Russian Views of Nuclear Weapons as a Basis for 

Global Stability,” Moscow Interfax (in English), July 2004. 

16. Statement by the Delegation of the Russian Federation, (http://www.osce.org/documents/ 

fsc/2007/12/28850_en.pdf December 12, 2007). 

17 . “Russia Suspends Arms Control Pact,” BBC News, July 14, 2007 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/ 

hi/6898690.stm). 

18. Brooke Dean and Scott Tatlock, Locust Hunter Project Report: Sub-Critical Testing, DGICIRA Report, May 2007. 
10 I CHAPTER TWO 

Information in the references cited previously point out that China and 

Russia now consider nuclear attack options that, unlike their Cold War plans, 

employ EMP as a primary or sole means of attack. There is an emphasis on 

tactical and regional use of nuclear weapons in addition to the more traditional 

strategic employments, which, although lower in priority, have not been 

eliminated. Finally, as widely reported in the press, Russia continues to support 

nuclear aspirants such as Iran with nuclear reactor development. 

Proliferators Whose Capabilities and Intentions We 

Don’t Understand 

Many nations besides Russia and China, particularly those with limitations in 

their conventional forces and/or facing hostile neighboring states, view nuclear 

weapons as an equalizer to conventional threat superiority. The potential exists 

for the United States to be drawn into a conflict in which its troops and systems 

would be exposed to a nuclear environment, including both ionizing and 

electromagnetic radiation.20 

The roster of nuclear-capable nations has a growing number of entries. 

During the next decade or two, it is likely to lengthen, not shorten, unless positive 

outcomes in diplomatic efforts are achieved. The attitudes of these nations 

regarding nuclear weapons vary widely, as do their views of the United States. 

Moreover, neither is static. For example, views regarding the role of nuclear 

weapons in current regimes in North Korea, which aggressively threaten 

provocation, proliferation and use for diplomatic and military purposes, contrast 

with India’s views, which are largely deterrence based. 

The known role of proliferant nation scientists in the further proliferation of 

nuclear know-how and technologies cannot be ignored as seeds for the worldwide 

global nuclear community of the next decade. Moreover, states such as North 

Korea and Iran, which may be unpredictable and difficult to deter, may also be 

 19. Alison Peet and Susan Puska, LOCUST HUNTER 5.0 Special Report: Electromagnetic 

Pulse (EMP) Resistance Testing and Certification, DGI, April 2009. 

20. For example, U.S. forces may be particularly vulnerable at times when forces are massed, 

e.g., a Navy carrier battle group, a deployed Air Force wing of aircraft, and/or Army or Marine 

divisions during debarkation and forward movement operations. Adversaries would seek to 

gain significantly in terms of anti-access and overall asymmetric advantage by exploiting such a 

situation, which frequently exists in Asia and the Middle East. 
THREATS AND CHALLENGES I 11

developing the capability to pose a nuclear threat to their neighbors and the 

United States and its military forces.21 

Terrorists with Intent 

Terrorist groups have no state identity, may have only one or a few weapons, 

and are motivated to attack the United States without regard for their own safety. 

A growing number of militant Islamic groups continue to advertise their intent to 

strike the United States. Since September 11, 2001, the United States has been 

primarily focused on thwarting al-Qaeda and its operatives that have been 

attacking U.S. interests, primarily overseas. 

In the wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our nation’s continued 

long-term commitment to stabilizing and pursuing democracy, other terrorist 

organizations, allied with al-Qaeda or not, may also pose a significant threat to 

American interests as U.S. policies and strategy evolve in their regions of 

operation over time. Non-Islamic terrorist and insurgent groups, such as the 

Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), may also pose a growing 

threat to the United States and its allies. Moreover, non-traditional and potential 

emerging threats from non-state actors such as anti-globalization activists and 

organized crime could further complicate the U.S. counterterrorism mission, as 

well as frustrate other political, economic, and technological goals. 

Terrorist attacks are likely to be directed toward civilian and/or urban targets 

where heat, blast, and fallout would be the dominant problems. Few, if any, civilian 

systems are designed to operate in a nuclear environment. Terrorists may not gain 

access to a specifically designed EMP weapon, but even crudely designed nuclear 

devices can produce significant impacts on electronic and communications 

systems, as well as contaminate large areas. Moreover, in 20 years or so, arms 

merchants may be able to obtain most of what the terrorist would need. 

High Altitude EMP Attacks 

 Recent congressional concern has focused attention on the high altitude 

EMP threat. The results of a specially legislated commission stated: 



21. In fact, a newly released Central Intelligence Agency report indicates that “Iran continues to 

develop a range of capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a 

decision is made to do so.” See: Bill Gertz, “CIA Says Iran Has Capability to Produce Nuke 

Weapons,” Washington Times, March 30, 2010. 
12 I CHAPTER TWO 

“The high-altitude nuclear weapon-generated electromagnetic pulse 

(EMP) is one of a small number of threats that has the potential to hold our 

society seriously at risk and might result in significant degradation to the 

operational capability of our military forces. 

“A single nuclear weapon exploded at high altitude above the United 

States will interact with the Earth’s atmosphere, ionosphere, and magnetic 

field to produce an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) radiating down to the Earth 

and additionally create electrical currents in the Earth. EMP effects are both 

direct and indirect. The former are due to electromagnetic “shocking” of 

electronics and stressing of electrical systems, and the latter arise from the 

damage that “shocked”—upset, damaged, and destroyed—electronics controls 

then inflict on the systems in which they are embedded. The indirect effects 

can be even more severe than the direct effects. 

“The electromagnetic fields produced by weapons designed and deployed 

with the intent to produce EMP have a high likelihood of damaging electrical 

power systems, electronics, and information systems upon which the U.S. 

military and American society depends. Their effects on dependent systems and 

infrastructures could be sufficient to qualify as catastrophic to the Nation.”22 

 This type of detonation would likely damage key weapon systems and support 

capabilities, including satellite navigation systems, intelligence and targeting 

systems, communications resources, and many other militarily significant 

platforms. Battlefield impacts would be significant, particularly if our nation’s large, 

technically superior, but electronically dependent force is unprepared to operate in 

a severely degraded environment. Contributing to that degradation are not only the 

direct effects, but also the likely more widespread effects on logistics and supply, 

and if targeted at the United States, the damage to its critical infrastructure. 

Summary 

The likelihood that U.S. forces will have to have the capability to operate 

effectively in a nuclear environment has probably increased since the end of the 

Cold War. While massive arsenal-exchange scenarios like those of the Cold War are 

much less likely, limited nuclear engagements may be more likely. Many potential 

adversaries, both state and non-state, have stated that nuclear weapons are a viable 

war fighting capability to protect their interests regionally and to counter U.S. 

conventional superiority. Declared states, including Russia and China, are 

modernizing their capabilities, and in the case of Russia, building new “theater” 



22. Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic 

Pulse (EMP) Attack, Volume I, Executive Report, 2004. 
THREATS AND CHALLENGES I 13

weapons and developing the accompanying doctrine and training. Non-state actors 

have repeatedly declared their desire to acquire, and intent to use, such weapons in 

attacks on U.S. interests, including the homeland. This emerging proliferation 

environment, with its complexity and unpredictability, should be motivating plans, 

policies, and actions in the U.S. war fighting community as it looks to the future, 

not only for EMP, but also for a full range of effects typical of ground and lowaltitude detonations expected in battlefield scenarios. 
14 I CHAPTER 3 

Chapter 3. Assessment of Radiation 

Survivability of Critical Capabilities 

In the context of the categories of the threats and challenges described in the 

previous chapter, the task force used its expert judgment to assess the current 

state of the major elements of U.S. war fighting capabilities and the infrastructure 

on which they depend with respect to their survivability. 

That assessment is summarized in general terms in Figure 1. Each element 

was judged as to how well it meets its required survivability levels; for example, 

nuclear reentry vehicles have an extremely high survivability requirement, which 

the task force judged it meets with high confidence, while only a small fraction of 

general purpose forces are judged survivable. The figure also indicates the scale 

of the problem for each element—namely how many entities, to an approximate 

order of magnitude, are at risk. 

Figure 1. Current Survivability Risks of Critical Capabilities Against Nuclear 

Weapons Effects 
SURVIVABILITY ASSESSMENT I 15

The rationale for the assessment of each element is as follows: 

 Nuclear reentry vehicles refer to the warheads alone. Very high 

survivability requirements derive from the most stressful operational 

scenarios. Considerable design, experimentation, simulation, and testing 

go into assuring that those requirements are met and maintained. 

 Strategic offense and defense refers to most of the delivery 

platforms/systems (intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarinelaunched ballistic missiles, ballistic missile submarines, interceptors), 

which have very high survivability requirements. Legacy strategic offense 

platforms, designed with hardened subsystems and deployed with 

operational survivability as part of the concept of operations, account for 

what green there is, although the status of many of the platforms has not 

been tested for some time. Missile defense components vary in how well 

survivability requirements have been addressed, from good to untested. 

 Space systems refer to the full array of satellites to support war fighting 

needs. All have to accommodate prolonged exposures to natural radiation 

environments in space, but only dedicated DOD and intelligence 

community assets have additional hardening requirements to address 

space-based threats, and even those are highly variable. Commercial 

satellites that support a wide array of military communications needs are 

not hardened beyond expected natural operating environments. 

 Nuclear bombs and cruise missile warheads refer to the bombs or 

warheads alone. These have lower survivability requirements than reentry vehicles based on expected operational scenarios. Considerable 

design, experimental, simulation, and testing go into assuring that those 

requirements are met and maintained. 

 Nuclear command and control network refers to the dedicated 

network that if called on, would support the use of U.S. nuclear forces. 

Historically these networks are isolated, hardened, redundant, and 

protected. Concerns are being raised about planned upgrades and 

migration to modern network configurations and protocols. 

 Air breathers refer to the nuclear capable bombers and cruise missiles. 

These have somewhat lower survivability requirements than the nuclear 

devices because of stand-off and/or difficulty of detection/intercept by air 

defenses. Legacy systems are designed and tested to meet requirements, 
16 I CHAPTER 3 

but there is some question about how well key hardening features are 

maintained. 

 Critical infrastructure refers to that part of the civilian and military 

infrastructure on which military operations are dependent (e.g., 

commercial communications networks, transportation routes in the 

continental United States, and nodes supporting logistics and resupply). 

Responsibility for this infrastructure is distributed throughout government 

and the private sector according to assignments made by the Department 

of Homeland Security. Resources devoted to “harden” elements of this 

infrastructure are directed at more conventional types of attacks and 

vulnerabilities, which are not necessarily prioritized consistent with DOD 

priorities, nor do they begin to address nuclear survivability. 

 General purpose forces refer to U.S. conventional war fighting and 

indigenous support personnel and equipment subject to “harm’s way” at 

any given time. For nearly two decades, nuclear survivability via 

hardening of equipment and/or operational contingencies to enable 

“fighting through” has been neglected. Some legacy systems are still 

operational and the U.S. Army has maintained nuclear survivability as a 

key performance parameter for new acquisitions (which, however, can be 

waived by proper authorities). Even for those newer Army systems where 

survivability has been required for acquisition, a hardness maintenance 

and surveillance program has often not been. 

Addressing these shortfalls in survivability requires a risk management 

approach since physical hardening of every entity within each major element is 

not only unaffordable, but in some cases, undoable. Even during the Cold War, 

when nuclear survivability was an accepted factor in operational planning and 

acquisition, a balanced approach to minimize risk within limited budgets was the 

normal practice. The community needs to re-learn that approach. 

In those cases where survivability must be guaranteed, there is little choice 

but to invest in the expense of hardening. (See Appendix B for a discussion of 

what this involves and the impact of ever smaller feature sizes in 

microelectronics.) However, where required survivability levels are lower, trades 

between the costs of hardening some or all components and other measures can 

be made. Other measures include operational mobility; backup and redundant 

capabilities not co-located; and/or tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) 

that offer operational alternatives for achieving the same mission outcome. 

Figure 2 illustrates these points. Across the board, good design and development 
SURVIVABILITY ASSESSMENT I 17

practices can minimize the impact of the pervasive use of commercial-off-the-shelf 

components in today’s military systems (see the list at the end of Appendix B). 

Figure 2. Managing Nuclear Weapons Effects Risks 

The next two chapters will describe in more detail the key factors 

contributing to this assessment that put critical war fighting assets and supporting 

capabilities at risk—examining how current military operational approaches and 

capabilities have led to vulnerabilities to nuclear effects and how the health of the 

nuclear weapons effects enterprise affects our nation’s overall survivability posture. 
18 I CHAPTER 4 

Chapter 4. Military Operations and Capabilities 

Not only should the threat picture of Chapter 2 be cause for concern, but 

factors of our own nation’s doing are creating a situation demanding action. 

These factors include: 

 leadership neglect and with it, a military grown thin in nuclear war 

fighting expertise 

 the evolution of general purpose forces to networked, commercial-offthe-shelf (COTS) dependent systems 

 the failure to maintain nuclear survivability as a requirement in most 

general purpose forces components 

This chapter addresses these factors and leads to the not-too-surprising 

assessment of the next chapter that the nuclear weapons effects enterprise is in 

poor health. 

Leadership Neglect 

As noted in Chapter 2, the asymmetric appeal for an adversary to employ 

nuclear effects may be “too good to pass up.” Potential U.S. vulnerabilities, as 

described in Chapter 3, may be attractive to an enemy who could “bring this 

country to its knees” by possessing the capability to generate nuclear effects. 

The term “potential vulnerabilities” is important in this context. It comes 

from the fact that we simply do not know what our nation’s 

vulnerabilities are, particularly those of our general purpose forces. This state 

stems from years of little or no testing of U.S. forces and supporting systems, 

such as space or command and control. It also results from a DOD requirements 

process for new systems in which nuclear survivability is placed in the trade 

space and is almost always traded away in the final system design. The situation 

is further exacerbated by the failure to include “red” use of nuclear weapons in 

exercises and war games sufficiently to determine needed changes in training, 

techniques, and procedures. Behind these actions—or lack thereof—is either the 

conscious or unknowing dismissal of nuclear survivability by U.S. policy making 

and congressional establishments. Statements have been made by senior 

decision-makers that U.S. conventional superiority is such that others “would not 

dare” attack our forces or nation with nuclear weapons, or if they did, U.S. 
MILITARY OPERATIONS AND CAPABILITIES I 19

general purpose forces could readily prevail. Such attitudes fail to consider the 

potential physical and political cascading effects of limited, regional use of 

nuclear weapons. The impacts of these potential vulnerabilities could be farreaching, as illustrated by the examples which follow. 

Questions about Mission Assurance 

Potential vulnerabilities of America’s military forces are most apparent in 

its conventional forces. They exist most significantly when these forces are 

massed, i.e., when garrisoned at home bases during peacetime or, during crises, 

at ports of debarkation for ground forces, at deployed airfield locations for air 

forces, and for carrier battle groups deployed in formation. The widespread use 

of COTS electronics and the growing dependence on networked systems places 

all aspects of U.S. war fighting at risk. (See next section “Shift to Networked, 

COTS–Based Systems.”) 

Contemporary scenarios involving U.S. defense of Taiwan and U.S. assistance 

to South Korea against a North Korean invasion could place U.S. forces and 

supporting systems in stressing nuclear effects/radiation environments. For 

example: 

 Conventional fighting platforms and vehicles. These systems are 

highly dependent on computers and electrical circuitry for effectiveness. 

The danger from radiation induced upset or burnout of improperly or 

unshielded computers, radios, and offensive/defensive systems could 

render the combat system either partially or fully ineffective. 

 Command, control, communications and intelligence, 

surveillance, and reconnaissance systems. Net centricity and 

situational awareness to enable battlefield agility are huge force multipliers 

for U.S. forces. If these systems/interfaces are unprotected from nuclear 

effects, then U.S. forces could be rendered blind, deaf and mute. 

 Rear echelon logistics, repair and maintenance capabilities. 

Sensitive test and repair equipment, if vulnerable to radiation effects, will 

fail, resulting in critically negative effects on U.S. forces’ staying power. In 

addition, the “just-in-time” nature of modern logistics relies on open 

networks and computers operating seamlessly with the information 

systems of commercial suppliers—all of which are likely to fail in a 

nuclear environment. 
20 I CHAPTER 4 

Mindsets of Decision-Makers 

A major concern of the task force is the widespread lack of awareness, 

attention, and concern for this issue among senior government leaders. Many of 

the post-Cold War generation of decision-makers simply do not have this issue on 

their “radar scope,” while others pay little or no attention to it because they fail to 

see it as a legitimate concern. Approaches among today’s senior policy and 

congressional leadership range from “no one would dare use a nuclear weapon 

against the United States or its forces,” to dismissal of the issue as a “legacy of the 

Cold War,” to “it’s just too expensive to deal with,” to “anything we do will 

promote further proliferation and/or use.” 

Within the U.S. military there is also a general lack of attention toward 

nuclear survivability issues. Although modest programs for “nuclear education” 

exist, they train a very small number of personnel who are assigned typically to 

staff positions at combatant command headquarters or agencies and Service 

staffs in Washington, D.C. A notable exception is the FA-52 specialists in the 

Army, a cadre maintained to assure that critical Army programs properly address 

survivability issues. 

Aside from non-mandatory courses in personnel survivability in contaminated 

environments, there is no evidence of service training or education programs for 

understanding and operating on a battlefield where platforms, vehicles, and 

supporting systems may be impacted by nuclear weapon effects. 

How Did the Atrophy of Attention and Capability 

Come About? 

The root causes seem to us to lie deep in DOD and its leadership’s corporate 

point of view that has developed since the end of the Cold War. Nuclear weapons 

have not been used, other than in deterrence, for over sixty years. And for the past 

twenty years, even the deterrent uses have been less immediate and direct, and 

have seemed less important than before. Since the first Gulf War, conventional 

operations of great difficulty and importance have consumed DOD and national 

attention, and have displaced nuclear deterrence as the reigning paradigm. 

Furthermore, there seems to be widespread belief that the United States will 

be able to deter enemy use of nuclear weapons, with the exception of terrorist 

use. (In that case, however, the impacts of survivability shortfalls tend to be 

further dismissed since the canonical nuclear terrorism scenario involves the use 

of only one or two weapons against civilian targets.) For all these reasons, the 
MILITARY OPERATIONS AND CAPABILITIES I 21

possibility that U.S. forces would have to operate effectively in a nuclear 

environment simply seems, in this view, to be extremely remote. 

Finally, the costs of hardening military systems, and the difficulty of developing 

ways of operating forces to be effective in a nuclear environment, seem larger to 

many than the likelihood of the threat warrants. (For example, as noted in a prior 

DSB report,23 the Army has maintained a data base that indicates that if hardening 

is incorporated as an integral part of the initial design, most equipment suffers a 1 

to 2 percent increase in cost.) The complicated—and, to many decision-makers, 

arcane—nature of assessing the nuclear cost/risk trades exacerbates the problem. 

These factors have resulted in fewer and fewer of the military and civilian leaders in 

DOD having experience with nuclear weapons and the issues that surround them. 

This in turn exacerbates the point of view to which we attribute the problem. 

The task force believes that this point of view, though generally tacit (and 

often denied when alleged), holds sway widely in DOD—how else could one 

explain what has happened? We further believe it is profoundly wrong and 

dangerous. It is wrong in part because although deterrence seems to have worked 

during the Cold War, the situation is different today. Some adversaries today are 

prima facie undeterrable. Some may be desperate. Some may believe that 

asymmetries in the perceived political stakes of war, perhaps compounded with 

perceived U.S. unwillingness to break the “nuclear taboo,” will prevent our nation 

from retaliating forcefully against adversary use of nuclear weapons. 

One of the enduring lessons from the Cold War is that for deterrence of 

adversaries and assurance of allies to be effective, the United States must be able to 

control escalation, which in turn requires—for deterrence—U.S. nuclear and 

conventional forces to be able to operate in a nuclear environment. Furthermore, 

the shoe is now on the other foot: it is precisely the great capability of U.S. 

conventional forces that contributes to making nuclear weapons attractive to 

adversaries. Finally, Army experience through their continued, albeit selective, 

attention to survivability continues to reinforce the fact that hardening against, and 

operating effectively in, a nuclear environment is not as costly as often assumed. 

Technologies are emerging to further reduce the cost, as smaller electronic feature 

sizes are forcing commercial developers to build in hardening to guard against 

naturally occurring upsets. All in all, we believe renewing the commitment to 

nuclear survivability is a prudent and affordable step to take. 



23. Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Nuclear Weapon Effects Test, 

Evaluation, and Simulation (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for 

Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics), April 2005. 
22 I CHAPTER 4 

Shift to Networked, COTS–Based Systems 

The evolution of U.S. conventional war fighting to highly networked, 

information driven concepts of operations, enabled by COTS–based electronics, 

has introduced a major reason for concern with respect to nuclear survivability. 

There is limited test experience and analysis, almost exclusively for the Army’s 

specifically hardened platforms, to predict how modern and upgraded warfighting capabilities, especially the networked command and control “nervous 

system,” will function should they be subjected to a severe and/or widespread 

radiation environment. 

 Reliance on COTS Electronics 

Modern electronics control the operation of all defense systems—yet defense 

requirements no longer influence electronics technologies. This asymmetric 

relationship is a result of the fact that electronic component availability is driven 

by the ~$250 billion worldwide commercial semiconductor component market. 

Only 5 percent of the world electronics market is “government,” which includes 

chips for government computers, cell phones, and other office applications. An 

even smaller fraction of the government electronics market goes to militaryspecific electronics. With such a small market share, government has little to no 

influence on semiconductor products, in contrast to the early days of the 

integrated-circuit industry. 

In 1961, government contracts represented 92 percent of the world’s 

integrated-circuit market and drove technology and product development. Today, 

International SEMATECH coordinates the development of needed manufacturing 

equipment and associated technology based on their best estimate of the world’s 

commercial market through the International Technology Roadmap for 

Semiconductors (ITRS). Thus, instead of leading semiconductor technology 

development as they did in the early days of semiconductor products, U.S. military 

systems now adapt what they can from leading-edge chips that target mainstream 

commercial applications—as does every other military in the world. 

The ITRS roadmap predicts increasing capability for leading-edge chips—

both digital and mixed signal—with increasing processing power that will enable 

faster response and more functionality for all electronic systems. While defense 

systems benefit from increasing digital processing power, semiconductor 

products for most large commercial markets do not have to face the 

environments that characterize military applications—extremes of heat, cold, 
MILITARY OPERATIONS AND CAPABILITIES I 23

shock, and radiation. Typical radiation environments may include nuclear 

radiation such as electromagnetic fields, X-rays, gamma rays, electrons and 

neutrons, and space radiation such as protons, ionized heavier ions, electrons, 

and atmospheric neutrons. These radiation environments establish unique 

requirements that not only separate military from commercial systems, but also 

place more difficulty and challenges on designers to develop survivable DOD 

systems in the future as feature sizes of electronics continue to shrink. These 

DOD systems include: (1) telecommunication networks on the ground to serve 

command control centers; (2) mobile combat equipment; (3) missile defense 

systems; (4) combat ships; (5) surveillance, meteorology, and telecommunication 

satellite systems; and (6) ballistic missile systems. 

The continuing decrease of feature size in integrated circuits and the 

commensurate decrease in stored charge representing information are leading to 

an increased sensitivity to single-event-upset (SEU) with device scaling, especially 

for any high density memory device. The decrease in the upset threshold of highly 

scaled technologies has made them sensitive to alpha particle induced upset. These 

factors have made soft errors a significant reliability concern for commercial 

integrated circuit manufacturers, not only in space environments, but also in 

ground-based systems. Continued scaling of technologies will likely further 

exacerbate the SEU problem by increasing the likelihood of multiple bit upsets and 

increased upsets due to single-event transients. How serious a problem this creates 

for military electronics is not known because components have not been 

systematically tested and analyzed, but the bottom line is that each new generation 

is more vulnerable to radiation effects than previous ones. 

Another important point is that no system is built only with leading-edge 

chips. Older technologies are used in electronic systems to condition power, 

actuate mechanical devices, and interface to sensors. These technologies are 

generally one or two generations behind the latest in the commercial market. The 

older technologies tend to have more immunity to ionizing radiation than the 

most modern integrated circuits (those made with transistors whose minimum 

dimension is 0.18mm or smaller). However, they too may be vulnerable, but in 

too many cases, their vulnerabilities have not been characterized. Moreover, in 

systems with a range of generations of electronics, where and how failures in the 

system will occur are unknown. (Appendix B has a more complete technical 

discussion of the upset/failure mechanisms of microelectronics when exposed to 

high energy radiation.) 
24 I CHAPTER 4 

Network Operations in Radiation Environments 

The Department of Defense has underwritten major force application 

innovations and improvements in overall force effectiveness and efficiency 

through collaboration enablers which are network-based. For the following 

discussion, the network focus is on the global common user instantiation called 

the Global Information Grid (GIG) and its integrated “Edge” networks. This 

combination serves by far the largest user population including users from other 

departments and agencies. The general insights and conclusions derived apply 

equally to specialized networks, including space assets, not discussed here.24

The nature of the two components of the global network—“long haul” optical 

fiber and the “Edge” networks—are substantially different. The “long haul” 

optical fiber and related facility elements were purchased from commercial 

network operators and their suppliers. DOD operations of the “long haul” 

network employ, for the most part, “commercial components”—fiber, electronics, 

software, concepts of operation, procedures training, and management. DOD can 

control topology redundancy and other architectural features. It can also replace 

or add to concepts of operations, procedures, and training within the constraints 

of the basic facilities hardware and software. 

In contrast, the “Edge” networks are designed, fielded, and operated by the 

military services. Although much of their underlying hardware and sometimes 

software is commercially derived (servers are but one example), their 

architecture; concepts of operations; tactics, techniques, and procedures; and 

management and training are Service designed on an integrated rather than an 

overlaid basis (as is the “long haul” portion). 

The Service “Edge” networks are wireless to support a broad spectrum of 

maneuver operations on land and sea and in the air. The most sophisticated of 

these are MANET networks—M(obile) A(dhoc) NET(works) which are intended 

to be self-forming and self-healing. The “Edge” networks must deal with 

substantially more challenges than their “long haul” counterparts, which are 

comprised of predominantly fixed facilities and a controlled topology. However, 

the smaller scale and separable components of the “Edge” networks do allow, in 

principle, for isolation and characterization with respect to their radiation upset 

susceptibility. In contrast, the effects from natural, man-made and/or nuclear 



24. For the reader requiring greater detail about the interaction of network performance and 

effects—nuclear and conventional—inquiry should be made to the Director, Defense Threat 

Reduction Agency relative to its mission activities under a program called Balanced 

Survivability Assessment. 
MILITARY OPERATIONS AND CAPABILITIES I 25

weapon environments have a character and scale that goes beyond manageable 

complexity for most commercially-based “long haul” network segments. 

In practical terms, while prediction of extended fixed facility exposure 

outcome is for the most part inadequate, it is possible to experimentally address 

“Edge” individual network elements. It is feasible in some cases for smaller 

“longhaul” network nodes. Predicting the results of the exposure of large 

numbers of nodes in either network is problematic because of both 

methodological and computing limitations. Some of the latter may diminish with 

the next major computing advances but methodological challenges remain. 

It is therefore necessary to develop and complement technical means for 

mitigation with a consequence management strategy and to plan, train, rehearse, 

and exercise leaders and staffs for operations in degraded environments. In the 

end, it is the quality and performance of humans which is the main offset to the 

challenges of exposure to both assured and deliberate conventional exposure and 

nuclear weapons environments and their effects. 

Failure to Assess and/or Maintain Nuclear 

Survivability 

With the end of the Cold War, the requirement for nuclear survivability was 

quickly put at the bottom of the list of key performance parameters, or largely 

dropped altogether. This has impacted both new and already fielded systems. In 

both cases, the task force found that little has changed since an earlier Defense 

Science Board (DSB) task force addressed this topic,25 with one significant 

exception. The EMP Commission was successful in helping to motivate a new 

department instruction (DoDI 3150.09, “The Chemical, Biological, Radiological 

and Nuclear [CBRN] Survivability Policy,” September 2008) for critical system 

survivability in weapons of mass destruction (WMD) environments. The 

instruction establishes a management oversight group with responsibility for 

implementation of the instruction with respect to nuclear survivability, and 

requires a biennial report to Congress on progress with respect to EMP. In turn, 

the Air Force has looked into reinstating its defunct oversight function, while the 

Marines are working with the Army to understand the EMP hardness of some of 

their systems. The Navy is developing an aircraft survivability process with the 

help of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). The commission and the 

prior DSB task force also raised awareness at U.S. Strategic Command. The 



25. Defense Science Board, Nuclear Weapon Effects Test, Evaluation, and Simulation, April 

2005. 
26 I CHAPTER 4 

command has reconstituted a capability to assess the survivability of mission 

critical components in its strategic systems domain and is motivating remedial 

actions by the Services where needed. However, hardness maintenance/hardness 

surveillance programs for most fielded systems originally acquired with 

survivability requirements are generally not resourced. 

New Systems 

Many new systems have not been explicitly required to meet nuclear 

survivability standards from their inception. Included are the interceptors for 

missile defense26 and the F-22. Hardening has been postponed to downstream 

spirals, which is likely to be cost prohibitive.27 

Some notable progress, however, is starting to occur. The Army elevated its 

watchdog agency, the U.S. Army Nuclear and Combating WMD Agency 

(USANCA) to Army Staff reporting. In addition, new designs must address the 

EMP requirements of MIL-STD-461/464. New guidance, developed by the Navy 

with support from DTRA, for aircraft EMP hardening and testing is in final 

review prior to publication. The EMP military standard for protection and test of 

maritime assets has been started with a target of 2014 for publication. However, 

these military standards cannot be universally applied because of the reliance on 

COTS equipment, and they can be dropped in the trade space associated with the 

Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) and Capability 

Based Planning processes. 

Fielded Systems 

With the exception of Navy strategic systems, significant cutbacks have 

occurred in the area of performance evaluations of other Navy assets in a nuclear 

effects environment. While it is anticipated that fielded Navy systems are 

expected to perform well in categories of physical stress (shock, wave surges, etc.) 

and EMP due to inherent ship and equipment normal operating environments, 

testing of survivability in more extreme nuclear environments has not been 

undertaken in many years. With the exception of EMP on aircraft (in particular, 

the E-6), nuclear survivability requirements are no longer a key performance 

parameter in new ship and weapon system designs. 



26. The Missile Defense Agency has developed a survivability standard and worked to harden 

the ground systems. 

27. Army data over several decades indicate that the cost of hardening a new system from the 

outset is in the range of 2-10 percent of the base cost of the system. Hardening once the system 

is built can be 10s of percent, or even more. 
MILITARY OPERATIONS AND CAPABILITIES I 27

Air Force systems have posed greater concerns in the past decade. The 

attention paid by the Navy’s Strategic Systems Program Office to survivability 

maintenance and assessment of its nuclear forces is matched in the Air Force for 

its intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) force. However, although visual 

inspection of bombers is a requirement, actual testing is not. Conventional forces 

elements are not assessed. The Air Force is in the process of reinstating its 

survivability assessment program, but it is still to be determined how effective its 

efforts will be. Even the Army’s relatively influential agency for new system 

acquisition, USANCA, has no authority to insist on assessments of fielded systems. 

The task force applauds the continuing efforts of the Navy and Air Force 

ICBM wings to maintain the survivability of their strategic forces. But even 

strategic nuclear systems might be subject to different environments than the 

Soviet era threats for which they have been hardened. Other nations are building 

different weapons to accomplish different objectives and, therefore, have the 

potential to introduce different effects. A revisit of “red” nuclear environments 

should occur routinely as Red Book results are updated.28

How the Mix of Old and New Will Perform Together 

We simply do not know how the mix of old and new systems will perform 

together. At any point in time, the military will be operating with a spectrum of 

capabilities spanning vintages from the Cold War to the present. These forces will 

have mixed levels of protection, yet they are highly interconnected and 

interdependent. Older designs might be expected to be more robust because their 

designs incorporated more concern for surviving a nuclear effects environment. 

However, that depends strongly on how well critical components, such as seals 

and connectors, have been maintained. Without periodic retesting, one cannot 

say with certainty. Our nation’s ignorance of the survivability of new systems 

built with modern electronics should create concern for military operators on its 

own, but when combined with uncertainties for older systems, operators should 

be prepared to be surprised. It is entirely possible that the failure of a single 

critical node could take out an entire system. 



28. The “Red Book,” a long term responsibility of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and its 

predecessor agencies, is a compendium of calculated adversary generated nuclear outputs. A 

new cycle of revisions is scheduled to be completed in August 2010. 
28 I CHAPTER 5 

Chapter 5. The National Nuclear Weapons 

Effects Enterprise 

The factors discussed in the previous chapter have produced a decline in 

priority and investments that has created an alarming atrophy in the nuclear 

weapons effects enterprise (NWE). The nuclear weapons effects enterprise, as 

defined by the task force, is comprised of the following elements: 

 Knowledgeable military operators and specialists, within the 

Services. Operators with sufficient training and understanding of 

weapons effects to plan and exercise in ways to assess mission execution in 

a nuclear environment, aided by specialists with deep domain knowledge. 

 Expertise in key agencies, the intelligence community, and 

national security laboratories. Technical professionals fluent in the 

use of computational tools that allow them to predict potential effects 

environments, and assess and evaluate those effects on both humans and 

equipment. 

 Effects simulators and skilled operators. Expertise and sophisticated 

aboveground radiation simulators engaged in experimentation and testing 

to validate models and/or to evaluate performance of critical equipment or 

components. 

 Science and technology community. Career professionals dedicated 

to advancing the fundamental understanding of effects generated by 

nuclear or radiation devices, the interaction of those effects with materials 

and components of interest, and approaches to mitigate the impact of those 

effects on the system’s physical performance—through a combination of 

theory, advanced computations, and experimentation—in close partnership 

with the assessment and simulation elements. Historically the bulk of 

science and technology research has been conducted through the DTRA 

and its predecessor agencies (Defense Nuclear Agency and Defense Special 

Weapons Agency) and the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons 

laboratories (Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore 

National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories). 
THE ENTERPRISE I 29

The elements of the enterprise should be (and were throughout most of the 

Cold War) interconnected in a manner to ensure mission success by evaluating the 

tradeoffs among the options for defending against and/or recovering from 

exposures. DTRA and its predecessors have been the leading DOD organization for 

brokering among the various actors in the nuclear weapons effects community.29

Table 1 provides the task force’s assessment of the state of health of each 

element of the enterprise. The assessment distinguishes between general 

purpose/conventional force aspects, and strategic forces and assets. With the 

exception of some knowledgeable specialists supporting strategic force elements 

that reside in the Army’s USANCA, Navy strategic systems, and U.S. Strategic 

Command, general military understanding of how to plan and execute military 

operations in nuclear environments is poor. The result is not surprising given the 

neglect this area has suffered for 15 years. For example, DTRA’s investment alone 

has shrunk by a factor of 10 from its’ end-of-Cold-War levels. At the same time, 

investments in passive defense against chemical and especially biological 

weapons have grown five- to seven-fold in DOD, and many more times that 

throughout the government, in the same time period. Nuclear survivability 

investments are now less than a few percent of the passive WMD defense budget. 

(The reader is advised, however, that the growth in investment to counter 

biological and chemical threats was long overdue, so that these areas should not 

be regarded as a source for remedying the nuclear survivability problem.) 

While operator knowledge can be restored in the near term through training, 

the reinstatement of technical expertise, and the facilities to enable their work, in 

the assessment, simulator, and science and technology communities will take a 

decade or more to restore because of the domain knowledge required and the 

investment in both computational modeling and simulator experimentation 

needed. Even with sustained investment to rebuild both human and physical 

capabilities, however, a shift in focus and approach will be needed since a mainstay 

of the old program, underground nuclear testing, is no longer an option. 



29. It could be argued, appropriately, that the special radiation hardened electronics foundries 

supported by the Departments of Defense and Energy should also be a part of the enterprise. 

The task force did not focus its attention on this topic, however, because it is the subject of 

periodic assessments by DOD on its own. Appendix C provides a brief description of its status. 
30 I CHAPTER 5 

Table 1. Assessment of State of Health of Elements in the Nuclear Weapons 

Effects Enterprise

Nuclear Weapons 

Effects Enterprise 

Elements 

Assessment: 

General Purpose 

Forces Global 

Information Grid 

National Command 

and Control 

Critical Infrastructure

Assessment: 

Strategic, space 

forces/assets 

Knowledgeable 

operational military 

leaders, planners, and 

executors who are 

supported with products 

and services from rest of 

the enterprise 

Shortage of 

knowledgeable operators; 

products and services not 

being used (Red)

Some knowledgeable 

specialists, but 

shortfalls exist in most 

places (Yellow/Green)

Assessment and 

evaluation experts and 

their tools (environmental 

and prediction codes, etc.) 

supporting operators and 

developers 

With limited exceptions, 

response unknown and 

mitigation options not 

formulated. Less 

experienced workforce 

learning in near isolation 

from operators 

(Yellow/Red)

Mix of aging and less 

experienced 

professionals at 

Department of Energy 

labs; aging expertise in 

DOD. Current tools 

inadequate for high 

confidence designs; 

large safety margins 

result. (Yellow/Red)

Expertise and facilities for 

effects simulation to test 

equipment, experiment 

with new designs, and 

validate new codes 

Used in a few cases; 

simulator shortfalls now in 

evidence 

(Red)

Simulator shortfalls now

in evidence 

(Red)

Science and technology 

(S&T) and research and 

development community 

addressing new 

challenges, advancing 

fundamental knowledge, 

and tools used by all other 

components 

Already small S&T 

program in decline 

(Red)

Already small S&T 

program in decline 

(Red)

Note: Green = Sufficient to meet national needs 

 Yellow = Concerns about future capabilities 

 Red = Immediate attention needed 
THE ENTERPRISE I 31

Understanding Weapons Effects without 

Underground Testing 

During the Cold War, the principal scenarios of interest focused on massive 

engagements involving tens to hundreds of high-yield weapons detonated in a 

relatively short period of time. The knowledge base, codes, and simulators 

focused on the extremes of performance demanded for rapid penetration against 

nuclear defenses, fratricide avoidance, and nuclear pin down of enemy assets. 

Valuable and irreplaceable data were collected on system and component 

performance in nuclear environments, but fundamental understanding of the 

physics of nuclear weapons effects and the ability to predict the response of 

systems to the effects was not the focus. As such, large gaps in our nation’s 

knowledge base remain. 

A prime example is the Fish Bowl series of atmospheric tests that produced a 

widespread high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP). These tests were hastily 

planned and among the last to occur prior to the 1962 moratorium on nuclear 

testing in the atmosphere. The data recording equipment for Starfish, a 1.4 

megaton burst at 400 kilometer altitude, was not optimally set to capture the 

unexpected phenomenon. After the tests were concluded, the observations in that 

test series were explained, but it was no longer possible to obtain additional data 

from well-planned experiments to improve understanding of the complex 

phenomenon. Atmospheric tests to explore variations in HEMP levels and system 

response for different weapon yields and burst altitudes did not occur. The 

observed effects on systems at the time of the U.S. tests are largely anecdotal. 

Almost all of the system response data on which subsequent designs have been 

qualified have resulted from tests in HEMP simulators at Cold War threat levels. 

Extrapolation of the Cold War era data to determine how modern day 

electronics might respond to likely nuclear scenarios today is hampered by large 

uncertainties. For example, the ability to draw conclusions on the impact of 

HEMP on modern communications networks, e.g. the Global Information Grid or 

the commercial Internet, is constrained by limited knowledge about the weapons 

of potential adversaries, rapidly occurring changes in electronics technology, and 

the lack of physics-based codes and high-fidelity simulators for analyzing and 

testing complex networks. Past experience has demonstrated that such 

constraints result in system response prediction errors that can be two to three 

orders of magnitude or greater. Figure 3 shows the estimated uncertainties in 

understanding system effects as a function of the degree of knowledge of the 

system gained through testing. 
32 I CHAPTER 5 

Figure 3. Uncertainties in Understanding System Effects

Protecting systems against hostile nuclear environments relies on a 

combination of modeling and simulation and testing. Typical nuclear 

environments of interest are shown in Figure 4. From 1962 to the early 1990s, 

testing was conducted in aboveground tests (AGTs) in laboratories or nuclear 

weapon effects simulators, and in underground nuclear tests (UGTs). The 

cessation of UGTs in the early 1990s has made it necessary to rely on AGTs and 

models. Data collected in past UGTs has proved of little value because of limited 

instrumentation and measurements made on components no longer available. In 

DOD, the inability to sustain the AGT test infrastructure for high fidelity, threat 

level testing is now driving the community to depend more on modeling and 

simulation than ever before. This commonly called “model-based approach” 

relies on AGTs to validate the models on well characterized, small-scale systems. 

The models are then used to validate the hardness of larger scale systems. 

Engineering solutions to reduce system vulnerabilities to nuclear effects have 

been developed, demonstrated, and applied to many types of systems. In addition 

to the use of codes and simulators, design margin is used to compensate for 

uncertainties in threat levels, system response, and test limitations. Hardening 

design approaches for reducing system vulnerabilities must balance the protection 

requirements at the component, subsystem and system levels. Tradeoffs between 

performance and protection, e.g., the amount of shielding and the use of radiation 

hardened parts, must also be made. 
THE ENTERPRISE I 33

Figure 4. Typical Nuclear Environments of Interest

Future system protection strategies that depend more on codes to guide the 

design will require much better understanding of physical phenomena than what 

is known today. Examples include thin-air system-generated electromagnetic 

pulse (SGEMP), upset in distributed electronics and networks, lightweight mirror 

deformation, material response at cryogenic temperatures, and thermal/ 

structural responses of new materials or new fabrications. Formidable challenges 

exist to migrate from a test-based to a model-based system hardness validation 

paradigm. The role of AGT will become even more important as the use of 

simulators expands from component hardware qualification to include more 

sophisticated measurements on well characterized small-scale systems which 

help validate the models. Examples of phenomena that currently cannot be easily 

modeled or simulated in AGTs include SGEMP response of large or complex 

antennas, potential enhanced SGEMP response in cables and potted circuits, and 

the response of complex interdependent networks to HEMP. 
34 I CHAPTER 5 

In some cases, analysis may be the only way to investigate system hardness. 

Two examples are radiation effects on microelectronics exposed to very high 

fluences and determining the hardness of large complex systems to prompt xrays effects. Very high fluence levels exceed what simulators can produce today. 

Existing test facilities, including the National Ignition Facility, cannot yet provide 

the test volume and the highest fluences that might be needed for full systemlevel testing. 

Modeling new systems will face special challenges not previously encountered. 

Future systems will have increased performance requirements, e.g. system-on-achip, and use novel materials and faster and smaller electronic components. With 

each passing year, the AGT/UGT database becomes less relevant. A new generation 

of modern electronics enters the marketplace about every two years. Confidence in 

existing models is strongly dependent on code and data comparisons from AGT 

and UGT data and, in some cases, the correlation of the two data sets. As this data 

approaches obsolescence, extrapolation to support code validation will become 

increasingly difficult. Ever more sophisticated testing will be required to provide 

response data for new materials and components, assess vulnerabilities and revise 

models, and develop new hardening methods. 

Progress in Computational and Simulation 

Capabilities 

In spite of all the challenges noted in the prior section for migrating to a 

model-based approach to survivability design and assessment, the advances in 

computational and aboveground testing capabilities gave the task force optimism 

in the potential for success. 

Advances starting in the mid-1990s associated with microelectronic processors 

of ever increasing speed, high density memories, and high speed interconnects 

made feasible the development of massively parallel computers at a scale to 

support simulation of the fundamental phenomena of a nuclear explosion. The 

timing was fortuitous in that the moratorium on underground nuclear testing 

initiated in October 1992 was forcing a shift to a model-based approach for 

designing weapons and assessing their performance and reliability. The 

Department of Energy initiated the Science Based Stockpile Stewardship (SBSS) 

Program comprised of two major elements: 

 The Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI) program to build 

state-of-the-art codes and computers. (It matured into the Advanced 

Simulation and Computing (ASC) Program.) 
THE ENTERPRISE I 35

 Improved aboveground simulators, both new (e.g., the National Ignition 

Facility) and existing (e.g., Z-Refurbished), to augment legacy 

underground test data for validating the codes. 

Although predominantly focused on predicting the yield and performance of 

U.S. nuclear weapons, a small part of the ASC program provided a number of 

modeling and simulation capabilities related to nuclear weapons effects. These 

physics-based codes advanced the ability to model the response of critical 

components in a nuclear warhead to radiation exposure. The codes have been 

used successfully, in combination with simulator and laboratory testing, to 

support replacement component certifications (e.g., various neutron generators) 

as well as certification of the arming, fuzing, and firing subsystem for the W76. 

These accomplishments have provided confidence in a model-based approach for 

qualifying hardware components for nuclear survivability. 

The DOD has the opportunity to leverage these codes, as well as contribute to 

expanding model and simulation capabilities. The ASC effects codes provide the 

capability to model difficult geometries and allow a designer to assess performance 

in a wider range of environments not possible through physical testing alone. 

However, many more phenomena remain to be modeled and the introduction of 

new materials and components, both in our weapons and those of others, make the 

modeling challenge one that should be ongoing. Moreover, extending validated 

component modeling to complex, dynamic networks is a challenge that is yet to be 

addressed outside of preliminary assessments by DTRA. 

Along with the models, continued upgrading of the simulators is also needed. 

The National Ignition Facility and Z-Refurbished fill only part of the needs. 

Figure 5 illustrates the photon energy range for various x-ray spectra of interest. 

The radiation effects are highlighted and identified above the graph. There are 

cold x-ray effects that generate thermal shock and impulse effects, whereas at 

higher energies, one observes cable SGEMP (system generated EMP) and BOX 

IEMP (internal EMP) or internal package effects in the warm x-ray regime 

between 10 to 100 keV. At even higher energies for simulation and penetration 

reasons, one studies transient radiation electronic effects (TREE). This is where 

many of the simulators lie today. None of the simulators have the capability like a 

nuclear underground test to provide a cold threat spectrum for large volumes of 

the size of a missile or a satellite, but modest investments in existing facilities 

have allowed them to continue to maintain their capabilities. The National 

Ignition Facility offers the opportunity for larger scale experiments and tests. 
36 I CHAPTER 5 

Figure 5. Radiation Effects versus Photon Energy and Test Facilities 

In order to study the radiation response of electronics at an affordable cost 

where a number of shots can be taken to study the effect of orientation, a highenergy photon source is the choice. However, high-energy penetrating photon 

sources may not generate the same response as that produced by photons in the 

medium energy range. Such an example is in the case of internal EMP or cable 

responses. Here the electrons that are emitted by the surfaces of metals either 

buried deep within materials or from metals only shielded lightly generate 

responses that have different signatures or polarities. At energies below 10 keV, 

much of the photons are absorbed in the surfaces of packages where thermal 

heating and thermal shock effects are important. 
THE ENTERPRISE I 37

Core Simulator Capabilities 

The task force took advantage of the efforts of the Joint Simulator Working 

Group (JSWG),30 which undertook its assessment near the same time as the task 

force’s initial information gathering activities. The task force agreed with the 

working group conclusion that a core set of weapons effects simulators would be 

needed in the future. The Working Group’s recommendations are summarized in 

Table 2. 

The simulators would continue to serve their historic role for selective 

component testing and qualification, but they should also assume ever larger 

roles for validating model development as the enterprise shifts to a model-based 

approach. Particular issues identified included the following: 

 The capabilities provided by the West Coast Facility—Double-EAGLE, 

Pithon, Modular Bremsstrahlung Source (MBS), and PR1150—need to be 

retained to support future requirements. If the new GFE commercially 

funded West Coast Facility business model does not prove viable, then 

Sandia’s Saturn machine becomes a critical asset to substitute for the 

Pithon and Double-EAGLE capabilities, along with the Air Force Little 

Mountain facility for the Pulserad and MBS capabilities. Alternatively, 

DTRA would need to re-assume stewardship of the West Coast Facility. 

 The NNSA facilities, which have been used primarily for the Stockpile 

Stewardship Program and Inertial Confinement Fusion program, have 

the potential to provide high-fidelity and/or high-fluence radiation 

sources for code validation and system-level experiments. These facilities 

include the Z-Refurbished (ZR) pulsed power machine at Sandia National 

Laboratory; and the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore 

National Laboratory. 

 There is the need to establish a path to eliminate the shortfall due to the 

shut-down of Sandia Pulsed Reactor (SPR) III. The Quantification of 

Alternatives to SPR (QASPR) program at Sandia National Labs is a 

potential pathway to close a portion of the shortfall for specific 

component technologies. However, presently QASPR remains unproven 



30. The Joint Simulator Working Group (JSWG) was a joint effort of the National Nuclear 

Security Administration, the Department of Defense, and the United Kingdom’s Ministry of 

Defense. The JSWG objective was to develop a business model for the national enterprise to 

sustain the minimum suite of nuclear weapons effects simulator capabilities needed to support 

the development and certification of survivable strategic systems using a combination of 

modeling and simulation and testing. A more comprehensive assessment to include needs for 

general purpose forces would include thermal radiation and other testing capabilities found in 

the Services. 
38 I CHAPTER 5 

and would have to be expanded to a broader range of current and 

emerging technologies to fully replace SPR III. Consequently, several core 

facilities are needed for QASPR (Annular Core Research Reactor, Ion 

Beam Laboratory, and an appropriate linear accelerator [e.g., Medusa at 

Hill Air Force Base]). If QASPR does not meet its objectives, a pathway for 

a reconstituted SPR or new fast neutron facility at a Department of Energy 

or DOD facility that could share the high security costs with other activities 

should be developed. 

Dwindling Expertise 

Progress in computer codes and more capable effects simulators, largely for 

other purposes (i.e., weapon design), gave the task force some hope for 

transforming the weapons effects enterprise. But without the technical expertise, it 

simply will not happen. The technical complexity of this area requires a highly 

trained cadre of multidisciplinary scientists and engineers who are willing to 

dedicate their talents and careers to the nuclear weapons effects mission. 

Attracting new talent will require recognition at the highest levels of government 

that a different kind of nuclear threat has emerged and that it presents technical 

challenges not encountered before. Recreating the enterprise, adapted to current 

national security needs, could serve as the first tangible indication of that mandate. 

But time is of the essence! Post-Cold War investments, especially by DOD, 

have not attracted the next generation workforce to enter the nuclear weapon 

effects career field. The continued erosion of the nation’s intellectual capacity to 

deal with the new and mounting challenges adds to the urgency of taking action 

now. The specialized skills needed for nuclear weapons effects take many years to 

acquire. Only a handful of experts remain who developed the theoretical 

underpinnings to explain nuclear phenomena, designed and fielded the AGT and 

UGT experiments to understand effects, and developed and applied the hardening 

technology for systems protection. Most of the experienced members of the nuclear 

weapons effects community that might serve as mentors for the future workforce 

have passed on, left the field, retired, or are nearing retirement. The residual skill 

base is an aging workforce with few replacements in the pipeline. 
THE ENTERPRISE I 39

Table 2. Nuclear Weapons Effects Simulator Capabilities 

Nuclear Weapon 

Environment 

Test Facilities Comments 

Prompt and modified 

neutron 

Sandia Pulsed Reactor III 

(or equivalent)* 

Annular Core Research Reactor 

White Sands Missile Range Fast 

Burst Reactor (also combined 

gamma) 

Los Alamos Neutron Science 

Center, Ion Beam Laboratory, 

and Rotating Target Neutron 

Source 

For nuclear warhead subsystem 

space simulations 

For nuclear warhead components 

For ground systems, satellites, and 

interceptors 

For component tests and model 

validation 

Prompt cold X-rays 

(plasma radiation source) 

Upgraded Saturn and/or Double 

Eagle National Ignition Facility 

and/or Z-Refurbished (ZR) 

For space system 

components/optics 

For future re-entry vehicle/re-entry 

body (RV/RB) material and 

interceptors 

Prompt warm/hot X-rays

(Bremsstrahlung source) 

Upgraded Saturn and/or Pithon 

Modular Bremsstrahlung Source 

For medium-dose electronics and 

cables 

For hardness surveillance and lowdose boxes 

Prompt gamma High-Energy Radiation Megavolt 

Electron Source (HERMES) III 

Pulserad (1150 or 958) 

High dose-rates for strategic 

systems 

Low dose-rates for satellites and 

interceptors 

Electromagnetic pulse White Sands Missile Range 

Horizontally Polarized Dipole 

(HPD) Facility (2nd generation) 

Naval Air Warfare Center HPD 

Facility, Vertically Polarized 

Bounded Wave 

For Army systems 

For aircraft and missiles 

Source region 

electromagnetic pulse 

HERMES III For Army vehicles and field 

command, control, and 

communication systems 

Impulse Light Initiated High Explosive 

(LIHE) at Sandia National Labs 

Flyer-plate (magnetic or LIHE)* 

For RV/RB internal 

components/mounts 

For future RV/RB aeroshells 

Blast and shock Large Blast Thermal Simulator 

Sandia National Laboratory 

Thunder Range 

For ground vehicles, structures, 

non-ideal air blast (NIAB) 

simulations 

For RV/RB systems 

Disturbed atmospheric 

radio frequency/infrared/ 

visible 

Communication Chanel Scintillation 

(Wide-band Channel Simulator) 

Optical background (Nuclear 

Optical Dynamic Display 

System) 

For military satellite 

communications, interceptor inflight communications, and 

seekers 

*Not currently available. 
40 I CHAPTER 5 

Chapter 6. Findings and Recommendations 

Principal Findings 

A near “perfect storm” is brewing—one in which the threat of nuclear use 

against U.S. forces is growing at the same time that our nation’s understanding of 

if/how we can operate in such environments has all but disappeared. Yet it is not 

possible or advisable to go back to the Cold War approach that relied heavily on 

over-design and testing—far too much has changed. 

 Driven by political exigencies, the United States continues to reduce the 

number of strategic systems deployed as the ultimate instrument of 

deterrence. These actions in turn place an ever higher premium on the 

reliability of the remaining deployed systems, or conversely, a greater 

demand on understanding uncertainties in their performance across an 

ever widening set of potential operating environments. 

 General purpose forces and the GIG are becoming targets of current or 

potential adversaries. Reliance on COTS in critical war fighting systems 

has grown dramatically, with the commercial components themselves 

evolving even within a single procurement cycle. Today, systems are 

generally manned and/or stationary or slow moving, making radiation 

exposure mitigation difficult to achieve. On the other hand, as our 

military shifts to greater reliance on unmanned systems with their 

inherent dependence on the networks through which they operate, little, 

if any attention, has been given to their survivability or to operational 

concepts that ensure the critical functionality they provide should they be 

unable to perform. 

 We no longer have the ultimate proof afforded by underground testing. 

The scale of aboveground simulators will not allow exposure of large, 

complex systems. 

At the same time, there have been technical advances that offer promise in 

addressing the security complexities, and budget realities, the nation faces. 
RECOMMENDATIONS I 41

 The National Nuclear Security Administration’s successes in its Science 

Based Stockpile Stewardship Program have laid a foundation for a modelbased approach to assessing and ensuring nuclear survivability, one in 

which testing and qualification where possible with aboveground 

simulators remains important, but the simulators also assume an 

expanded role in model validation. The computational hardware 

continues to advance in both capacity and speed to allow addressing 

phenomena at the fundamental “physics” level. And models at that 

fundamental level are unraveling previously unexplained mysteries of 

hydrodynamics. 

 While simulators and testing are still required, their use is expanded from 

“pass/fail” testing of hardware to support for model validation and 

establishing performance margins at the device and component levels. 

New and/or modified simulators, with significantly improved diagnostics, 

are coming on line that could be pushed even further in this direction. 

 Although still a long way from full system qualification through modeling 

and simulation, experimentally validated models specific to some new life 

extension weapon components have been utilized to qualify, with high 

confidence, those components for the radiation environments for which 

they are designed. The model-based approach, by allowing exploration of a 

much broader part of the operating parameter space, is helping to quantify 

the uncertainties, as well as the expected performance of key components. 

This is true not only in cases where integrated testing is no longer feasible, 

but also to extend from integrated test results that are available to the full 

set of potential radiation environments systems may encounter. 

 Ever smaller feature sizes in commercial electronics are leading to a need 

for some level of designed-in hardening because of upsets caused from 

natural sources. This offers an opportunity for DOD to work proactively 

with commercial chip designers early in the development process where 

hardening can be much more cost-effective. 

In short, the path forward not only cannot, but indeed should not, 

replicate the past. 
42 I CHAPTER 5 

Recommendations: Military Operations and 

Capabilities 

This first set of recommendations is targeted to and for military operators. 

RECOMMENDATION 1. IMPORTANCE OF NUCLEAR SURVIVABILITY

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Service Chiefs, in “line-of-sight” 

fashion, should issue unambiguous guidance that restates the importance of 

nuclear survivability, as evidenced by the following steps: 

 Nuclear scenarios should be re-introduced into Service and Joint 

experimentation, games, planning, rehearsal, and exercises. 

 An education program on radiation effects and operating in nuclear 

environments should be implemented in the schools. 

 Critical functions/capabilities that must be assured to operate through a 

nuclear environment should be identified by each combatant command. 

 Annual reporting in the Defense Readiness Reporting System (DRRS) for 

nuclear survivability of critical functions/capabilities, to include how the 

assessment was made, should be required.31 

 Where missing or inadequate, but required, hardness maintenance/ 

hardness surveillance programs should be properly resourced. 

RECOMMENDATION 2. TECHNICAL EXPERTISE AND CAPABILITIES

The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics (USD 

[AT&L]) should ensure that appropriate technical expertise and capabilities are 

available to the Services by: 

 Assigning DTRA responsibility for technical support to experimentation, 

gaming, exercises, education, and DRRS assessments related to nuclear 

survivability. 

 Ensuring through DTRA, the Army, and the Department of Energy, that 

testing capabilities are available, and through the Office of the Secretary 

of Defense, Operational Test and Evaluation, that critical systems can be, 

and are, assessed if needed. 



31. The task force observed that the Survivability Assessment group at U.S. Strategic Command 

offers an excellent model for leadership commitment and a balanced assessment process. 
RECOMMENDATIONS I 43

RECOMMENDATION 3. RADIATION SURVIVABILITY

The Services should evaluate, and where needed, test “smartly” fielded platforms 

and systems for radiation survivability. 

 The initial focus should be to separate what is already known (e.g., some 

legacy systems) from what is not known, but should be (e.g., networks 

and unmanned systems). DTRA should serve as the principal Department 

resource for technical expertise and for arranging access to test and 

evaluation capabilities which may reside in other agencies or 

departments. The different requirements between strategic and most 

general purpose force components suggest that each category be 

addressed on its own terms, but opportunities for synergy and/or 

integration should also be identified. 

 Given the “don’t know” list regarding the survivability of key systems 

and/or the pathways for assuring mission functionality, the Services and 

Joint community should use experimentation and/or gaming to prioritize 

analysis and testing. 

RECOMMENDATION 4. CURRENT SYSTEM ASSESSMENTS

DTRA should also get ahead of current system assessments by working with the 

combatant commands and Service program offices to develop and assess new 

options for the use of potentially more survivable capabilities, such as unmanned 

platforms and alternative networks. (Table 3 illustrates the scope of challenge in 

understanding the survivability of a typical unmanned platform.) 
44 I CHAPTER 5 

Table 3. Nuclear Radiation Effects for Unmanned Systems

Occurrence of Effects 

Radiation Effect Part Board Package System

Thermal mechanical shock – X-ray X X X X 

Prompt X-ray/gamma dose rate 

 Rail-span collapse 

 Photoionization burnout 

 Latch-up 

 Secondary breakdown 

 High versus low dose rate 

Total ionizing dose – e, X-ray, 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

X 

 

Neutron displacement damage X 

Neutron single event upset X 

Internal electromagnetic pulse – X-ray X X X X 

System generated electromagnetic pulse – 

X-ray 

X X X X 

Electromagnetic pulse X X X X 

Thermal X X 

Recommendations: Creating a Nuclear Weapons 

Effects National Enterprise 

The more diffuse nature of both threats and targets led the task force to the 

conclusion that the nation can no longer afford the stove-piped approach of the 

Cold War. Instead today’s environment calls out for a “national enterprise” to 

address nuclear survivability because of the complexity of the problem and the 

expense needed to address it—both in dollars and intellect. 

Several departments have requirements and/or capabilities for nuclear 

survivability (see Table 4), but DOD is the majority stakeholder. The Services 

resource existing forces and programs of record, and Health Affairs has principal 

responsibility for understanding human response in extreme exposure 

environments. The Services are responsible for maintaining a test and evaluation 

infrastructure, although that infrastructure is at a significantly reduced level from 

Cold War capabilities, to support assessments. DOD also has responsibility, 

among the critical infrastructure sectors for homeland security, for the defense 

industrial base. 
RECOMMENDATIONS I 45

Table 4. Primary Department and Agency Responsibilities for Assuring 

Capabilities 

Intelligence 

Community 

Department of 

Defense 

Department of 

Energy/National 

Nuclear Security 

Administration 

Department of 

Homeland 

Security 

Stockpile X X 

Strategic Offense X 

(Air Force & Navy) 

Strategic Defense 

X 

(Services, Missile 

Defense Agency) 

 

Space Assets X X 

General Purpose 

Forces 

X 

(Services) 

National Command, 

Control, and 

Networks 

X 

(many) X 

Critical 

Infrastructure X X X X 

Science and 

Technology, Tech 

Base 

X 

(Defense Threat 

Reduction Agency, 

Army, Navy) 

X 

Industry Design 

Teams X X X (Laboratories) X 

The Department of Energy has responsibility for ensuring the survivability of 

the nuclear stockpile and the nation’s energy infrastructure. It has maintained a 

significant fraction of its Cold War simulator capability and technical expertise 

and built new capabilities, as well, as part of its Stockpile Stewardship Program of 

the last decade and a half. In addition, it has laid the foundation for the modelbased approach the task force believes is the right path forward. 

Other important departments or agencies include the intelligence community, 

most especially those agencies with space asset ownership and special network 

responsibilities, and the Department of Homeland Security, where the lead for 

critical infrastructure and the National Command, Control, and Communications 

system is assigned. 

With these factors in mind, the task force developed the following 

recommendations for establishing a “national enterprise.” 
46 I CHAPTER 5 

RECOMMENDATION 5. LEADERSHIP FOUNDATION

To lay a foundation for a National Nuclear Weapons Effects Enterprise, the 

Secretaries of Defense and Energy, and the Director of National Intelligence 

should enter into a memorandum of understanding that addresses the military, 

intelligence, programmatic, and technical requirements for such an enterprise 

and its transformation to meet future national security requirements.32 Key 

aspects of the memorandum should include: 

 Reestablishing an aggressive program of threat assessment, evaluation of 

uncertainties, and red teaming. 

 Correcting the under-resourcing in both expertise and infrastructure to 

support the enterprise through development and implementation of a 10-

year interdepartmental plan for rebuilding the science and technology 

and test and evaluation elements of the enterprise. Attention and 

investment related to nuclear survivability should be on par with that 

given to chemical or biological defense. 

 Establishing the model-based approach as the technical foundation for 

the future enterprise. 

 Waiver of all non-interference clauses, such that each department’s or 

agency’s capabilities can be tapped seamlessly by the governing body of 

the enterprise. 

 Continued oversight function by independent expertise until the enterprise 

matures, with annual reporting to the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense 

for Nuclear and Chemical and Biological Defense Programs (ATSD [NCB]) 

on the health and progress against the 10-year plan. 

The annual assessments called for in the previous set of recommendations 

related to military operations can serve as the driver for prioritizing both nearterm activities and longer-term investments. DTRA can serve a pivotal role in 

compiling and sorting the various combatant command and Service assessments 

and advising enterprise leadership on priorities. 



32. By the time this report was drafted, DTRA and NNSA had negotiated and successfully signed 

a memorandum of understanding for mutual cooperation and threshold funding to support a 

number of nuclear related missions of common interest. Nuclear weapons effects is included. 
RECOMMENDATIONS I 47

RECOMMENDATION 6. DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT, AND ACQUISITION

Several institutional steps are recommended to ensure the deliberate and informed 

assessment and achievement of nuclear survivability in new system acquisition: 

 The Office of the Secretary of Defense, with support from the Joint Staff 

J8 Directorate (Force Structure, Resources, and Assessment), should reinstitutionalize the Nuclear Effects/Weapons of Mass Destruction 

Survivability in the DOD Acquisition Guide by placing a DOD Instruction 

at the 5000 level and ensuring its flow down to subordinate documents.33

 J8 should monitor that “reliable operations in nuclear environments” is 

explicitly addressed by any program in the Joint Capabilities Integration 

and Development System (JCIDS). 

 The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy should ensure 

that nuclear deterrence and use scenarios are a prominent part of the 

Defense Planning Scenarios. 

 USD (AT&L) and the Vice Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff should 

assume joint decision authority for waiving survivability 

requirements, on the recommendation of ATSD (NCB), for all 

programs critical to joint mission assurance. 

 USD (AT&L) and the Administrator of NNSA should ensure the 

availability and evolution of design tools and unique validation 

capabilities. (See “near term technical recommendations” following.) 

 DTRA should continue to work with the Defense Advanced Research 

Projects Agency and NNSA to seek alternatives to captive commercial 

foundries for radiation hardened micro-electronics, including support 

for research and development in innovative technologies that are 

inherently hard. 

RECOMMENDATION 7. TECHNICAL ENTERPRISE: NEAR TERM

Near term recommendations to provide stop-gaps for the technical part of the 

enterprise include: 

 DTRA has transitioned the West Coast Facility to L-3 to operate as a 

commercial, fee-for-service facility, but is maintaining ownership of the 



33. As this report was being drafted, DOD issued DODI 3150.09 “The Chemical, Biological, 

Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) Survivability Policy.” 
48 I CHAPTER 5 

machines and monitoring their use, operational status, and 

modernization needs. Should this business model not prove viable, then 

DTRA should be prepared to reassess options for maintaining capabilities 

which the West Coast Facility currently provides in support of a wide 

range of government and defense industrial base customers. 

 The task force was not convinced of the long term adequacy of the QASPR 

approach for fast neutron exposure qualification. A sustainable, long term 

strategy should be developed between the Departments of Energy and 

Defense. Until that is settled, Sandia’s Annular Core Research Reactor 

(ACRR) and White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) capabilities must be 

maintained. 

 The Deputy Secretary of Defense should ensure continued commitment 

by the Army and Navy, respectively, to maintain weapons effects testing 

capabilities at White Sands (Fast Burst Reactor, Electromagnetic 

Environmental Effects, etc.) and Pax River (Vertically and Horizontally 

Polarized Simulators). 

 NNSA should clarify the access model and user requirements to DOD for 

use of the National Ignition Facility. 

 The NNSA-DTRA Modeling and Simulation Working Group’s roadmap 

for model development should be independently reviewed and integrated 

with the plans of the Simulator Working Groups to create the initial draft 

of the technical part of the 10-year enterprise plan called for in 

recommendation 5. 

 DOD (principally DTRA and the Services) and NNSA should establish a 

continuing program to develop and advance the people with the advanced 

expertise needed for the nation’s nuclear weapons effects capability.34 

 The initial basis of the program should be an exchange of personnel 

among the Departments of Defense and Energy and the NNSA 

laboratories to teach operations, system design, code development, 

simulator advancement and hardening innovations. 

 The Military Research Assistant program, in which the Services 

assigned promising, advanced degree junior officers to the 

Department of Energy weapons laboratories for a tour of duty, should 

be resurrected. 



34. The task force did not see this as limited only to nuclear weapons effects, but that should be 

the minimum focus. 
RECOMMENDATIONS I 49

RECOMMENDATION 8. ACHIEVING THE MODEL-BASED ENTERPRISE

In the longer term, but starting immediately, the technical basis of the enterprise 

should transition to one that is model-based. This will require several actions: 

 USD (AT&L) should require that the science and technology and design 

communities shift to the new approach where they: 

 emphasize understanding basic science underlying radiation effects 

 encode that understanding in computer simulations with predictive 

capabilities well beyond current codes 

 extend the models to address distributed, networked systems 

 expand the role of experimental facilities from hardware testing to 

validation of physics models in simulated, well characterized 

radiation environments 

 quantify margins and uncertainties to guide design and operational 

practices, as well as prioritize future scientific directions 

 ATSD (NCB) should charter a joint DOD-NNSA working group to update 

prior modeling and simulation, and simulator capability needs that would 

address the broad set of survivability needs (e.g., strategic and general 

purpose forces, infrastructure, space, networks, etc.) discussed in this 

report. As the basis for the enterprise 10-year plan, the working group 

recommendations should be vetted by an independent oversight group 

and enlist the input and support of the Defense Test Resource 

Management Center. 

 DTRA and NNSA should develop and implement a long-term plan for 

rebuilding and maintaining technical talent required to support the 

enterprise. 

 The memorandum of understanding among the Departments of Defense 

and Energy and the intelligence community should be expanded to bring 

in the Department of Homeland Security. The enterprise should expand 

its focus to address intelligence and critical infrastructure issues. 
50 I CHAPTER 6 

Chapter 7. Summary 

The task force urges DOD leadership to heed the wake-up call that this report 

is intended to provide. 

Regional proliferation risks are growing, accompanied by nation state policy 

and doctrine that acknowledge limited nuclear use as a legitimate war fighting 

option. U.S. counters, especially defensive measures to ensure continued 

operations in radiation environments, are being reduced—by our own choices. 

Intelligence resources are focused elsewhere. The leadership is poorly educated on 

military operations in nuclear environments. The reliance on COTS in U.S. military 

systems has grown while nuclear survivability requirements, testing, and/or 

evaluation have declined–both dramatically. As a result, the nation lacks a clear 

understanding of the response to nuclear radiation exposure of general purpose 

forces, the Global Information Grid and the GIG-edge, and critical infrastructure 

on which DOD relies. Moreover, the technical expertise and infrastructure to help 

remedy the situation has decayed significantly. Investments in addressing nuclear 

survivability have declined precipitously while investments in addressing other 

WMD modalities, especially biological, have increased. 

Recasting the recommendations of the previous chapter into a time-phased 

set of actions, DOD should immediately: 

 Make nuclear survivability a routine issue for leadership attention as it 

used to be in the Cold War, but focused in the current context. 

 Ensure balanced investments among all WMD modalities, which 

means increasing resources focused on nuclear survivability—both 

funding and personnel. 

 Require routine reporting on survivability of critical fielded 

capabilities in the Defense Readiness Reporting System. 

 Restore operational knowledge and reflect it in the planning and 

training base. 

 Understand the limitations of existing and near-term additions to 

general purpose forces, the GIG, GIG edge, and critical infrastructure 

needed to generate and sustain forces. 

 Take the first step in establishing a “national enterprise” by forging an 

agreement with the Department of Energy to reverse the decline in the 

nuclear weapons effects enterprise. Begin discussions with the Director, 
RECOMMENDATIONS I 51

National Intelligence, to expand the agreement to the intelligence 

community. 

Over the next two to three years, DOD should: 

 Formulate with the Department of Energy a professional nuclear weapons 

effects collaboration and mentoring program to expand and advance the 

human skills base. 

 Improve understanding of both strategic and general purpose force 

operations reliant on net-centricity and unmanned systems in nuclear 

environments. 

 Establish on-going reviews and threat assessments to update survivability 

standards. 

 Pursue radiation hardened advances better coupled to commercial 

suppliers. 

 Expand the agreement with the Department of Energy to the intelligence 

community. 

In the longer term, DOD should: 

 Move to a model-based approach for the weapons effects enterprise to 

make up for the lack of underground testing. The approach should take 

advantage of the advances in both aboveground simulators and high 

performance computing developed as part of the Department of Energy’s 

Science Based Stockpile Stewardship Program. 

 Expand agreements with the Department of Energy and the intelligence 

community to other agencies with a stake in the enterprise, especially the 

Department of Homeland Security. 

 Ensure that the minimum “national enterprise” capability in trained 

expertise and aboveground simulators is sustained. 

Implementing the recommendations of this task force can lead to significant 

improvements in the posture of critical capabilities for national security. The 

“reds” of the task force’s current assessment can indeed shift to “yellow to green” 

(Figure 6). 
52 I CHAPTER 6 

Figure 6. The Ten Year Picture, If Action is Taken 
NUCLEAR WEAPONS EFFECTS I 53

Appendix A. A Primer on Nuclear Weapons 

Effects 

This appendix serves as a primer for nuclear weapon output, environments, 

and effects. To this end, this document relies heavily on existing literature, in 

particular on the Nuclear Weapon Effects Technology, Section VI (Reference 1). 

The authors have arranged the sections and have additional information, as 

needed, to make it an effective primer.35 The companion bibliography provides a 

set of reference documents that cover this topic. 

A nuclear detonation is characterized by an immediate, rapid, and brief release 

of nuclear radiations (immediate and residual), followed by a rapidly developing 

fireball (if in the atmosphere), which emits intense thermal radiation (heat and 

light), and generates a powerful pressure pulse, which travels out from the point of 

burst (shock or blast wave). It also causes ionization of the upper atmosphere, 

which is the fourth output of a nuclear detonation—the electromagnetic pulse 

(EMP). All pose problems for the survival of friendly systems and can lead to the 

destruction or neutralization of hostile assets. Understanding nuclear weapon 

effects requires knowledge of three related components. They are nuclear weapon: 

1. output 

2. environments 

3. effects 

Combined together, they become what are known generally as nuclear 

weapon effects. Nuclear explosions are generally classified as air bursts, surface 

bursts, subsurface bursts, or high altitude bursts. 

Background 

A nuclear detonation creates severe effects including blast, thermal pulse, 

neutrons, x- and gamma-rays, radiation, EMP, and ionization of the upper 

atmosphere. Depending upon the environment (air, surface,...) in which the 

nuclear device is detonated, blast effects are manifested as ground shock, water 

shock, “blueout,” cratering, and large amounts of dust and radioactive fallout. All 



35. This appendix was prepared by A. Sharif Heger and Robert P. Weaver of Los Alamos 

National Laboratory, and Todd J. Hoover of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. 
54 I APPENDIX A 

pose problems for the survival of friendly systems and can lead to the destruction 

or neutralization of hostile assets. 

Nuclear detonations can be the most devastating of the weapons of mass 

destruction. To make this point one need only recall the pictures from Hiroshima 

or the international furor over the accidental but enormous radiation release 

from the Chernobyl power plant. The contamination from Chernobyl was 

significantly larger than would have been expected from a nuclear detonation of 

about 20 kilotons (kt) at ground level, but was comparable in extent to what 

might result from a “small” nuclear war in which a dozen or so weapons of 

nominal yield were exploded at altitudes intended to maximize blast damage. 

Hence, for those nations concerned about being the victims of a nuclear attack, 

the requirement for understanding and implementing ways of mitigating nuclear 

weapons effects is important. It is just as important for the user of a nuclear 

weapon to understand (and be able to mitigate) nuclear weapon effects on its 

own forces, not merely on the delivery vehicle, unless it can be certain that there 

will be no nuclear retaliatory strike. 

Some important nuclear weapons effects are subtle in their action, producing 

no obvious visible damage to targeted systems. If these effects are to be employed 

deliberately, the using state must understand them well. To do so, requires 

experimental simulation and substantiated computation codes. In the absence of 

nuclear testing, simulation equipment, numerical simulation, and theoretical 

analysis of nuclear weapons effects are the only means states can verify how these 

effects will affect their own forces and those of their opponents in a nuclear 

environment. Nuclear weapon effects simulation, as well as survivability and 

hardening programs, have both offensive and defensive aspects, and may be 

desired by both nuclear possessor states and those with neither nuclear weapons 

nor plans to build them. 

Although some nuclear weapons effects such as blast and cratering have 

analogs in the effects of conventional weapons, many nuclear weapons effects are 

unique to nuclear use. In addition, blast and other “common” weapons effects are 

likely to be much more powerful in the nuclear case than in the realm of 

conventional weapons. Nuclear weapon effects are so severe and complex that 

combinations of two or more simultaneously (as in a real event) may not add 

linearly, complicating the design and construction of physical simulators or the 

writing and validation of computer simulation codes (predictability). 
NUCLEAR WEAPONS EFFECTS I 55

Underground Nuclear Weapons Testing 

Underground testing has provided much insight into weapon design, 

radiation effects—those from gammas, neutrons, and x-rays—on military 

systems, selected aspects of shock and blast, thermal effects, and source region 

EMP (SREMP). Countries with limited defense budgets are less likely than the 

major nuclear powers to have had exhaustive underground testing programs. 

Output 

The energy of a nuclear explosion is transferred to the surrounding medium 

in three distinct forms: blast, thermal radiation, and nuclear radiation. The 

distribution of energy among these three forms will depend on the yield of the 

weapon, the location of the burst, and the characteristics of the environment. For 

a low-altitude atmospheric detonation of a moderate sized weapon in the kiloton 

range, the energy is distributed roughly as follows: 

 Thermal radiation: 30-50 percent of total energy made up of a wide 

range of the electromagnetic spectrum, including infrared, visible, and 

ultraviolet light and some soft x-ray emitted at the time of the explosion. 

 Blast: 40-60 percent of total energy. 

 Ionizing radiation: 5 percent of total energy initial ionizing radiation 

consisting chiefly of neutrons and gamma rays emitted within the first 

minute after detonation. 

 Residual radiation: 5-10 percent of total energy. Residual nuclear 

radiation is the hazard in fallout. Considerable variation from this 

distribution will occur with changes in yield or location of the detonation. 

Although it is convenient to characterize the output of a nuclear weapon in 

the order of thermal, blast, radiation, and EMP, these phenomena do not occur in 

that sequence and there is indeed a considerable overlap in their time history. 

Environment Created by the Fireball 

Immediately upon formation, the fireball begins to grow rapidly and rise like a 

hot air balloon. Within a millisecond after detonation, the diameter of the fireball 

from a 1 megaton (Mt) air burst is 150 meters. This increases to a maximum of 

2,200 meters within 10 seconds, at which time the fireball is also rising at the rate 
56 I APPENDIX A 

of 100 meters/second. The initial rapid expansion of the fireball severely 

compresses the surrounding atmosphere, producing a powerful blast wave. 

As it expands toward its maximum diameter, the fireball cools, and after 

about a minute its temperature has decreased to such an extent that it no longer 

emits significant amounts of thermal radiation. The combination of the upward 

movement and the cooling of the fireball give rise to the formation of the 

characteristic mushroom-shaped cloud. 

As the fireball cools, the vaporized materials in it condense to form a cloud of 

solid particles. Following an air burst, condensed droplets of water give it a 

typical white cloudlike appearance. In the case of a surface burst, this cloud will 

also contain large quantities of dirt and other debris which are vaporized when 

the fireball touches the earth’s surface or are sucked up by the strong updrafts 

afterwards, giving the cloud a dirty brown appearance. 

Effects 

The dirt and debris become contaminated with the radioisotopes generated 

by the explosion or activated by neutron radiation and fall to earth as fallout. The 

relative effects of blast, heat, and nuclear radiation will largely be determined by 

the altitude at which the weapon is detonated. 

Blast and Shock Effects from Nuclear Detonations 

Although thermal radiation, EMP, and ionizing radiation from a nuclear blast 

are all damage producing, at yields below about a megaton the blast and shock 

produced by a nuclear weapon are the predominant means of damaging a target. 

For some targets, such as underground bunkers and missile silos, blast and shock 

are virtually the only effective destructive mechanisms. 

Nuclear Thermal Radiation Effects 

The intensity of thermal radiation decreases only as the inverse square of 

the distance from a nuclear detonation, while blast, shock, and prompt ionizing 

radiation effects decrease more rapidly. Thus, high-yield weapons are primarily 

incendiary weapons, able to start fires and do other thermal damage at 

distances well beyond the radius at which they can topple buildings or overturn 

armored vehicles. 
NUCLEAR WEAPONS EFFECTS I 57

Transient Radiation Effects in Electronics and 

System-Generated Electromagnetic Pulse 

An understanding of transient radiation effects in electronics (TREE) and 

system generated electromagnetic pulse (SGEMP) is of critical importance in 

designing and building equipment that can survive a nuclear attack. It is not clear, 

however, that a nation having limited financial and technical resources could 

develop unique radiation-hardened devices and/or systems. These countries could, 

however, test a few critical subsystems or systems in an established foreign 

simulation facility. Although there are certain aspects of TREE and SGEMP 

technology that are of general scientific interest, for nations which have interests in 

the acquisition of nuclear weapons, the desire to evaluate and test systems at 

SGEMP and TREE dose rate levels typical of nuclear weapons is a useful indicator 

that they plan on nuclear combat, whether as a user or as a victim of the weapon. 

The quantification of both phenomena is critical to the design of optical and 

electronic packages which can survive these effects. Ideally, such subsystems 

should be produced without significant increases in either cost or weight. 

Because the radiation that causes TREE and SGEMP is relatively strongly 

absorbed in the atmosphere, both phenomena are of primary importance to space 

systems exposed to high-altitude, high-yield nuclear detonations. Survivability 

analysis of semiconductor electronics requires quantitative understanding of at 

least the following: 

 Ionization effects (both total dose and dose rate) which produce enhanced 

photocurrents in the transient state and can also cause permanent trapping 

of free charge in metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) devices. 

 Displacement effects (displacement of lattice atoms leading to changes in 

the bandgap energy levels) and thermomechanical shock induced by the 

rapid deposition of energy from the nuclear detonation. 

These effects depend not merely on total dose but also on dose rate. Naturally 

occurring effects include total dose from electrons and protons trapped in the Van 

Allen belts and single-event upset (SEU) or even single-event burnout. SEU results 

when enough ionization charge is deposited by a high-energy particle (natural or 

man-produced) in a device to change the state of the circuit—for example, flipping 

a bit from zero to one. The effect on a power transistor can be so severe that the 

device burns out permanently. Large x- and gamma-ray dose rates can cause 

transient upset and permanent failure. These dose rates are delivered over a 10 to 

100 nanosecond time period. Delayed gammas in a 1 to 10 microsecond period at 

the same dose rate can cause latchup and burnout of devices. Latchup is the 
58 I APPENDIX A 

initiation of a high-current, low-voltage path within the integrated circuit and 

causes the circuit to malfunction or burnout by joule heating. 

Electromagnetic Signal Propagation 

The large quantities of ionizing radiation produced by a high-altitude, highyield nuclear detonation can severely change the environment of the upper 

atmosphere, producing heavily ionized regions, which can disrupt electromagnetic 

waves passing through those zones. These disturbed regions can easily be the size 

of North America and can persist for tens of hours. The trapping mechanism for 

these high-energy electrons may be similar to that which produces the Van Allen 

radiation belts. The actual degree of communications interruption is dependent 

upon the scenario and includes weapon yield and height of burst, time of day, cloud 

cover, latitude and longitude of the burst, the specific communications path, and 

the time after the detonation. Other systems which may be affected by nuclear 

weapons effects on electromagnetic wave propagation include sensors in the 

infrared (IR), visible, and ultra violet regions, and laser communications which 

may be affected by the background infrared. A very hot (but transparent) region of 

the atmosphere can act as a lens to refract a laser communications beam off of its 

intended receiver. 

Radar beams are both attenuated and refracted when passing through a 

nuclear fireball at altitudes below 25 kilometers. At these altitudes the mean free 

path is small, and it is reasonable to speak of the fireball as being in local thermal 

equilibrium. Under these circumstances it is difficult to track incoming reentry 

vehicles. Optical systems will suffer increased noise levels both because of ionized 

regions and from blackbody radiation from the fireball, and long-wave infrared 

systems may be unable to see through the fireball to a reentry vehicle in the 

distance and may not be able to see a reentry vehicle nearer to the sensor than 

the fireball because of the background. 

No high-altitude nuclear tests have been carried out by the United States 

since the ratification of the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty. Apparently, few IR 

data were obtained from the Checkmate, Kingfish, Orange, and Starfish highaltitude tests, so the visual information from those tests has been extrapolated to 

the IR regime. The main sources of high-altitude IR which would produce clutter 

include plasma emission, molecular and atomic emission from excited states, and 

emission from uranium oxide. All of these are functions of electron density. At 

frequencies above about 300 megahertz (ultra high frequency, super high 

frequency, and extremely high frequency), signals may be disrupted by 
NUCLEAR WEAPONS EFFECTS I 59

scintillation, primarily characterized by intermittent fading and multipath 

transmission. These effects may persist for long periods and can degrade and 

distort a signal almost beyond recognition (for example, the plasma clouds are 

dispersive so that the speed of all frequencies of electromagnetic radiation is not 

equal in the cloud). Temporal and frequency coherence can both be destroyed. 

High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse 

A high-altitude nuclear detonation produces an immediate flux of gamma 

rays from the nuclear reactions within the device. These photons in turn produce 

high energy free electrons by Compton scattering at altitudes between (roughly) 

20 and 40 kilometers. These electrons are then trapped in the earth’s magnetic 

field, giving rise to an oscillating electric current. This current is asymmetric in 

general and gives rise to a rapidly rising radiated electromagnetic field called an 

electromagnetic pulse (EMP). Because the electrons are trapped essentially 

simultaneously, a very large electromagnetic source radiates coherently. 

The pulse can easily span continent-sized areas, and this radiation can affect 

systems on land, sea, and air. The first recorded EMP incident accompanied a 

high-altitude nuclear test over the South Pacific and resulted in power system 

failures as far away as Hawaii. A large device detonated at 400–500 kilometers 

over Kansas would affect all of the continental United States. The signal from 

such an event extends to the visual horizon as seen from the burst point. 

The EMP produced by the Compton electrons typically lasts for about one 

microsecond, and this signal is called HEMP. In addition to the prompt EMP, 

scattered gammas and inelastic gammas produced by weapon neutrons produce 

an “intermediate time” signal from about one microsecond to one second. The 

energetic debris entering the ionosphere produces ionization and heating of the 

E-region. In turn, this causes the geomagnetic field to “heave,” producing a “latetime” magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) EMP generally called a heave signal. 

Initially, the plasma from the weapon is slightly conducting; the geomagnetic 

field cannot penetrate this volume and is displaced as a result. This impulsive 

distortion of the geomagnetic field was observed worldwide in the case of the 

Starfish test. To be sure, the size of the signal from this process is not large, but 

systems connected to long lines (e.g., power lines, telephone wires, and tracking 

wire antennas) are at risk because of the large size of the induced current. The 

additive effects of the MHD-EMP can cause damage to unprotected civilian and 

military systems that depend on or use long-line cables. Small, isolated systems 

tend to be unaffected. 
60 I APPENDIX A 

Military systems must survive all aspects of the EMP, from the rapid spike of 

the early time events to the longer duration heave signal. One of the principal 

problems in assuring such survival is the lack of test data from actual high-altitude 

nuclear explosions. Only a few such experiments were carried out before the 

Limited Test Ban Treaty took effect, and at that time the theoretical understanding 

of the phenomenon of HEMP was relatively poor. No high-altitude tests have been 

conducted by the United States since 1963.36 The “acid test” of the response of 

modern military systems to EMP is their performance in simulators, particularly 

where a large number of components are involved. So many cables, pins, 

connectors, and devices are to be found in real hardware that computation of the 

progress of the EMP signal cannot be predicted, even conceptually, after the field 

enters a real system. System failures or upsets will depend upon the most intricate 

details of current paths and interior electrical connections, and one cannot analyze 

these beforehand. Threat-level field illumination from simulators combined with 

pulsed-current injection is used to evaluate the survivability of a real system 

against a HEMP threat. 

Source Region Electromagnetic Pulse 

Source region electromagnetic pulse (SREMP) is produced by low-altitude 

nuclear bursts. An effective net vertical electron current is formed by the 

asymmetric deposition of electrons in the atmosphere and the ground, and the 

formation and decay of this current emits a pulse of electromagnetic radiation in 

directions perpendicular to the current. The asymmetry from a low-altitude 

explosion occurs because some electrons emitted downward are trapped in the 

upper millimeter of the earth’s surface while others, moving upward and outward, 

can travel long distances in the atmosphere, producing ionization and charge 

separation. A weaker asymmetry can exist for higher altitude explosions due to the 

density gradient of the atmosphere. 

Within the source region, peak electric fields are much larger than those from 

HEMP and pose a considerable threat to military or civilian systems in the affected 

region. The ground is also a conductor of electricity and provides a return path for 

electrons at the outer part of the deposition region toward the burst point. Positive 

ions, which travel shorter distances than electrons and at lower velocities, remain 

behind and recombine with the electrons returning through the ground. Thus, 

strong magnetic fields are produced in the region of ground zero. 



36. In addition to the more familiar high-yield tests mentioned above, three small devices were 

exploded in the Van Allen belts as part of Project Argus. That experiment was intended to 

explore the methods by which electrons were trapped and traveled along magnetic field lines. 
NUCLEAR WEAPONS EFFECTS I 61

When the nuclear detonation occurs near to the ground, the SREMP target 

may not be located in the electromagnetic far field but may instead lie within the 

electromagnetic induction region. In this regime the electric and magnetic fields 

of the radiation are no longer perpendicular to one another, and many of the 

analytic tools with which we understand electromagnetic coupling in the simple 

plane-wave case no longer apply. The radiated electromagnetic field falls off 

rapidly with increasing distance from the deposition region (near to the currents 

the EMP does not appear to come from a point source). As a result, the region 

where the greatest damage can be produced is from about 3 to 8 kilometer from 

ground zero. In this same region structures housing electrical equipment are also 

likely to be severely damaged by blast and shock. The threat to electrical and 

electronic systems from a surface-burst EMP may extend as far as the distance at 

which the peak overpressure from a 1-megaton burst is 2 pounds per square inch 

(Glasstone and Dolan). 

One of the unique features of SREMP is the high late-time voltage which can 

be produced on long lines in the first 0.1 second. This stress can produce large 

late-time currents on the exterior shields of systems, and shielding against the 

stress is very difficult. Components sensitive to magnetic fields may have to be 

especially hardened. SREMP effects are uniquely nuclear weapons effects. 

During the Cold War, SREMP was conceived primarily as a threat to the 

electronic and electrical systems within hardened targets such as missile launch 

facilities. Clearly, SREMP effects are only important if the targeted systems are 

expected to survive the primary damage-causing mechanisms of blast, shock, and 

thermal pulse. 

Blast and Shock 

Blast and shock waves produced by nuclear explosions are the principal 

means for destroying soft targets. Ground shock from a low-altitude, surface, or 

underground burst may be the only way to destroy hardened underground 

structures such as command facilities or missile silos. In the absence of 

atmospheric and underground nuclear testing to determine the survivability of 

structures, means must be found to simulate the phenomena associated with a 

nuclear explosion. 

For blast and shock this can be done either in a large-scale, open-air test 

employing chemical explosives or in a specially designed test facility which can 

also produce thermal fluxes comparable to those from a nuclear weapon. The air 

blast from a nuclear explosion is, however, different from that produced by 
62 I APPENDIX A 

conventional explosives. Because of the intense thermal pulse, the surface and 

near-surface air mass surrounding ground zero is heated rapidly. Within this 

heated region, the blast wave travels more rapidly than it does in the cooler air 

above. As a result, blast waves reflected from the ground travel outward and 

merge with the direct blast wave from the explosion. This produces a nearly 

vertical shock front called the Mach stem, which is more intense than that from 

the direct blast. 

To simulate the Mach stem with tests using high explosives, scientists have 

employed helium-filled bags at ground level surrounding the high explosives used 

in the test. Because such tests can only be scaled and do not replicate the actual 

effects of a nuclear explosion, only scale models of test objects could normally be 

used. More recently, national attention has focused on a higher pressure regime 

than can be attained in open-air testing and on the construction of large simulators 

capable of reproducing simultaneously the blast and the thermal pulse from a 

nuclear detonation. These simulators typically employ a fuel-oxygen mixture, for 

example, liquid oxygen and finely powdered aluminum, and consist of long 

semicircular tubes. These simulators can even approximate the effects of soil type 

on blast wave propagation as well as the entraining of dust in the blast wave. 

Thermal Radiation 

Thermal radiation decays only as the inverse square of the distance from the 

detonation. Thus, weapons in the megaton class and above are primarily 

incendiary weapons, able to start fires and do other thermal damage at distances 

well beyond the radius at which they can topple buildings or overturn armored 

vehicles. The effect of thermal radiation on unprotected human beings is likely to 

be very serious, producing flash burns over large areas of the body. The response of 

a structure to the thermal pulse from a nuclear weapon depends upon its 

composition (wood, masonry, concrete); the type and albedo of any exterior paint; 

the transparency of any windows facing the burst; the type, texture, and 

composition of roofing; and even the presence or absence of awnings and shades. 

For weapons in the 1 to 200-kiloton region used against structures commonly 

found in the West, blast effects are likely to predominate; larger weapons will have 

the ability to start fires at distances far greater than they can inflict significant blast 

damage. Films of tests conducted in Nevada in the 1950s confirm that at the 

extreme distance at which wood-frame houses can be ignited by lower yield 

weapons, the buildings are blown apart seconds later by the blast wave, while 

structures which survive the blast do not ignite after the blast. Tests conducted in 
NUCLEAR WEAPONS EFFECTS I 63

the Pacific using megaton-class weapons show the opposite effect. Secondary fires 

started by broken gas mains, electrical short circuits, etc., are not considered here. 

Summary of the Effects 

Table A-1 summarizes the most important effects of nuclear explosions under 

certain conditions. 

Table A-1. Important Nuclear Explosion Effects 

Explosive Yield/Height of Burst 

Effects 1 kt/ 

200 m 

20 kt/ 

540 m 

1 Mt/ 

2.0 km 

20 Mt/ 

5.4 km 

Blast—effective ground range (GR/km) 

Urban areas almost completely leveled 

(20 PSI) 0.2 0.6 2.4 6.4 

Destruction of most civil buildings 

(5 PSI) 0.6 1.7 6.2 17 

Moderate damage to civil buildings 

(1 PSI) 1.7 4.7 17 47 

Thermal radiation—effective ground range (GR/km) 

Conflagration 0.5 2.0 10 30 

Third degree burns 0.6 2.5 12 38 

Second degree burns 0.8 3.2 15 44 

First degree burns 1.1 4.2 19 53 

Effects of instant nuclear radiation—effective slant range* (SR/km) 

Lethal** total dose (neutrons and 

gamma rays) 0.8 1.4 2.3 4.7 

Total dose for acute radiation 

syndrome** 1.2 1.8 2.9 5.4 

* For the direct radiation effects the slant range instead of the ground range is shown here, 

because some effects are not given even at ground zero for some burst heights. If the effect 

occurs at ground zero the ground range can simply be derived from slant range and burst 

altitude. 

** “Acute radiation syndrome” corresponds here to a total dose of one gray, “lethal” to ten 

grays. Note that this is only a rough estimate since biological conditions are neglected here. 
64 I APPENDIX A 

References 

Nuclear Weapon Effects Technology, Section VI, www.fas.org/irp/threat/ 

mctl98-2/p2sec06.pdf. 

Glasstone, S. and P. Dolan, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, Third Edition, 

prepared and published by the Department of Defense and the Department of 

Energy, 1977. 

Bibliography 

A Guide to Nuclear Weapons Phenomena and Effects Literature (1996 Edition), 

Kaman Sciences Corp., DASIAC-SR-95-013, September 1996. 

Nuclear Weapons Effects Technology, The Militarily Critical Technologies List 

(MCTL), Part II: Weapons of Mass Destruction Technologies, Security Awareness 

Bulletin, Number 2-95. Richmond, VA: Department of Defense Security Institute. 

The Effects of Nuclear War, Office of Technology Assessment, May 1979. 

NATO Handbook on the Medical Aspects of NBC Defensive Operations, Part I–

Nuclear, Field Manual 8-9, AMedP-6(B). 

Nuclear Attack Planning Base 1990, Final Project Report, Executive Summary, 

April 1987. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_a_nuclear_weapon 

http://www.nv.doe.gov/library/photos/ 

Bridgeman, C.J., “Introduction to the Physics of Nuclear Weapon Effects,” Air 

Force Institute of Technology, August 2001. 

Northrop, J., “Handbook of Nuclear Weapon Effects,” Calculations Tools, 

Abstracted from DSWA’s Effects Manual One (EM-1), September 1996. 

McNaught, L. W., Nuclear Weapons and Their Effects (Battlefield Weapons 

Systems & Technology), Potomac Books, July 1984. 
HARDENING MICROELECTRONICS I 65

Appendix B. Hardening Microelectronics 

Radiation Threats to Performance of Integrated 

Circuits 

High-energy radiation (the kind that penetrates the package surrounding the 

semiconductor chip) causes three major threats to integrated circuits. 37 

 The first threat category consists of dose-rate exposure, in which 

ionizing radiation generates on-chip currents that compete with and 

interfere with the desired currents that control the functionality of 

integrated circuits. Photocurrents generated may cause temporary loss of 

stored information or disrupt functional operation of an integrated circuit 

or in some cases cause permanent damage to a device. 

 The second threat category consists of total-dose effects, in 

which incoming radiation disorders the very semiconductor material 

itself to change the operating characteristics of the transistors that 

comprise the integrated circuit. 

 The final threat category consists of single-event effects, in which 

a space environment particle, such as a cosmic ray (an energetic nucleus 

with millions of electron volts of energy for each nuclear subparticle) 

strikes a single transistor, creating localized currents that are not present 

during normal operation. Energetic particles (e.g., protons, neutrons, and 

heavier ions) can also cause displacement damage in silicon and other 

semiconductor materials as the size of the transistor shrinks. In addition to 

causing total dose ionization degradation and displacement damage, these 

energetic particles can also cause single-event effects. As a single highenergy particle strikes a material, it generates a dense plasma of electronhole pairs along the path of the particle, which can trigger a variety of 

single-event effects. Single-event effects are classified into two types: soft 

errors, which cause no permanent damage and may be correctable, and 

hard errors, which result in permanent damage to the device. 



37. More detailed explanations of the phenomena described in this section are considered 

sensitive and have not been presented in this report. 
66 I APPENDIX B 

Prudent Design Practices 

A number of practices and tools can help address concerns about maintaining 

the integrity and continuity of microcircuit operations in radiation environments. 

The list in the text box, although not exhaustive, illustrates that much can done, but 

each may come with some expense. That expense is most wisely incurred at the 

outset of the design. The task force noted that Army data suggest that radiation 

hardening of key components in new acquisitions typically adds fractions to a few 

percent to design costs, while retrofits are most typically unaffordable. 

How Do We “Harden" with Commercial-off-the-Shelf? 

Good Design Practices and Tools That Help 

 Parts selection through up-screening by radiation characterization 

 Process technology selection, i.e., CMOS/bulk, CMOS/epitaxial, CMOS/SOI, bipolar 

dielectric, bipolar bulk 

 Design using radiation-degraded parameters caused by neutron and ionizing dose effects 

 Dose rate characterization at high and very low rates 

 Current limiting 

 Shielding or localized shielding 

 Software and hardware error detection and correction 

 Constant refreshing 

 Redundancy or triple voting logic 

 Minimize the number of selected suppliers and part count 

 Minimize the number of active components 

 Use hardened parts in critical circuits of a system, i.e., PROMs, custom ASICs 

 Use of power and ground planes to isolate noise 

 Conformal coating of the multilayered boards 

 Minimize large cross-coupling capacitance, careful routing of traces 

 Watch-dog timer for microprocessor 

 EDAC to scrub SRAMs 

 Detection, recycle power and recovery circuitry against latch-up 

 Use hardened nonvolatile memory, energy storage backup, or ROM for storing critical 

data 

 Test, test, test! 
RADIATION HARDENED FOUNDRIES I 67

Appendix C. Radiation Hardened Foundries 

A number of hardening techniques can be implemented at the parts, board, 

subsystem, and system levels. At the semiconductor level, a number of foundries 

have been dedicated over the past several decades to developing and designing 

hardened chips. Some military programs had captive lines to maintain the 

hardness assurance of the parts. In the 1990s, with reduced defense spending, 

many programs were cut and the threat requirements were reevaluated. 

A declining demand for radiation hardened systems led to a downsizing in 

the number of radiation hardened (rad hard) foundries. In the late 1980s, the 

United States had about twenty foundries capable of developing rad hard 

semiconductor devices with ionizing dose hardness greater than 300 krad(Si). 

Some of them included Honeywell, Harris, UTMC, LM Manassas, TRW, Texas 

Instruments, National Semiconductor, RCA, Westinghouse, IBM, AMI, and 

Motorola. Today Honeywell, Intersil (formerly Harris), and BAE (formerly LM 

Manassas) are the few commercial foundries that can demonstrate ionizing dose 

hardness greater than 300 krad(Si). Honeywell is the only commercial supplier 

that has advertised their parts hardness to 1 Mrad(Si). The number of foundries 

that are continuing to provide strategic radiation tolerant parts has dropped 

dramatically (Figure C-1). In addition, the number of available nuclear simulators 

has significantly been reduced, along with the cadre of expertise that understood 

nuclear hardening design at the parts and system levels. 
68 I APPENDIX C 

Figure C-1. Radiation Hardened Foundries in the United States 
TERMS OF REFERENCE I 69

Terms of Reference 



MEMBERSHIP I 73

Task Force Membership 

NAME AFFILIATION 

Chairs

Dr. Joseph Braddock Private Consultant 

Dr. Miriam John Private Consultant 

Members 

Mr. Franco Cristadoro Northrop Grumman/U.S. Air Force 

Mr. Bill Delaney MIT Lincoln Laboratory 

Dr. John Foster Private Consultant 

Dr. Bryan Gabbard Defense Group, Inc. 

Dr. Gary Lum Lockheed Martin 

Maj Gen Thomas Neary (ret) SAIC 

Gen Jack Vessey (ret) Private Consultant 

Dr. Rich Wagner Los Alamos National Laboratory 

Dr. Stephen Younger Department of Energy 

Executive Secretaries

Ms. Joan Ma Pierre Defense Threat Reduction Agency 

Dr. Ralph Schneider National Nuclear Security Administration 

Government Advisors 

Dr. Wendee Brunish Los Alamos National Laboratory 

Mr. Curtis Buckles OPNAV/N514 

Lt Col Steven Creighton Defense Threat Reduction Agency 

Mr. Dwayne Curtiss Navy Strategic Systems Programs 

Dr. Christopher Deeney National Nuclear Security Administration 

Mr. John Franco Defense Threat Reduction Agency 

Lt Col Kathy Gilmartin U.S. Army/Nuclear and Combating WMD Agency 

Mr. John Gipson U.S. Strategic Command 

Col Brian Groft U.S. Army/Nuclear and Combating WMD Agency 

Dr. Sharif Heger Los Alamos National Laboratory 

Dr. John Kuspa Office of the Secretary of Defense, Nuclear Matters 

Dr. James Lee Sandia National Laboratories 

Dr. David Lojewski Defense Threat Reduction Agency 

Dr. Len Lorence Sandia National Laboratories 

Mr. James McComb Missile Defense Agency 

Mr. Andy Metzger U.S. Strategic Command 

Dr. Billy Mullins U.S. Air Force/A3S 

Mr. John O’Kuma U.S. Army/White Sands Missile Range 

Ms. Marlene Owens Office of the Secretary of Defense/Test Resource 

Management Center 

Mr. Darrell Palmer U.S. Air Force /A3S 
74 I MEMBERSHIP 

NAME AFFILIATION 

Government Advisors (continued)

Mr. Fred Sexton National Nuclear Security Administration 

Dr. Richard Singer Office of the Director, Defense Research and 

Engineering 

Mr. Jan Smith Office of the Secretary of Defense/Test Resource 

Management Center 

Dr. Tom Thomson Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 

Mr. Robert Webb Missile Defense Agency 

Dr. Sharif Heger Los Alamos National Laboratory 

DSB Representative 

CDR Clifton Phillips, USN Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for 

Acquisition, Technology and Logistics 

Staff 

Barbara Bicksler Strategic Analysis, Inc. 

Ms. Stacy O’Mara Strategic Analysis, Inc. 
PRESENTATIONS I 75

Presentations to the Task Force 

NAME TOPIC 

November 8–9, 2006 

Ms. Judy Kim DOD General Counsel Briefing 

Dr. Charles Craft Global Profile of Nuclear Activities 

Mr. Scott Petrakis Test Activities 

Ms. Lacey Muhlfeld Test Activities 

Mr. Fred Celec Electromagnetic Pulse Commission, Military 

Capabilities 

Dr. John Kuspa & Mr. Steven Henry DOD Plans for Electromagnetic Pulse Survivability 

Dr. Jim Tegnelia Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s (DTRA) 

Desired Results 

Mr. Randy Davis Red Book Program Support to DOD Missions 

Mr. Todd Hoover Red Book Activities at Lawrence Livermore 

National Laboratory 

Dr. Bob Weaver Red Book Activities at Los Alamos National 

Laboratory 

December 4–5, 2006 

Col Brian Groft Army Nuclear Survivability 

Mr. Bill Cooper Capabilities Based Planning/Joint Capabilities 

Integration and Development System (JCIDS) 

Mr. Robert Webb 

Missile Defense Agency High Altitude ExoAtmospheric Nuclear Survivability (HAENS) 

Standard 

Mr. John Franco NNSA/DTRA Simulator Working Group 

Dr. David Crandall NNSA Nuclear Survivability Program 

Mr. Andy Metzger U.S. Strategic Command Requirements for Nuclear

Effects 

Dr. Joe Braddock Red-Blue Perspectives on Nuclear Weapons 

Mr. John Ingram Vulnerability and Hardening 

January 8–10, 2007 

Dr. Victor Gavron Review of Los Alamos Neutron Science Center 

Capabilities 

Lt Col Steve Creighton Defense Threat Reduction Agency Modeling and 

Simulation 

Dr. Brian Aubert Assessment of Weapon Effects (Los Alamos 

National Laboratory) 
76 I PRESENTATION TO THE STUDY 

January 8–10, 2007 (continued) 

Mr. Ron Parker Weapon Qualification Tests (Los Alamos National 

Laboratory) 

Mr. John Franco DTRA/NNSA IPT Results Update 

Mr. Cliff Giles Foreign Electromagnetic Pulse Simulators 

Dr. Chris Wallace Conventional Electromagnetic Pulse 

Dr. James Lee Weapon Reliability in Nuclear Environments 

Dr. Mark Hedemann W76-1 Design and Qualification 

Dr. Len Lorence Predictive Capabilities Framework 

Dr. Charles Barbour & Dr. James Lee Design and Qualification without SPR 

Dr. David Price Welcome to Pulse Sciences 

Dr. Peter Sincerny Customer Base and Business Model for West 

Coast Facility 

Dr. Peter Coakley Systems, Simulation, and Modeling 

Mr. Ed Moses National Ignition Facility Overview 

Mr. Tom Thomson Outputs, Environments, and Effects 

Mr. Kevin Fournier & Mr. Mike Tobin Nuclear Weapons Effects Testing at the National 

Ignition Facility 

Mr. Jon Fisher X-ray Effects Testing at OMEGA and National 

Ignition Facility 

Mr. Brian MacGowan National Ignition Facility as a Facility User 

Mr. Todd Hoover Red Book Work 

February 14–16, 2007 

Dr. Ronald Jost Overview of the Global Information Grid 

Mr. John O’Kuma Army Nuclear Weapons Effects Facilities and 

Capabilities 

Ms. Phyllis Ferguson Business Model for Major Test Facilities 

Lt Col Christopher Kinnan Air Force Survivability Assurance 

Mr. Curt Buckles Navy Survivability Assurance 

Dr. Len Lorence Update on Modeling and Simulation IPT 

Ms. Joan Ma Pierre Update on L-3 Projections of X-ray Facility Use 

Dr. Joe Braddock Army-DTRA-ASB Workshop 

DIA Representatives Current Assessment Plan/Electromagnetic Pulse 

Commission 

LLNL, LANL, and Sandia Representatives Lab Contributions/Electromagnetic Pulse 

Commission 
PRESENTATIONS I 77

March 29–30, 2007 

Dr. Peter Sincerny L-3 Simulator Privatization Plan 

Dr. Tom Mahnken Defense Planning Scenarios 

Mr. William Keller SCI Discussion 

Mr. Mike Tobin Testing at the National Ignition Facility 

April 30–May 1, 2007 

Mr. Fred Sexton Strategy to Develop a Nuclear Weapons Effects 

Enterprise 

Mr. Adrian Gannon UK Weapon Effects Simulator & Analysis 

May 17–18, 2007 

Lt Col Steve Creighton IPT Update 

Dr. John Zolper Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s 

Radiation Hard by Design Program 

June 21–22, 2007 

Mr. William Thoms Defense Information Systems Agency Discussion 

Dr. Bryan Gabbard Assuring Future DOD Nuclear Capabilities 

GLOSSARY I 79

Glossary 

ACRR Annular Core Research Reactor 

AGT aboveground test 

ASC Advanced Simulation and Computing 

ASCI Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative 

ATSD (NCB) Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Chemical and Biological 

Defense Programs 

C4ISR command, control, communications, and computers, and intelligence, surveillance, 

and reconnaissance 

CBRN chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear 

CFE Conventional Forces in Europe 

COTS commercial off-the-shelf 

CMOS complementary metal oxide semiconductor 

CNS Center for Nonproliferation Studies 

DEMP dispersed electromagnetic pulse 

DOD Department of Defense 

DRRS Defense Readiness Reporting System 

DSB Defense Science Board 

DTRA Defense Threat Reduction Agency 

ECEMP electron caused electromagnetic pulse 

EMP electromagnetic pulse 

FARC Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia 

GIG Global Information Grid 

HAENS High Altitude Exo-atmospheric Nuclear Survivability 

HEMP high-altitude electromagnetic pulse 

HERMES High-Energy Radiation Megavolt Electron Source 

HPD Horizontally Polarized Dipold 

IEMP internal electromagnetic pulse 

ICBM intercontinental ballistic missile 

IR infrared 

ISR intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance 

ITRS International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors 

JCIDS Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System 

JSWG Joint Simulator Working Group 

keV kiloelectron volt 
80 I GLOSSARY 

kt kiloton 

LHE light initiated high explosive 

MANET mobile adhoc networks 

MBS Modular Bremsstrahlung Source 

MCTL Militarily Critical Technologies List 

MHD magnetohydrodynamic 

MOS metal oxide semiconductor 

Mt megaton 

NIAB non-ideal air blast 

NNSA National Nuclear Security Administration 

NWE nuclear weapons effects 

QASPR Quantification of Alternatives to SPR 

RB reentry body 

RDT&E research, development, test, and evaluation 

RV reentry vehicle 

S&T science and technology 

SBSS Science Based Stockpile Stewardship [Program] 

SEU single-event-update 

SGEMP system generated electromagnetic pulse 

SOI silicon-on-insulator 

SPR Sandia Pulsed Reactor 

SREMP source region electromagnetic pulse 

TREE transient radiation electronic effects 

UGT underground test 

USANCA U.S. Army Nuclear and Combating WMD Agency 

USD (AT&L) Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics 

WMD weapons of mass destruction 

WSMR White Sands Missile Range 

ZR Z-Refurbished