Civil defense (civil defence), (see spelling differences) or civil protection is an effort to protect the citizens of a state (generally non-combatants) from military attack. It uses the principles of emergency operations: prevention, mitigation, preparation, response, or emergency evacuation, and recovery. Programmes of this sort were initially discussed at least as early as the 1920s and were implemented in many countries, but only became widespread in the USA after the threat of nuclear weapons was realised.
Since the end of the Cold War, the focus of civil defense has largely shifted from military attack to emergencies and disasters in general. The new concept is described by a number of terms, each of which has its own specific shade of meaning, such as crisis management, emergency management, emergency preparedness, contingency planning, emergency services, and civil protection.
In some countries, civil defense is seen as a key part of "total defense". For example in Sweden, the Swedish word totalförsvar refers to the commitment of a wide range of resources of the nation to its defense - including to civil protection.
Read more about Civil Protection: History, Importance, Threat Assessment, Implementation, Civil Defense Organizations
Famous quotes containing the words civil and/or protection:
“The lakes are something which you are unprepared for; they lie up so high, exposed to the light, and the forest is diminished to a fine fringe on their edges, with here and there a blue mountain, like amethyst jewels set around some jewel of the first water,—so anterior, so superior, to all the changes that are to take place on their shores, even now civil and refined, and fair as they can ever be.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We cannot spare our children the influence of harmful values by turning off the television any more than we can keep them home forever or revamp the world before they get there. Merely keeping them in the dark is no protection and, in fact, can make them vulnerable and immature.”
—Polly Berrien Berends (20th century)