The American Government’s Secret Plan For Surviving The End Of The World

Since the dawn of the nuclear age, international politics have been shaped around the idea of Mutually Assured Destruction. Colloquially named 'MAD', this concept suggests that if ever a nuclear war starts, both sides would be so completely destroyed that it would be considered a 'loss' for both parties.

Despite this, and perhaps in contravention to the prevailing logic of MAD, much thought has been put into how a government could actually survive a full-scale nuclear attack. From deep bunkers built into the sides of mountains to complex chains of succession and designated survivors, serious effort has been put into planning for the day after Doomsday.

In the US, new documents from the 1970s and 1980s have been declassified, detailing some of these plans. While rudimentary compared to what would be possible with modern technology, the plans outlined in these documents show that the US took the issue very seriously. They also show that a single man — Ray Derby — did more than anyone else to shape how the US government would try to survive a nuclear attack.

Nonetheless, the funding to actually put these plans into place was minuscule compared to the amount that was spent on preparing to actually fight a nuclear war. As well, while ambitious targets were set for non-government civilians surviving a nuclear attack, it appears that there was very little effort put into the wide-scale shelter building exercise this would require.

Marc Ambinder's deep dive into this topic for Foreign Policy comes at a time of renewed international tensions and the threat of a nuclear confrontation with North Korea. While the threat of a civilization-ending nuclear war is still remote, today's governments will almost certainly still be dealing with the uncomfortable job of planning how they could survive, even when most of their population is dead or dying.