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Civil Defense in the SDI Era
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13844 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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12 / 1988 |
3,356 Words |
| Author
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Richard E. Sincere, Jr.
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True or false? In an all-out nuclear attack against the United States, only 5 percent of our land area would be directly affected by blast and heat. (True.)
True or false? In an all-out nuclear attack against the United States, 60 to 80 million people will survive—even if no efforts are made to protect them. (True.)
True or False? The American commitment to human life and dignity has resulted in a civil defense program as good as the one in the Soviet Union. (False.)
These three simple facts alert us to a certain incongruity in Reagan administration defense policy. Few of us would accuse the administration of logical inconsistency in its approach to strategic issues. Since taking office in 1981, the president and his cabinet have emphasized the need for strengthening the strategic forces, the defense budget has grown, and since 1983 a new focus on strategic defense has developed.
But at the same time that the administration has redoubled its efforts to move the United States ever farther from the obsolete doctrine known as MAD—Mutual Assured Destruction—by emphasizing strategic defense, and despite an initial disposition to spend more money on civilian protection measures, it has made dangerous cuts in the nation's civil defense program, which at present is our only shield against nuclear destruction.
In a memorandum prepared for the Heritage Foundation, policy analyst Brain Green writes:
"OMB has proposed that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) have a civil defense budget of $119 million, roughly 40 percent cut from its current level of $181 million, and 60 percent below FEMA's original $285 million request. One of the central facets of the civil defense effort was the crisis relocation program designed to evacuate Americans from high risk areas during times of crisis. The FEMA budget cut apparently spells the effective end of this program. Programs to improve emergency operation centers (used for controlling natural and war related disasters), to survey buildings for use as fallout shelters, to stock and mark those shelters, to protect vital industries, and to research remaining civil defense problems all have been slashed or halted. The result: FEMA's past efforts to protect the American public from nuclear attack will come to naught. It marks the end of the Reagan modernization and expansion of U.S. civil defense efforts."
That was written in early 1985, but the situation has not changed since then. While each budget since 1986 has featured a slight increase in civil defense funding, these appropriations have done little more than maintain the skeletal civil defense program at the same levels, allowing for inflation and hardly anything else.
The irony is that Ronald Reagan has been one of America's strongest proponents of civil defense since his days as governor of California. Is it possible that the president is unaware of the actions of the OMB and their consequences? Consider what he said in a telegram to the American Civil Defense Association in November 1984: "My administration firmly believes that the purpose of our country's defense capability should be to protect the lives and property of the American people. … [But]
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