Countervalue

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Countervalue refers to the targeting of an opponent's cities and civilian populations. In contrast, counterforce refers to the targeting of an opponent's military personnel, forces and facilities.

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[edit] Theory

In nuclear warfare, enemy targets can be divided into two general types; counterforce military targets and countervalue civilian targets.

The rationale behind countervalue targeting is that when two sides have both achieved assured destruction capability -- that is, that the nuclear arsenals of each side have the apparent ability to survive a wide range of counterforce attacks, and counterattack -- then, in an all-out nuclear war, the value of targeting the opponent's nuclear arsenal diminishes, and the value of targeting the opponent's cities and civilians increases. This line of reasoning, however, assumes that the opponent values its civilians over its military forces.

Some argue that countervalue targeting upholds nuclear deterrence because both sides are more likely to believe in each other's no first use policy. The line of reasoning is that if an aggressor strikes first with nuclear weapons against an opponent's countervalue targets, then, by definition, such an attack does not degrade the opponent's military capacity to retaliate.

Others, however, counter that countervalue targeting is neither moral nor credible because if an aggressor should strike first with nuclear weapons against only a limited number of a defender's counterforce military targets, the defender should not retaliate in this situation against the aggressor's civilian populace.

However, another moral position is that because they are the aggressor, and therefore are starting the conflict, they should not be treated with a "gloves on" approach, as that would give further incentive to be an aggressor.

[edit] World War II

Although the terminology had not yet been invented, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were countervalue operations. As these have -- so far -- been the only usages of nuclear weapons in the history of war, there is no real-world example of counterforce targeting.

[edit] International Law

The intentional targeting of civilians with military force, including nuclear weapons, is prohibited by international law. In particular, the Fourth Geneva Convention prevents attacks on certain types of civilian targets and the Protocol I states that civilian objects are not acceptable military targets. (Not all states are party to Protocol I.) Nonetheless, "proportional" collateral damage is allowed, which could justify attacks on military objectives in cities.

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