Does the us government have a zombie protocol
Executive summary
The U.S. government does have a publicly available document titled CONPLAN (or CONOP) 8888 — "Counter-Zombie Dominance" — but it is a deliberately fictionalized contingency plan created as a training exercise for military planners rather than an indication that officials genuinely expect a zombie apocalypse [1] [2]. The document is unclassified and meant to teach contingency planning concepts; it has been widely reported and excerpted by media outlets and scholars as an instructive oddity rather than a literal operational directive [3] [4].
1. What CONPLAN 8888 actually is: a training tool packaged as a plan
CONPLAN 8888 was authored in 2011 by officers at U.S. Strategic Command as a planning exercise within the Joint Operation Planning and Execution System; its stated purpose was to provide a politically neutral, wholly fictional scenario that would let planners practice contingency planning without targeting a real country or actor [1] [2]. The document defines zombie classes, phases of response, and tasks for military and civil authorities in the stylized language of contingency plans, and the authors explicitly framed it as a useful teaching tool, not a prediction or work product intended for direct operational use [2] [5].
2. How the plan reads and why it captured public attention
CONPLAN 8888 maps familiar military concepts — shape, deter, seize initiative, dominate, stabilize, and restore civil authority — onto the anomaly of "zombies," producing a readable and amusing example of doctrinal planning while also laying out multiphase responses, surveillance, and support tasks that mirror responses to real disasters or outbreaks [4] [3]. Because the plan is unclassified and available via U.S. Strategic Command sources, journalists and popular outlets have repeatedly described it as “the Pentagon’s plan for zombies,” which amplified public interest and occasional misunderstandings about its intent [2] [6].
3. Legal and ethical caveats the public debate often misses
Reporting notes that while the plan treats zombies as nonhuman for the sake of doctrine, real-world questions about civil liberties, constitutional constraints, and international law would complicate any actual domestic deployment of military force against people formerly recognized as citizens — a point raised by analysts covering CONPLAN 8888 [3] [4]. The plan’s rhetorical freedom to “eradicate zombie threats” is pedagogical; commentators and historians emphasize that existing laws governing the use of force were not written with the undead in mind and that the military’s real authority to operate domestically remains constrained by statute and policy [7] [3].
4. Other agencies and the cultural resonance of “zombie preparedness”
Beyond the Pentagon’s exercise, the Centers for Disease Control used zombie imagery as a public-engagement tool for emergency preparedness, producing “Preparedness 101: Zombie Pandemic” to teach kit and evacuation basics—an approach the CDC framed as educational rather than literal [8] [9]. The convergence of a Strategic Command planning exercise and the CDC’s outreach helped create a durable popular narrative that the government “has a zombie plan,” blurring the line between metaphorical training, public outreach, and literal contingency planning in media coverage [7] [10].
5. Where reporting diverges and what remains unaddressed
Most sources agree the document exists, is unclassified, and was designed for training, yet some outlets present it with sensational headlines that imply imminent governmental belief in zombies; the original authors’ intent to avoid politicizing exercises by inventing an impossible adversary is a central corrective emphasized in primary documents and Foreign Policy’s reporting [2] [4]. The assembled reporting does not provide evidence that CONPLAN 8888 was ever operationalized as an actual national policy or that other federal agencies maintain literal zombie-response orders beyond educational exercises like the CDC’s campaign [2] [8].
6. Bottom line
Yes — a U.S. military planning document called CONPLAN/CONOP 8888 exists and outlines a fictional zombie-dominance response, but it is a teaching device and public-facing, unclassified artifact rather than proof that the government sincerely anticipates undead threats or has an operational “zombie protocol” ready to deploy; journalists, historians, and official disclaimers consistently characterize it as a creative training exercise and public-engagement tool [1] [2] [4].