Civilian Sanctuary and Target Avoidance Policy in Thermonuclear War

Edmund O. Stillman

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1970, vol. 392, issue 1, 116-132

Abstract: Examining traditional concepts of civilian war fare, the author finds that civilians have not normally been con sidered appropriate targets of violence and that civilian productivity and home-front morale are largely irrelevant in conditions of thermonuclear war, in which only forces in being are likely to be used and command and control are separate from the population at large. Under the circumstances, there are thus important moral and practical reasons for adopting "open cities" and sanctuary policies to spare civilians and re duce over-all deaths. Three cases are examined in detail: open cities and sanctuary policies to be enunciated now and at the time of a hypothetical war with the USSR; with respect to the Soviet Union's presumably reluctant Warsaw Pact al lies; and finally in the event of a future war, again hypotheti cal, with mainland China.

Date: 1970
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:392:y:1970:i:1:p:116-132

DOI: 10.1177/000271627039200112

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