I wonder if Dan Drezner knows about this? The folks at the Pentagon who’ve got a contingency plan for just about everything have a contingency plan for dealing with a zombie apocalypse:
The U.S. military has always been the one place in government with a plan, forever in preparation mode and ready to yank a blueprint off the shelf for almost any contingency. Need a response for a Russian nuclear missile launch? Check. Have to rescue a U.S. ambassador kidnapped by drug lords? Yup, check, got that covered. How about a detailed strategy for surviving a zombie apocalypse? As it turns out, check.
The plan was apparently put together as a training exercise for assembling contingency plans. And, I assume, fun.
The plan reviews, extensively, the various phases of saving the world from zombie rule and reads not unlike the phases of a counterinsurgency campaign: from "shape" to "deter" to "seize initiative" to "dominate" to "stabilize" and, finally, in the final, confidence-building phase, "restore civil authority." That final phase includes the directive to "prepare to redeploy the forces to attack surviving zombie holdouts."
There are several aspects of this plan I’m curious about. It’s unclear to me, for example, how one would go about determining whether a member of Congress were a zombie.
I have the cookbook, somewhere.
Steve
It’s unclear to me, for example, how one would go about determining whether a member of Congress were a zombie.
Easy. See if they can still remember the requirements to get on the ballot in their district. Alternately, give them some cash and see what they offer to do for you. If they’re willing to do anything, they’re probably not a zombie, but a vampire.
You’re saying that John Conyers is a zombie?
Effectively brain-dead, yes. Put him in front of a Congressional intern and see if he tries to eat through their skull to the tasty brains inside. That would be the final test.
Just shoot them. If they get up and walk, it is a zombie. If they don’t, we come out ahead.