Introduction

This introduction describes the scope of the book and its methodological approach. It defines key concepts such as “civil defense,” “garrison state,” and “agitation” that are employed in the subsequent chapters. It also provides an outline of the book and previews its arguments.

Conclusion

This conclusion describes some general findings about the historical evolution of civil defense in the two superpowers over the course of the Cold War. Neither U.S. nor Soviet officials regarded their civil defense efforts as successful, but the shortcomings of the programs appear to have resulted from domestic political obstacles rather than technical, strategic, and budgetary considerations. In the United States, Congressional opponents blocked large-scale funding for civil defense before its unpopularity with the general public became a crippling obstacle. In the Soviet Union, ideological strictures simultaneously impelled the development of civil defense yet undermined its plausibility. This chapter also makes some observations about post-Cold War developments in U.S. and Russian civil defense and their possible policy implications.

The “Oh My God!” Phase

This chapter examines the way in which the discovery of the fallout effects of thermonuclear weapons effected the development of American and Soviet civil defense during the mid-late 1950s. The realization that the fallout from large hydrogen bombs could produce potentially lethal radiation hazards over areas hundreds or thousands or miles away from the detonations undermined the assumptions that underpinned civil defense planning a few years prior. American and Soviet civil defense officials attempted to use fallout as an argument for more extensive civil defense programs. This gambit backfired in both superpowers as sceptical political leaders curtailed civil defense rather than expanding it. In the United States, Dwight Eisenhower sidestepped pressure from civil defense advocates in Congress via institutional reforms whose practical effect was to increase the institutional responsibilities of civil defense while significantly reducing federal funding for them. In the USSR, civil defense skeptics convinced the mercurial Nikita Khrushchev to shutter the Soviet civil defense program altogether at the end of 1959.

Strategy for Survival

This chapter describes the evolution of the superpowers’ civil defense programs from the mid-1970s until the end of the Cold War. In the mid-1970s, the contrast between the USSR’s extensive civil defense effort and its moribund U.S. counterpart led to considerable anxiety that the Kremlin might see civil defense as a usable source of strategic advantage. Rebuffed in their efforts to convince the USSR to negotiate limits on its civil defense program, the Carter administration decided to revive U.S. civil defense on the basis of a strategic evacuation concept dubbed “Crisis Relocation Planning,” which the Reagan administration also pursued. Simultaneously, civil defense for nuclear war and peacetime emergency management were combined into a single agency, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Ironically, not only did Soviet leaders not perceive their civil defense program as a useable source of advantage, they grew increasingly sceptical of its utility throughout this period. The 1986 Chernobyl disaster accelerated this process and led to the reinvention of Soviet civil defense as a peacetime emergency management organization.

The Window of Survivability

Prior to the introduction of thermonuclear weapons in the mid-1950s, civil defense to protect civilian populations appeared relatively plausible. Despite these apparently favourable conditions, both U.S. and Soviet civil defense failed to actualize their ambitious institutional goals. This chapter examines the political and institutional reasons for this failure. Even after the death of Stalin enabled a reappraisal of the USSR’s stultifying strictures on permissible discussions of nuclear weapons, official ideology and obsessive secrecy still crippled civil defense. The insistence that the highest level of Party leadership approve assumptions about nuclear war made it impossible for the program to respond to rapid strategic and technological developments. In the United States, the opposition of a handful of well-placed opponents in Congress limited funding to a small fraction of that which civil defense officials sought.

The Real Mineshaft Gap

This chapter tracks the development of U.S. and Soviet civil defense from the beginning of the 1960s until the mid-1970s. The 1961 Berlin Crisis compelled both superpowers to reinvigorate their civil defense programs. Soviet civil defense was transferred into the Ministry of Defense and renamed “Grazhdanskaia oborona” (civil defense). Similarly, President Kennedy transferred civil defense to the Department of Defense and endorsed a program based on developing community fallout shelters in existing buildings. But from the mid-1960s, the superpowers’ civil defense programs increasingly diverged. Congressional opposition and the assassination of President Kennedy deprived the community shelter program of funding. The ascent of Leonid Brezhnev to the apex of the Soviet leadership, by contrast, empowered military interests who secured substantial resources for Soviet civil defense by the mid-1970s.

Inauspicious Beginnings

This chapter examines the development of civil defense in the United States and Soviet Union up until the early 1950s. The predecessors of civil defense first appeared during the 19th century, but it only fully blossomed with the introduction of strategic bombing. Both the United States and Soviet Union possessed large civil defense organizations during the Second World War, but these proved ill-adapted to the requirements of the nuclear age in the postwar period. This chapter argues that the failure of the United States and the Soviet Union to pursue civil defense against nuclear weapons during the late 1940s can be attributed to domestic political factors as opposed to technical obstacles or strategic considerations. This tardy start left both superpowers ill-prepared when they decided to develop passive defenses to protect their populations form nuclear attack in the following decade.