At times during the Cold War, nuclear war planners have defined deterrence as America's ability to destroy at least one-quarter of an enemy's citizens in any nuclear-war scenario. This is 1960s-era secretary of defense Robert McNamara's infamous doctrine of "mutually assured destruction" (MAD), in which the nuclear powers maintain stability by holding each other's citizens hostage.

NRDC used its nuclear-war simulation tools to show how the populations of the United States, Russian and other nations can be threatened with just a small number of weapons. The map above shows where, given today's high-yield nuclear weapons, an opponent would have to explode a mere 300 warheads to kill 25 percent of the population of all NATO member countries -- nearly 189 million people.

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