Today many organizations develop all-hazards continuity of operations plans. How does the thinking behind this report comport with such modern ideas? How many of those contemporary plans include a section on nuclear war??
Today many organizations develop all-hazards continuity of operations plans. How does the thinking behind this report comport with such modern ideas? How many of those contemporary plans include a section on nuclear war??
It's a great question. At some future point I will write about the All-Hazards approach that FEMA embraced, which many planners see as vastly better than nuclear-only planning, but in my reading of it tended to, over time, relate nuclear planning to a very niche operation. My informal discussions with current emergency planners at the federal and local level suggest that nuclear war on this scale is not planned for very specifically anymore, and that, at best, one finds planning (esp. since 9/11) for very limited nuclear detonations, such as a single, low-yield urban ground burst (e.g., nuclear terrorism) or, at most, a single high-altitude kiloton-range warhead (e.g., North Korea). To my knowledge there is not a lot of specific planning for the aftermath of a multi-warhead exchange with Russia or China (or even North Korea). Or, if there is, local emergency planners do not seem "looped in" on it, or at least weren't when I talked to them.
Today many organizations develop all-hazards continuity of operations plans. How does the thinking behind this report comport with such modern ideas? How many of those contemporary plans include a section on nuclear war??
It's a great question. At some future point I will write about the All-Hazards approach that FEMA embraced, which many planners see as vastly better than nuclear-only planning, but in my reading of it tended to, over time, relate nuclear planning to a very niche operation. My informal discussions with current emergency planners at the federal and local level suggest that nuclear war on this scale is not planned for very specifically anymore, and that, at best, one finds planning (esp. since 9/11) for very limited nuclear detonations, such as a single, low-yield urban ground burst (e.g., nuclear terrorism) or, at most, a single high-altitude kiloton-range warhead (e.g., North Korea). To my knowledge there is not a lot of specific planning for the aftermath of a multi-warhead exchange with Russia or China (or even North Korea). Or, if there is, local emergency planners do not seem "looped in" on it, or at least weren't when I talked to them.