Happy Wednesday, unexpected headlines.
Foreign Policy has obtained an unclassified Department of Defense document detailing a response plan should the United States come under attack from the extras on “The Walking Dead.” It’s a “joke” inasmuch as its plausibility, of course — but it’s serious for the purposes of military training.
“This plan was not actually designed as a joke,” the document’s disclaimer reads. “During the summers of 2009 and 2010 … members of a USSTRATCOM component found out (by accident) that the hyperbole involved in writing a ‘zombie survival plan’ actually provided a very useful and effective training tool.”
The disclaimer added that the absurdity of the zombie scenario mitigated the risk of the training being interpreted as a real-world preparatory measure should it become public knowledge — swap in “Tunisia” or “Nigeria,” for instance, two countries used as examples at a National Defense University component, and matters could be taken out of context.
The entire document is worth the read, as well as FP’s full write-up. Both are here.
(Good news: “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,'” domestically or internationally. That’s doubtlessly comforting to Rick and company.)
