This study was an attempt to apply systems analysis to the study of total vunerability. The results indicated that the systems concept could be used generate, through an expansible sequence of check lists, many pertinent questions about the structure of our society and its intrinsic vulnerabilities. The analysis was centered on the individual as a political, social and economic agent and 23 primary institutions that interact with him and with each other. The first step was to indentify as well as possible all input and output variables for the individual and the institutions, and all the sources of each input and all the destinations for each output. Execution of this step that initial hopes of investigating possible interrelationships quantitatively were over optimistic or premature. The systems descriptions were related to the primary and secondary effects of thermonuclear attack. They were related to the primary and secondary effects of thermonuclear attack. They were compared with more traditional descriptions of the institutions and with two simplified postattack scenarios representing the primary effects of a heavy counter force and a heavy counter industry attack.