- The US military’s war plan for fighting zombies began from a training scenario.
- It focuses on identifying the enemy, designating vital infrastructure, and coordinating forces.
- The US military has real-world experience in responding to disasters and outbreaks.
If zombies attack, the US military has a plan. Really.
Upon authorization from the president or the defense secretary, US Strategic Command will begin preparations for safeguarding the civilian population, protecting vital infrastructure, and eradicating the zombie menace.
And all without violating the rights of threatened humans and possibly the zombies themselves.
“This plan was not actually designed as a joke,” explains CONPLAN 8888-11 (“Counter Zombie Dominance”), issued on April 30, 2011 by USSTRATCOM, whose normal responsibilities include overseeing America’s strategic nuclear weapons, global strike capabilities and missile defense.
It originated as a scenario to train junior officers in the Department of Defense’s Joint Operation Planning and Execution System (JOPES), by which the US military devises contingency plans. Instructors discovered that a zombie apocalypse scenario was a better teaching tool than using fictional scenarios about Tunisia or Nigeria as was customary at the time, which also risked being misunderstood by the public as real scenarios.
“We elected to use a completely impossible scenario that could never be mistaken as a real plan,” explained the CONPLAN 8888-11 document. “Because the plan was so ridiculous, our students not only enjoyed the lessons; they actually were able to explore the basic concepts of plan and order development (fact, assumptions, specified and implied tasks, references etc.) very effectively.”
With tongue in cheek — or shot to the head — the plan lays out how USSTRATCOM will handle a global uprising of the undead. When the US military goes on Zombie Condition (ZombieCon) alert, Strategic Command will begin defensive operations to protect the human population, and offensive operations to neutralize zombies by “denial, deception, disruption, degradation or destruction.”
Those looking for tactical tips on killing flesh-eating monsters will be disappointed. CONPLAN 8888-11 is a staff plan that focuses on identifying the enemy, designating vital infrastructure such as food, power and medical care, and coordinating friendly forces.
Taking full advantage of abundant open-source intelligence on the undead, planners mined classic movies and popular video games, such as “World War Z,” “Night of the Living Dead,” and “Plants vs Zombies,” to devise a typology of zombies. These include those infected by a virus or mutated by radiation, as well as those caused by magic, extraterrestrials, and human engineering (“Weaponized Zombies”). There are also vegetarian zombies, which consume grain and thus threaten the US food supply.
Like any predator, zombies will go where their prey can be found. Undead armies are expected to focus on cities, as well as water sources (humans need water, but zombies don’t). While zombies don’t drive vehicles, preferring walking or running with outstretched arms, roads will be crucial transportation arteries for human soldiers as well as crowds of refugees.
CONPLAN 8888-11 is a multiphase plan to put down a zombie outbreak. Preparations will begin prewar with USSTRATCOM and intelligence agencies surveillance to detect “disease vectors that could cause zombieism.”
The US government will also try to deter anyone from creating zombies. “It is important to note that zombies are not cognizant life-forms,” USSTRATCOM pointed out. “As such, they cannot be
deterred or reasoned with in any way. However, there are zombie-inducing forces that can be deterred from further action. These forces include but are not limited to nation states and terrorist groups with [weapons of mass destruction] programs, and unethical bio-research companies.”
Once the outbreak begins, American forces will mobilize, though CONPLAN 8888-11 cautions that to avoid rattling Russia and China, there must be “confidence-building measures to ensure leaders within these nations do not construe USSTRATCOM preparations to counter zombie-dominance as preparations for war.”
Within 40 days after the outbreak, the US military will on the offensive. Once the zombies have been wiped, USSTRATCOM will assess the damage and begin reestablishing civil authority. Though some other organization will have to provide the zombie-busting boots on the ground to hold off the Zombie horde far so the military can strike it with overwhelming firepower. “USSTRATCOM has no ground combat forces capable of repelling a zombie assault,” CONPLAN 8888-11 notes. “USSTRATCOM can only deliver synchronized fires against a zombie threat via strategic air, space and maritime forces.”
This could include nuclear weapons. USSTRATCOM must “maintain emergency plans to employ nuclear weapons within CONUS [continental United States] to eradicate zombie hordes,” according to the plan.
One potential hurdle to deploying the US military is lawfare. Laws such as the Insurrection and the Posse Comitatus Acts strictly limit the deployment of the US military in domestic affairs. Though martial law would almost certainly be declared in the event of a mass zombie plague, deployment against undead who were formerly living US citizens could raise questions of Constitutional rights, as well as various international treaties and UN charters governing human rights and the conduct of war.
The question is whether zombies are still US citizens or pathogens who can be killed. “US and international law regulate military operations only insofar as human and animal life are concerned,” CONPLAN 8888-11 argued. “There are almost no restrictions on hostile actions that may be taken either defensively or offensively against pathogenic life forms, organic-robotic entities, or ‘traditional’ zombies.”
Though meant as a fun training exercise, would USSTRATCOM’s plan actually work? The US military obviously lacks experience in counter-zombie operations but has been involved in infectious disease response like the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa. It has also gained a lot of experience in responding to natural catastrophes and manmade disasters, as well as reestablishing civil authority in devastated places such as post-World War II Europe and the Middle East.
Fictional movies and books about zombies abound. We can only hope this is one real-life contingency plan that never gets dusted off.
Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.
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