ABSTRACT
The purpose of the emergency-readiness and tension-mobilization programs is to help deter crises and tension situations—and, if this crisis deterrence fails, to alleviate the consequences. A mobilization program is more sensitive to questions of cost and efficiency and to the needs of competing programs, especially military programs. The lack of emergency-readiness and mobilization capability seems to be the largest single defect in the programed damage-limitation systems. One should, however, be sensitive to the problems that would arise in creating an anti-ballistic missile tension-mobilization base. In some ways, emergency-readiness and tension-mobilization programs play the same role in relation to the distinction between usual international relations and crisis situations as the normal military establishment plays in the distinction between peace and war. Crisis civil-defense preparations should include some mixture of paper plans for evacuation, training of relevant persons.
