Military planners all over the world spend their careers thinking up all kinds of contingencies. The Pentagon’s planners are no different, constantly preparing for scenarios that might require the US military’s services. As seen below, that sometimes includes preparations for farfetched scenarios, like the plan to handle a potential zombie outbreak.
The Military is Constantly Drawing Up Contingency Plans
The United States Department of Defense’s planners are constantly drawing up plans for all kinds of possibilities. There are folders and drawers and entire rooms full of plans that span the spectrum from humanitarian missions at home or abroad, to all varieties of the US military’s core function of delivering warheads to foreheads. As a result, the wheels are always spinning in the heads of Pentagon planners. They constantly think up potential problems that might require a military response, then come up with a plan or plans for how best to handle them.
There are plans for just about everything. Eastern Bloc communist hordes storming through the Fulda Gap during the Cold War? There were contingency plans for that. A new mass terrorist attack today? There are contingency plans for that. Somebody tries to impede sea lanes important to the US. Plans exist for that. An American ambassador is held captive in some far off land and needs rescue? Stashed somewhere in the Pentagon’s archives are probably many documents about what should be done if any of those things, and many more, should ever come to pass.
The Pentagon’s CONPLAN 8888-11: Counter-Zombie Dominance
The goal of contingency plans is that if or when the brown stuff hits the fan, the powers that be should have a blueprint for what to do ready to yank off the shelf, dust off, and carry out. Or at least to use as a starting point for further plans, more narrowly tailored to a real world scenario that resembles – but does not exactly match – one for which a contingency plan exists. The plans are sometimes farfetched – sometimes because somebody in uniform got carried away and lost touch with reality.
Other times, because the goal is simply to train planners on the nuts and bolts of contingency planning. Of the farfetched plans, few are odder than Concept Plan (CONPLAN) 8888-11, dated April 30th, 2011. Also known as “Counter-Zombie Dominance”, it is a US Department of Defense Strategic Command plan to defend against a threatened zombie apocalypse. CONPLAN 8888’s summary states: “Because zombies pose a threat to all non-zombie human life, [Strategic Command] will be prepared to preserve the sanctity of human life and conduct operations in support of any human population — including traditional adversaries”.
CONPLAN 8888’s Stages of Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse
CONPLAN 8888’s disclaimer section states: “this plan was not actually designed as a joke”. The plan breaks down the undead into various categories: Pathogenic, Radiation, Evil Magic, Space, Weaponized, Symbiant-Induced, Vegetarian, and Chicken Zombies. The plan treats a zombie invasion just like any other threat, and calls for phases to handle the contingency. First comes general awareness training. Then comes deterrence – not of the zombies, who cannot be deterred, but of other countries that might want to deploy zombies. Once that is done, it is time to seize the initiative.
The Pentagon plans to recall all military personnel to service, establish defensive positions, and launch limited scale military operations to negate the zombie threat. Next comes domination: lockdown all military installations for thirty days, don appropriate protective gear, issue orders to kill all non-human life on sight, and bomb zombie infection sources and support infrastructure. Then comes stabilization, ascertainment of the safety of the environment, and the identification and destruction of zombie holdout pockets. Finally, the military should shift its efforts to aid surviving civilian authorities restore normal life.
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Some Sources & Further Reading
Foreign Policy – Exclusive: The Pentagon Has a Plan to Stop the Zombie Apocalypse. Seriously
United States Strategic Command – CONPLAN 8888
