In 2011 a plan drafted by the U.S. Government called CONPLAN 8888-11, “Counter-Zombie Dominance” was revealed to the public. The document details a strategy to defend against a zombie attack. And, yes, it’s real.
We verified that the U.S. Government did in fact publish this report. And while reading it, we discovered some truly fresh thinking. In its own way it was innovatively brilliant—especially coming from a place where we might not expect such creative thinking, the United States Government.
Creators of the tongue and cheek “Counter-Zombie Dominance” document purposely chose zombies to disrupt their own tired-out thinking. The design of the plan produced serious strategic value. It is used to help defense plan creators and trainers explore unexpected, unplanned-for threats and learn how to strategically develop defenses for any possible variable or threat.
According to the DISCLAIMER in CONPLAN 8888-11, document creators write, “This plan was not actually designed as a joke. During the summers of 2009 and 2010, while training augmentees from a local training squadron about JOPP, members of the 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.”
Basically, planners realized that disruptive political fallout could ensue if they were to train using specific named enemies. By using zombies as the enemies, planners avoided the risk of the public assuming there was a real current threat, but more importantly they opened a new level of thinking—the fictional nature allowed planners to break out of their old mindsets.
A U.S. Government ‘Zombie’ Plan?
A U.S. Government ‘Zombie’ Plan?
Ericson Report 