The policy of the Carter administration is to increase substantially civil defense expenditures. In terms of moiney it is not a “majority priority,” since the administration plans to lock us into overall military expenditures on the order of $1.8 trillion in 1977 dollars by 1988. The justification for the increased civil defense expenditure’ is that it is a “modest” increase in response to demands for a much bigger program and a counter to the Soviet program. There is a strong pork barrel element in the program too. Just as civil defense was the justification for building the nation's highway, system, it is now being quietly presented to local officials as a way to get some money into local communities in a time of austerity. It is also a way to buy off opposition to a SALT treaty, or so it is thought.

All such justifications for the program are utterly irresponsible. To spend billions on civil defense when crucial programs essential to the strength of the nation are being slashed is pathological. Appeasing critics of the SALT treaty by throwing them a “harmless” bone is self-defeating, for the program lends credibility to their view of reality, not that of the treaty advocates, and creates a climate in which it is easier to defeat the treaty.

While the Carter administration is clearly paying more attention to civil defense and will undoubtedly request more funding for crisisrelocation planning, this does not yet constitute giving "major priority" to civil defense. Most policymakers seem to believe civil defense can play only a very limited role in mitigating the effects of nuclear weapons.

Many of the questions related to the desirability or undesirability of more stress on civil defense are essentially unanswerable. We simply cannot know with assurance how it will affect U.S. security or the chances of nuclear war. Plausible points can be made on both sides, but it is mostly speculation. Nobody who feels strongly one way or the other is likely to have his views changed. The debate will be predictably inconclusive.