Talk:Civil defense

message: Note: see also section "Civil defense vs. Emergency management" for this discussion below...
Should this article be merged with Civil protection? Both concepts of shielding the population seem to interconnect, though one could argue that CP is more accident-oriented versus CD's managing threats caused by warfare, terrorism and the like. Both articles would benefit from more contributions. Ideas?Scoo 13:06, 22 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Support I completely agree with you, "civil protection" seems to be little more than an alternative term for civil defense. The two articles describe them as if they are exactly the same. I'll propose it. Since civil defense is the more common term and also the more developed article, I'll suggest protection be merged with this article--Wikiwriter706 00:53, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Support I too agree with the proposed merge. However, Civil Protection is just as common as Civil Defense in Europe. Civil Protection has been used increaslingly post-WW2 to distance the organisation from the military. In addition, civil defense/defence has the spelling issue. I am however happy as long as the articles are merged. --rxnd ( t | € | c ) 13:29, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

text: Support. This article is mainly about the Cold War Civil Defense against nuclear attack. There already is an article United States civil defense Pustelnik (talk) 02:38, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Comment: I agree with you that they should be merged, regardless of what term. I do think civil defense is the better term, despite the spelling issue. I'm not especially familiar with the term civil protection, but civil defense seems to be a broader term. 17 Wikipedia pages link to civil protection, almost 100 link to civil defense. Google has 1.5 million more hits for "civil defense" then "civil protection" (and many more for civil defence).--Wikiwriter706 18:41, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Article Merge

message: The article is too much USA centric, which is NPOV. The truest classical civil defence system was in the soviet bloc, where it was more like a militia organization. America spent very little on CD compared to the commies. In fact USA tried to argue in SALT talks that CD in WARPAC was a kind of strategic weapon itself and so get CD banned, because USA did not want to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on underground shelters for the population. In the eastern bloc CD was mandatory study in secondary school and most storied stone buildings had their basement provided with CD accessories (steel doors, air hoses and connectors for filter drums, airlock loungues, etc). In America most houses are wood, nuke flash would burn them up. The commie underground railway stations were all big bunkers with blast doors, compressors, etc. Public transport was structured for quick evacuation of cities. CD was under military command effecitvely. It was claimed because of eastern bloc CD, soviets would emerge as "winners" after a total thermonuclear war. Of course it is impossible to test this now...
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This is true, the article is much too Anglo-American, though I doubt it isnt NPOV. Alot of Soviet CD besides the "usual" stuff like KI and Prussian Blue stockpiles, basic education and shelters were either a state secret which the Russian Federation to this day is protecting, or its a rumor that isnt confirmed, like the rail system mentioned above, so it would be rather difficult to cover the Soviet Bloc's CD plans with actual evidence to back up the rumors which everyone who studies civil defense knows to be true. So I dont think its an argument about NPOV so much as lack of hard evidence to support statements about the Communist Bloc's CD plans. Though this can in reality be said about American CD as well because the cold-war era Emergency Plans Book was reclassified as Secret (though without a known UKUSA Codeword like SPOKE or UMBRA) about a year after it was declassified in the late 90's.
Fadamsxii
::I found this article looking for what the prohibited civil defence symbol looks like that the Canadian law states is prohibited for use as a trademark. It was described as a blue triangle on an orange field, and said to be an internationally protected symbol according to the Geneva Convention (similar to the red cross/crescent/diamond/lion and sun). This is quite apparently not the symbol shown on this page though, and doesn't appear to be anywhere at all. --Puellanivis 23:16, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article too America-centric.! 

message: The Swiss have had effective civil defense for decades. The Federal Office of Civil Protection is in charge of Switzerland's shelter network, which has blast and radiation shelters for 95% of the population. Blast doors and all. With the Soviet threat being less, the shelters are being kept on standby, but they're still there.
Every year, on the first Wednesday in February, all 8,500 sirens in Switzerland are tested, sounding the General Alarm.
They're ready.
This article is in serious need of a rewrite. Anyone reading this would think reading the page that it is only about WMD's and nuclear war. Whilst that is where CD was born, the modern version of CD/CP and emergency management takes an all-hazards approach. This article therefore needs more information regarding the range of events that CD is designed to deal with - floods, earthquakes, tornados, cyclones, transportation accidents, volcanic eruptions etc. --Rediguananz 05:34, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Swiss Civil Protection 

message: It does seem as though much of this article is misspelt.
Please do note this article:
< http://wonkette.com/politics/civil-defense/proud-symbol-of-fear-replaced-by-wuss-emblem-218733.php >;
* ; see archive --Thnidu (talk) 05:45, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[article]] [[offense]] 

message: * Did either Richard Widmark or John Wayne members of Hollywood Civil Defense WW 2? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 134.53.145.104 (talk) 14:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Members of Civil Defense WW 2?

message: I am a graphic designer and find the discussion on this page, as well as the references in the article, to the various CD logos fascinating! However as a reader I find the occasional in-dwelling of the topic throughout the article distracting to the overall flow. I suggest creating an "Insignia" section and moving the pertinent information there. Any objections? Parradoxx 17:59, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Insignia 

message: In the United States, in any case, Civil Defense has been criticized since the 1950s and is practically lampooned today (see e.g. ), yet you'd never get any impression from this article that it was controversial, especially in a nuclear-war context. There were many quite prominent people—as well as many quite ordinary people—who thought that Civil Defense was just a way for the government to try and cover up the big threat of nuclear war, and that many of the promises of Civil Defense were empty and hollow (especially since adequate funding and maintenance for all of the many things required were not provided, and much of the financial burden was just shifted onto individuals). Anyway—all I'm saying is that perhaps there should be some small section on criticisms of Civil Defense, and maybe some of the "Civil defense will save millions of lives!" line can be made a bit more neutral ("Advocates of civil defense claim...), etc. At the moment the article is not very neutral according to Wikipedia's NPOV standards, as it does not represent a significant historical point of view and presents only one side of the story. (Note that I am not myself taking any particular side—I think the criticisms of CD are often far off the mark and result from a misunderstanding of what CD was meant to be about, i.e. it was obviously not going to save people at the epicenter of a nuclear blast, but was intended for those outside of the immediate sphere of destruction for whom a little preparation would help a lot with blast effects). --24.147.86.187 (talk) 02:29, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article lacks criticisms 

message: I removed the remark in the introduction that "It (Civil defense) can be compared to total war". That is comparing apples and oranges. I agree that concepts of total war, as far as they may exist today, will probably incorporate the respective countries civil defense network. But civil defense in itself, as defined in and protected by the Geneva conventions, is not about waging war, but protecting the population in the case of a war. So while there clearly is an relationship between war and civil defense, the above mentioned equalisation seems wildly inappropriate. -- 790 ♫ 20:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Total war 

message: This article seemed incomplete from the perspective of the use of homeland guards in the Civil War, even for that matter taking only 300 Spartans to war at Thermopylae, leaving the rest of Sparta protected and battle ready.  Population protection was noted as being more important than any other economic consideration in the face of the veritable certainty of mass starvation, Rwanda style, when too much population ends up overtaxing and then collapsing the resource and distribution profile of the available infrastructure.  Further research will show that in fact and even in popular literature, civil defense was of paramount, and actually INCREASING, importance during WWI and WWII, when defending military targets and populations against, especially, air raids.
It is also inaccurate to say that civil defense was neglected during the Cold War.  Stockpiles of goods are still on public display at Mammoth Cave National Park, and a reporter sampled (much to her disappointment) 50 year old crackers found in the New York subway system just a couple of years ago on a national morning news show.  Evidently, nobody told her that crackers contain a good deal of shortening, which eventually goes rancid on its own and tastes like barf.
Further, to suggest that biological and chemical warfare were neglected is to ignore the history of the CDC, the writing of the Andromeda Strain, and that Adolf Hitler was permanently injured by a mustard gas attack in WWI.  In fact, the Mongols were known to catapult diseased carcasses and smallpox infected detritus over town walls to intentionally spread disease.  Sarin was actually developed by the Third Reich, but was thankfully never used in combat or atop a V-2.  Burning and burying infected or contaminated materials is one of the earliest forms of civil defense.
I recommend this article be pulled.   
24.13.128.93 (talk) 03:46, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Civil Defense 

message: Despite what "The National Emergency Management Association" might say it is just not true that the name and logo have been "officially retired". The name and logo, continue to be used by Hawaii State Civil Defense  and Guam Homeland Security/Office of Civil Defense . I have added this into the article but I think this needs to be addresses further. LCpl (talk) 19:57, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Current Usage

message: (⇈ That's a joke, folks. ⇈) This article is full of bad spelling and bad grammar, and needs serious copyediting. If no one else takes it I'll put it on my list. --Thnidu, Member WP:GOCE (talk) 05:39, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bad speling, gramr too 

message: Just on Merkin C.D.; Does anyone else remember the tidy yard versus untidy yard video? It showed two houses next to each other, one with a t...& one with an u..., some smoke, smoke clears, u. house razed to the ground, t. house untouched. Obvious bullshit. But fucking good comedy. 180.200.155.205 (talk) 19:03, 10 December 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Do not add such things to articles unless you can provide the specific film, and ideally, secondary sources that discuss it. ʍw 01:16, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fuckin' Ridiculous 

message: I've removed template:refimprove from the top of the article.  This tag had been in place for 7.5 years.  The article has 27 citations, 28 external links, and numerous interlinks to other articles.  Those templates are not meant to be a permanent decoration at the top of articles.  If further citations are needed, please use an inline tag instead, such as . Etamni | ✉ | ✓  13:24, 11 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed refimprove template/tag  

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I've noticed a few instances of this logo outside the U.S., even though it was developed by the U.S. federal government, not by NATO or any other multi-national organization. For instance, I've seen it painted on the side of Canadar water bombers operating in France. Is anyone aware of other uses, and documentation thereof?PetesGuide (talk) (K6WEB) 23:49, 12 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Coverage of use outside the U.S. 

message: This sentence in the article:
They could deal with an individual magnesium electron incendiary bomb by dousing it with buckets of sand or water or by smothering. 
-is slightly controversial if you compare with: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elektron_(alloy)#Uses 
which says the contrary:
"Trying to douse the fire with water only intensified the reaction. "
Probably the source of the first statement needs to be looked at to clarify. 
89.134.199.32 (talk) 20:21, 13 October 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  incendiary bombs doused with water? 

message: As one editor noted:
"As the war progressed, the military effectiveness of Germany's aerial bombardment was very limited. Thanks to the Luftwaffe's shifting aims, the strength of British air defenses, the use of early warning radar and the life-saving actions of local civil defense units, the aerial "Blitz" during the Battle of Britain failed to break the morale of the British people, destroy the Royal Air Force or significantly hinder British industrial production. Despite a significant investment in civil and military defense, British civilian losses during the Blitz were higher than in most strategic bombing campaigns throughout the war. For example, there were 14,000-20,000 UK civilian fatalities during the Battle of Britain, a relatively high number considering that the Luftwaffe dropped only an estimated 30,000 tons of ordinance during the battle. Granted, this resulting 0.47-0.67 civilian fatalities per ton of bombs dropped was lower than the earlier 121 casualties per ton prediction. However, in comparison, Allied strategic bombing of Germany during the war proved slightly less lethal than what was observed in the UK,[dubious  – discuss] with an estimated 400,000-600,000 German civilian fatalities for approximately 1.35 million tons of bombs dropped on Germany, an estimated resulting rate therefore of 0.30-0.44 civilian fatalities per ton of bombs dropped."
Is a poorly worded paragraph, as it beings talking about "effectiveness" but then changes to only measuring fatalities. The difference in bomb tonnage also reflects a difference in targets, which would include strategic (and sometimes tactical) targets with significantly fewer civilians in proximity. Measuring "effectiveness" of an aerial campaign by number of (civilian) casualties isn't of much use at all. I think we could simply strike the leading statement as use something more along the lines of:
"As a result of the Luftwaffe's shifting aims, the strength of British air defenses, the use of early warning radar and the life-saving actions of local civil defense units, the aerial "Blitz" during the Battle of Britain failed to break the morale of the British people, destroy the Royal Air Force or significantly hinder British industrial production. Despite a significant investment in civil and military defense, British civilian losses during the Blitz were higher than in most strategic bombing campaigns throughout the war. For example, there were 14,000-20,000 UK civilian fatalities during the Battle of Britain, a relatively high number considering that the Luftwaffe dropped only an estimated 30,000 tons of ordinance during the battle. Granted, this resulting 0.47-0.67 civilian fatalities per ton of bombs dropped was lower than the earlier 121 casualties per ton prediction. However, in comparison, Allied strategic bombing of Germany during the war proved slightly less lethal than what was observed in the UK,[dubious  – discuss] with an estimated 400,000-600,000 German civilian fatalities for approximately 1.35 million tons of bombs dropped on Germany, an estimated resulting rate therefore of 0.30-0.44 civilian fatalities per ton of bombs dropped." Lostsandwich (talk) 09:38, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dubious claim?