Frank Schmid · 17 October 2026 · Technical Report · The flow of the report, section by section

Nuclear Exchange Scenarios

A library of 75 state-to-state nuclear exchange scenarios across 16 theatres, each cell carrying the provenance of its parameters, and a chain from a cell to casualties by country and metropolitan area on public inputs. The layers of consequence are kept apart and never summed. The direct layer is calibrated to one published case and extrapolated to the other theatres, the fallout layer is a bound rather than an estimate, and the indirect layer is read under two bases of an atmospheric quantity that two published lineages estimate differently.

What is counted

The library's cells and the layers each one triggers: the direct layer of blast and thermal effects within the zones, the fallout bound, the indirect layer of soot and food, the composition of the exposed by sex and age, rates by unit of residence, and the built-up volume and produced capital destroyed. Radius-bounded and unbounded layers describe different populations and are never summed.

What a figure rests on

Every figure carries what stands behind it: a published case it is calibrated to, an extrapolation of that calibration, a comparison with a second or a third published model, a construction where no source treats the case, or a bound that exceeds the quantity rather than estimating it.

The line of sight

the section belongs to what is countedthe section belongs to what a figure rests onthe theme passes through
The library
1

Introduction

What is countedWhat a figure rests on
Establishes
Why the exercise needs a library first: a nuclear exchange reaches people and property through mechanisms with different geographies, time constants, and evidence, and a set of parameter tuples is what a model can read. The route of the report, and the central finding of its coverage: quantified consequence and analytical depth sit in different theatres.
Leads to
Over which axes is a scenario defined?
2

The scenario architecture

What is countedWhat a figure rests on
Establishes
A cell is a tuple over eight axes: the belligerents, the pathway, the use mode, the size band, the yield band, the burst condition, the footprint, and the termination. Two rules govern the arithmetic: radius-bounded and unbounded layers are never summed, and provenance travels with the parameters.
18cells published and quantified
2cells with a published composition whose consequence the source does not state
17cells whose composition follows a rule, the pathway published
38cells constructed in both respects
Leads to
What does the published literature supply, theatre by theatre?
3

Coverage

What a figure rests on
Establishes
The 16 theatres include every pairing for which a published treatment was located, the pairings for which none was, use against states holding no weapons, strikes on states that host an ally's facilities, and the acquisition or reconstitution of an arsenal.
8 of 36pairings among the 9 states holding weapons that carry a theatre
Reads as
Quantified consequence concentrates in six theatres; analytical depth concentrates in others, where the pathway literature is extensive and no published casualty figure was located.
Exhibits
Figure 1, cells by theatre and provenance class · Table 1, the theatres of the library
Leads to
What forces bound a cell?
4

Force basis

What a figure rests on
Establishes
The military stockpile, not the total inventory, bounds every cell resting on the force basis of January 2026, since retired warheads are not available for employment. Yields are published for 4 states. A cell written against another basis records it.
12,187warheads in total inventory, January 2026
9,745in military stockpiles
4,012deployed with operational forces
14cells reproducing a composition written against another force basis
Exhibits
Table 2, warheads by state and status · Figure 2, the same, stacked by status
Leads to
What reaches beyond the radius of the weapons?
5

The indirect layer

What is countedWhat a figure rests on
Establishes
Soot from burning cities persists in the stratosphere for years. The published ladder of six cases runs from 5 through 150 Tg, each with a direct fatality count and a count of people without food at the end of the second year. Two published lineages disagree on how much soot is lofted, so the library carries two bases: the rungs as published, and the rungs scaled by 0.16.
0.16–0.24persisting soot of the detailed calculation over the ladder's, the lower carried
0.89–1.13kilograms of stratospheric soot per cubic meter of burned built-up volume, across the three yields
41 of 158nations with at least 99 percent of their population without food at the top rung
Reads as
Under the second basis three rungs fall below the lowest mass for which a famine figure exists, and the top rung maps to 24.0 Tg. The direct layer does not move under either basis. Canada, South Africa, and Australia stand at 99.7, 80.4, and 0.0 percent of their population without food at the top rung, a spread that does not follow from proximity to any exchange.
Exhibits
Table 3, the published overlay ladder · Figure 3, the rungs under the two bases · Figure 4, share of population without food, by nation
Leads to
How is a cell turned into casualties?
The method
6

The estimation method

What is countedWhat a figure rests on
Establishes
A chain from the cell to country and metropolitan totals. Weapon effects convert yield to radii scaling as the cube root; the GHS-POP grid supplies the residents of each ring; a response function gives a fatality and an injury fraction for the severe, moderate, and light zones, calibrated against a published case rather than assumed. The constructions are stated once: the census correction of the six of 18 audited countries that fail the test, targets derived from the corrected grid, distances on the WGS84 ellipsoid, the placement of each aimpoint within a confinement, and the assignment of each cell to its nearest aimpoint. For a surface burst the fallout bound counts the residents within the lethal-dose reach of each aimpoint, on three stated overstatements: the dose, the geometry, and the mortality.
Subsections
6.1 The constructions · 6.2 The fallout bounding estimate
36.2 · 73.3 · 169.2kilometers, the lethal-dose reach of a surface burst at 15 kt, 100 kt, and 1 Mt
27–122factor by which actual fallout fatalities lie below the bound on the area reading
Reads as
The bound is not added to the direct layer, whose populations it overlaps.
Exhibits
Figure 5, the estimation chain
Leads to
What does the chain give for one weapon?
7

A worked cell

What a figure rests on
Establishes
One weapon of one megaton, the only single-weapon rung with a published casualty range against a stated composition: the planning guidance's zones scaled by the cube root, with fatality fractions from the Office of Technology Assessment's response to overpressure.
111.7square kilometers, the weighted area
0.900 · 0.439 · 0.0104fatality fractions of the severe, moderate, and light zones
220,000–2,500,000dead in the published case, across its cities, yields, and burst types
Reads as
An order-of-magnitude check on the geometry and the fractions; the gridded population is what turns the arithmetic into an estimate.
Exhibits
Table 4, zone geometry and weighted area
Leads to
What does the chain give on the gridded population?
The direct layer
8

Results across nine theatres

What is countedWhat a figure rests on
Establishes
The chain run on nine theatres. South Asia carries the published case and is the calibration: 156 pairs of zone fractions meet every published total within 5 percent at 15, 50, and 100 kt, the severe zone held at one.
0.392–0.576moderate-zone fraction over the admissible pairs
1.03 · 1.04India · Pakistan, the chain over the published figure, at 15 kt
0.91 · 1.15the same at 100 kt
Reads as
The totals are fitted and the country split is not: Pakistan runs above its published figure at every yield and India below it at the two higher. Calibrations on three other geometries of the zones give totals spanning a factor of 1.22 through 1.24, which the admissible interval does not carry. The injuries are an output of held fractions and run 34 through 49 percent below the published figures.
Exhibits
Table 5, direct-layer fatalities and injuries by country · Figure 6, the chain over the published figure, by country and yield
Leads to
What does the calibrated response give in the other theatres?
8.1

The eight additional theatres

What is countedWhat a figure rests on
Establishes
Every row under the calibration theatre's construction, its admissible set unchanged, an extrapolation and labeled as one. The European targets are cities from a gazetteer, and every other set is derived from the grid. The rows at 1 Mt extrapolate in yield as well as in theatre.
118.4–125.9million fatalities, 300+300 weapons between Russia and the United States at 1 Mt
Reads as
Twenty weapons on Iran give 1.2 times the central fatalities of twenty on Israel at 15 kt and 1.6 times at 100 kt, a property of the two countries' urban geography and not of either's vulnerability.
Exhibits
Table 6, direct-layer fatalities and injuries across the theatres
Leads to
In which direction does the extrapolation err?
8.2

A second published case

What a figure rests on
Establishes
A study of an exchange between Israel and Iran that states its compositions and fatalities city by city. The chain is run on each case with nothing fitted to the source.
twenty-five of twenty-sixcases in which the chain's median lies below the source
0.520 · 0.923median ratio of the chain to the source, Iranian cases · Israeli cases
0.569the chain over the source, summed over the cases run
Reads as
A comparison between two models: in the Middle Eastern theatre the response calibrated in South Asia runs below this source, and the causes are not separated.
Exhibits
Table 7, the chain against the second published case, city by city
Leads to
Does the chain run below a published model elsewhere?
8.3

A third published case

What a figure rests on
Establishes
fifty weapons of 15 kt, burst in the air, on the most densely populated places of France and of the United Kingdom, the chain run with nothing fitted to the source.
9.5percent by which the chain's median exceeds the source, France
6.1the same, United Kingdom
Reads as
On French and British cities the chain runs above the source, where it runs below the second case. The separation at which the targets are taken moves the chain's figure by more than its difference from the source.
Exhibits
Table 8, the chain against the third published case
Leads to
Does the chain meet the library's own published compositions?
8.4

The library's countervalue cells at their published compositions

What a figure rests on
Establishes
The European countervalue rung, five or ten weapons on each of the thirty most populous cities of each side, at 100, 250, and 500 kt, the source stating no yield; and 50 weapons of 15 kt on each of India and Pakistan. Nothing is fitted to either source.
56.2–119.5million casualties, the European rung, five a city at 100 kt to ten at 500 kt, against the source's 85.3
1.093the chain's median fatalities over the source's, 50 weapons of 15 kt on each of India and Pakistan
27.2 · 47.1percent by which the search within the city scale raises the fatalities over the confinement, five and ten a city at 100 kt
Reads as
The source's European figure lies inside the span the stated composition and the yields tested give; the South Asian restatement is met within ten percent.
Exhibits
Table 9, the European countervalue rung at its published composition
Leads to
What does the chain give for a case no source treats?
8.5

A constructed case: the Kaliningrad reach

What a figure rests on
Establishes
Russia's Iskander-M, with a range of 500 km, is deployed in Kaliningrad, and three capitals of the alliance lie within it. The case is constructed and models Russia's strike alone: one weapon on each capital's first-ranked place, or one on each of its places, at 10 or 100 kt. Latvia and Lithuania are corrected to their censuses for the case.
277.6 · 307.4 · 336.0kilometers from Kaliningrad to Warsaw, Vilnius, and Riga
252,463median fatalities, one weapon of 100 kt on Warsaw
675,718one weapon on each of Warsaw's places
8.4–18.0 · 6.4–14.4billion 2017 U.S. dollars destroyed by blast, one weapon of 10 kt on Riga and on Warsaw
Reads as
Warsaw's median fatalities are the largest of the three under both compositions and at both yields; in money, one weapon of 10 kt destroys more by blast on Riga than on Warsaw.
Exhibits
Table 10, the constructed case of the Kaliningrad reach · Table 11, the value layer of the Kaliningrad reach
Leads to
And a strike on every European capital of the alliance?
8.6

A constructed case: the capitals of the alliance's European members

What a figure rests on
Establishes
One weapon on the capital of each of the alliance's 30 European members, burst in the air at 100 or 200 kt, constructed on a document Russia sent to the alliance in September 2026 as the Financial Times reported it. Albania, North Macedonia, and Montenegro fail the census test and are corrected for the case.
1,086,355median fatalities, one weapon of 200 kt on Paris, the largest of the 30
8,444,468 · 11,555,139the 30 weapons together, at 100 and 200 kt
5.9percent of a capital's median on cells inside no country's polygon, the most, Helsinki's at 100 kt
1,987.1–3,974.0billion 2017 U.S. dollars destroyed by blast, the 30 weapons together at 200 kt
Reads as
One weapon on Paris destroys the most value by blast at both yields. The fallout bound is not computed for the two constructed cases, whose weapons burst in the air.
Exhibits
Table 12, the constructed case of the capitals · Table 13, the value layer of the capitals
Leads to
What does fallout add?
The fallout layer and the people counted
9

The fallout layer

What is countedWhat a figure rests on
Establishes
The bound run on the nineteen rows in the theatres whose library holds a general-release or countervalue cell that bursts at or near the ground. The residents inside the lethal-dose contour bound fallout fatalities from above, are not fatalities, and are read as a ratio to the direct layer, never added to it.
Subsections
9.1 The bound against two published transport cases
3.7–21.2the bound over the direct layer, across the units
11.4 · 6.4the same, 30+30 and 300+300 weapons between Russia and the United States at 100 kt
38countries and territories the contours reach
34.48million residents of Bangladesh, party to neither side, inside the contours of the calibration theatre at 100 kt
Reads as
Against two published transport cases around missile silos, where the population near the aimpoint is absent, the bound exceeds the United States' sheltered range and falls below China's published figures at the chain's convention.
Exhibits
Table 14, the fallout bound, by unit · Table 15, residents inside the contour by entity of residence · Table 16, the bound around missile silos against two transport cases
Leads to
Who are the people both layers count?
10

The age-sex composition of the exposed

What is counted
Establishes
The exposed by sex and age against the residents of the level-1 units they live in, one construction on both sides of the comparison.
34 of 39struck sides of the direct layer whose exposed are of working age in a higher proportion than their units
25 of 32the same, fallout layer
2.6points, the largest difference in the female share
Reads as
The aimpoints are the most populous places of each side, and the zones around them hold a population of working age in a higher proportion than the provinces and states around them; the sex composition follows that of the units.
Exhibits
Table 17, the direct layer by sex and age · Table 18, the same, continued · Table 19, the fallout layer by sex and age · Figure 7, the two profiles in the calibration theatre
Leads to
What rate does a resident of a unit face?
11

Mortality rates by unit of residence

What is counted
Establishes
For the calibration theatre, T01 at 100 kt, an exposure rate and a mortality rate per resident of each level-1 unit of residence, conditional on the scenario and carrying no frequency.
0.711exposure rate of Islamabad, the highest on the Pakistani side
0.173–0.184mortality rate of Sindh, exposed at 0.510, the highest
Reads as
The more-exposed unit is not the deadlier one, since exposure in the light ring carries a fatality fraction near zero and exposure in the severe ring a fraction of one.
Exhibits
Table 20, exposure and conditional mortality rates by unit · Figure 8, the same units, drawn
Leads to
What does the same construction give for built stock?
Property and value
12

Damage ratios by level-1 unit

What is countedWhat a figure rests on
Establishes
Built-up volume destroyed over built-up volume held, on the same rings, from GHS-BUILT-V. The ring damage fractions are bounds on qualitative descriptions, since no published property-loss aggregate exists to calibrate against. The loss is blast only.
1,010billion cubic meters of built-up volume in the direct zones, across the scenario sides
207–383billion cubic meters destroyed
Exhibits
Table 21, exposure and conditional damage ratio by unit · Figure 9, the same units, drawn
Leads to
What does fire destroy?
13

The fire zone

What is countedWhat a figure rests on
Establishes
A disc set by a thermal-fluence threshold, unattenuated and so an upper bound, with a damage fraction running from isolated fires to a mass fire, reported beside the blast loss and never summed with it.
843billion cubic meters within the outer fire disc
91–758billion cubic meters the fire would destroy
Reads as
Fire's lower bound is the gentler of the two mechanisms and its upper bound the more severe; the combined loss lies between the larger single mechanism and their sum.
Exhibits
Table 22, fire disc share and conditional fire damage ratio by unit · Figure 10, the same units, drawn
Leads to
What is the loss worth?
14

A value denominated in money

What is counted
Establishes
Produced capital destroyed: the nation's capital stock from the Penn World Table, apportioned to units by their share of non-agricultural output, or of built-up volume where output data do not reach, times the unit's damage ratio. Across the theatres each unit is counted once, at its worst modeled strike, and a cost gradient weighted by density brackets the concentration of capital within a unit.
Subsections
14.1 Across the theatres · 14.2 The sub-unit cost gradient
283.41trillion 2017 U.S. dollars of capital at risk across 23 struck countries
23.56–40.48trillion destroyed by blast
10.68–78.92by fire, apart and not summed
35.94–58.44by blast under the density-weighted damage ratio
Reads as
The most value destroyed is carried by the United States and the most capital at risk is held by China.
Exhibits
Table 23, capital at risk and value destroyed by unit · Figure 11, value destroyed by unit, drawn · Table 24, capital at risk and value destroyed by struck country · Table 25, the value destroyed under the cost gradient
Leads to
What does the report conclude?
Conclusion and data sources
15

Conclusion

What is countedWhat a figure rests on
Establishes
The two rules are what make the library usable: the layers kept apart, the provenance carried. The direct layer's range comes from the admissible fractions on one population count, the indirect layer's from a disputed atmospheric quantity. The analysis prices the consequence and not the rate: a mortality rate is conditional on the scenario, and the frequency of an exchange lies outside it. What remains is the fallout of the four rows striking the Korean peninsula, Japan, and the alliance's members, the cells stated as a class, and two theatres not run.
Appendix A

Data sources

What a figure rests on
Establishes
Four gridded datasets, one set of vector boundaries, and two tabular economic datasets, each named with its release, resolution, projection, and license: GHS-POP and GHS-BUILT-V, the Overture Maps Foundation's Divisions, WorldPop's age-sex rasters, LandScan, read only to rebuild a source's targets, the Penn World Table, and DOSE.