Calculating the ratios across the board, they saw that the SIOP assigned an average of 2.2 nuclear weapons—each unleashing an explosive force of several megatons—to each and every target across the Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe. And, in keeping with LeMay’s philosophy of modern war, these weapons would be launched in waves as massive and rapid as possible. If a war started with short notice, the SIOP called for firing 1,459 nuclear weapons—all of the weapons that were on day-to-day alert, ranging in power from 10 kilotons to 23 megatons, totaling 2,164 megatons in all—against 654
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