-- Critt Jarvis (middleground@critt.com), April 14, 1999

Answers

As you can see, there is no sane reason to expect an authoritarian domestic military response.

This was delivered to me and scanned. I do not believe it contains classified information, and was not marked with any access restrictions. It seems to have been distributed in February 1999.

I have also seen recent studies describing great uncertainty re: electrical supply due to a history of widespread outages caused by small, concurrent malfunctions. There appears to be no way to predict what will happen until it does.

I am not directly involved in federal Y2K efforts, but I hane seen no evidence of a hidden agenda. There is great concern over the level of public uncertainty, and how it produces opportunities for exploitation. There are some wild cards in the deck, but severe domestic disruption direectly caused by Y2K failures is not considered likely in the short term. The international repercussions are far more complex and unpredictable.

Posting is very risky, and I will wait a long time before posting again. However I know of at least 2 postings "signed" by me that I did not make. Fellow travelers? (inside joke)

Keep your common sense.

MEMORANDUM FOR SECRETARIES OF THE MILITARY DEPARTMENTS CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF UNDER SECRETARIES OF DEFENSE ASSISTANT SECRETARIES OF DEFENSE GENERAL COUNSEL OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE INSPECTOR GENERAL OF THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE ASSISTANTS TO THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE DIRECTOR, ADMINISTRATION AND MANAGEMENT DIRECTORS OF THE DEFENSE AGENCIES CHIEF, NATIONAL GUARD BUREAU

SUBJECT: DoD Year 2000 (Y2K) Support to Civil Authorities

References:

a. DoD Directive 3025.1, Military Support to Civil Authorities (MSCA), dated I 1 93.

b. DoD Directive 3 025.15, Military Assistance to Civil -Authorities (MACA), dated 15 February 1997.

c. DoD Directive 5 100.46, Foreign Disaster Relief, dated 4 December 1975.

In order to ensure its operational readiness, the Department is engaged in a sustained and comprehensive program of Y2K systems, network, and Operational testing, as well as contingency assessments. The results of these efforts are demonstrating that the Department will remain fully mission capable throughout the millenium change. Similar efforts in the public and private sectors have resulted in great strides toward Y2K compliance. Despite these efforts, it is possible that localized system failures will occur, and that the possibility for more widespread, systemic problems, both domestically and internationally, cannot be ruled out.

Accordingly, the Department is taking prudent action to ensure its ability to meet its national security responsibilities and, consistent with those responsibilities, to respond to requests for assistance from civil authorities both domestically and overseas throughout the Y2K date transition period. To that end, the Mowing guidance is provided.

DoD support to civil authorities will only be provided in accordance with applicable law, DoD directives, and implementing Service regulations. The above references provide broad authority, direction, and evaluation criteria for DoD responses to civil emergencies and disasters. They have been tested in numerous situations and have proved to be effective.

However past DoD responses typically have been applied to localized acute situations, most of which have not been simultaneous. By contrast the Y2K problem, has the potential to involve a large number of events that occur over broad geographic areas, within a short time frame.

The broad, near-simultaneous, systemic nature of potential problems during the Y2K date transition could lead to two types of stresses on DoD resources and operational readiness:

Immediate responses that appear rational from a local perspective, but could collectively undermine the Department's ability to execute operational missions, and

Prioritizations, which are made on the basis of requests as they are received, but which may quickly become outdated as higher priority requests are received for support already committed elsewhere.

Against this background, it is important to establish a set of criteria that more clearly establishes the Department's focus and response to domestic and foreign requests for military assistance. Accordingly, this memorandum amplifies existing guidance both to utilize and to protect DoD resources for warfighting priorities through the Y2K date transition.

As a basic principle, commanders will not compromise operational readiness in providing support to civil authorities. As directed in reference b, all requests by civil authorities for military assistance shall be evaluated by DoD approval authorities against their impact on DoD's ability to perform its primary national security missions. Within the United States, local commanders may undertake immediate, unilateral, emergency response actions that involve measures to save lives, prevent human suffering, or mitigate great property damage, only when time does not permit approval by higher headquarters. Overseas, immediate response may be undertaken when time is of the essence and humanitarian considerations require action.

Except for immediate response as described above, requests for DoD support will be considered only if submitted through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) or appropriate offices of the Department of State. The National Guard will continue its traditional role of providing military support to civil authorities through their respective State Governors, and will simultaneously ensure its ability to respond to national security requirements. Accordingly, the following priorities will be adhered to in responding to domestic emergencies and to any Department of State requests for foreign DoD assistance throughout the Y2K transition period. For the purpose of this memorandum, the Y2K transition date period is defined to be from 1 September 1999 through 31 March 2000.

Priority 1. The Department will retain the capability to take all actions necessary to carry out its essential national security missions. Military units and organizations, to include the Reserve Components, with the assignments indicated below will not divert resources during the Y2K date transition that could compromise operational readiness without the authorization of the Secretary of Defense or his designated representative.

a. Direct support to the National Command Authority.

b. Conduct of ongoing or imminent military operations.

c. Conduct of ongoing or imminent intelligence operations.

d. Conduct of nuclear command and control.

e. Maintenance of Defense and commercial infrastructures essential to support of the above.

Priority 2. Except for immediate response situations. resources in military units and combat support organizations, to include the Reserve Components, assigned to support standing operations plans must be monitored closely particularly if they fall within early execution (first 60 days) of Timed Phased Force and Deployment Data (TPFDD). Responses to requests for consumable or irrecoverable resources in this category must be approved by the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) or his designated representative.

Priority 3: Maintenance of domestic public health and safety. Such activities may include:

a. Maintenance of emergency services (e.g., fire, ambulance, police, hospitals, and related communications).

b. Maintenance of air traffic, rail, port, and ship navigation systems (e.g., Air Traffic Control System).

c. Food distribution.

d. Support to public information dissemination (press, television, and radio).

Priority 4: Maintenance of the economy and the Nation's quality of life. These activities include, for example:

a. Support to other Federal Agencies

b. Support to local mass transit systems.

Adjudication of FEMA and State Department requests involving multiple, systemic, or seemingly equal priority requests for domestic MSCA or Foreign Disaster Assistance (FDA) that could affect the Department's ability to conduct the above operations, will be made by the Secretary of Defense or his designated representative in consultation with:

7 Secretary of the Army (for domestic requests for MSCA), 7 The CJCS and appropriate CINCs (for FDA requests).

This policy memo is the first in a series designed to ensure the Department's ability to effectively respond to the many and varied demands that may be placed upon it during the Y2K date transition period. I solicit your active and continuous support as we prepare to meet these potential challenges.

-- (Busy@the.top), April 14, 1999.

Busy@the.top,

Thanks for this posting, a sane and common-sensical counterweight to some of the fantasies in other threads.

-- No Spam Please (No_Spam_Please@anon_ymous.com), April 15, 1999.

Pull the other one.

Why, No Spam, were the DOD caught LYING, TWICE, in 1998. Blatant lying to the press. Just like that weasel spokesman for Clinton that said the Joint Chiefs Of Staff were in unanimous and full support of Clinton's illegal strike on a sovereign country.

Facts are facts - dispute these three if you dare.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), April 15, 1999.

Is this busy@the.Top or not (hard to know, isn't it)? Busy, what do you think of this scenario?

If I were a gov planner and ESPECIALLY a paranoid one, I would be hoping desperately for relative tranquillity in U.S. WITHOUT martial law since that could quickly produce a situation wildly OUT of control

GIVEN

That I would rather exercise my paranoia on what is likely to be the most dangerous international situation in the past 60 years. The last thing I would want is U.S. "enemies" abroad watching U.S. disintegrating internally with American soldiers on indefinite patrol in the streets.

Would I have plans available for controlling URBAN riots or unrest? Yes, have to. Might I do various data collections throughout 1999 on "militia" or "survivalists"? Hey, why not? But if the countryside can take care of itself and the cities can be quieted quickly and maintained at a low simmer throughout 2000 without anything even resembling martial law, I will be ecstatic.

That way I can get back to anticipating and handling worldwide chaos and its impacts on U.S. .....

Just busyHere@the.Bottom

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), April 15, 1999.

That, BTW, is my scenario on the good days. My downbeat scenario: don't ask.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), April 15, 1999.

I vote that the document is real. It seems rational. The writer almost has to be steeped in military writing style to come up with something that reads like that. I didn't find anything in the document surprising, so I can't imagine that anyone would waste a bunch of time generating a non-controversial piece.

-- Puddintame (achillesg@hotmail.com), April 15, 1999.

The message reads very much like a detailed DoD implementation of the principles set out by Janet Abrams (Koskinen's deputy director) in this Transcript from 17 December 1998:

[snippet]

In addition to getting them to become Y2K compliant with their own systems, we need to get them prepared for the unique experience that we may all encounter in 12 months because this will not be business as usual in the emergency response world.

We may have a situation of lots of small disruptions across the country -- a small utility, a power plant out, a water purification plant out in another community.

These are situations that in usual times you might be able to call on the state or the federal government to help solve, but we are stressing to our local officials that they're going to have to take care of these problems on our own.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), April 15, 1999.

"... the Y2K transition date period is defined to be from 1 September 1999 through 31 March 2000"

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), April 15, 1999.

Leska, thanks for catching the timeframe; please, everybody, be done with prep prior to Sept. 1. There are 4 1/2 good months left....

Sept 1........ God. This is like the panic when you're in line to see the principle, and you realize "Oh, God, I'm next" because the time has come.

As Hunter Thompson said, I'm starting to get THE FEAR.

-- Lisa (oh@man.no), April 15, 1999.

Hi Lisa :^) Nothing like an official date with reality, eh?

We've focused to:  Get preps done, then relax, have a sense of adventure, immediately develop/hold onto birthright personal relationship with God, express love to those we care about. It's too big to worry about! Not much fear anymore ... glad Spring & sun are here ;-)

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), April 15, 1999.

Leska,

That "transition" window jumped out at me too.

Only, from other stuff read, I'd expand it from July 1st 1999 to June- ish 2000. Perhaps call July the "be done with preps," and be settled where you plan to be deadline.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), April 15, 1999.

Hey, Scottster! Some pretty amazing brain power here, huh?

Lisa, Amen my friend.

~C~

-- Critt Jarvis (middleground@critt.com), April 15, 1999.

Diane, July 1 would be even smarter. You know, we don't think there will be a panic, because the media has a vise on the happy face dumbing/trivializing down. At least we have enough stuff to not have to try to shop if frenzy breaks out. But we don't have enough stuff to survive long-term. Say ta-ta-la vi ;^)

So there's a "transition date period" but nothing 'official' yet re cascading failures/lingering/aftereffects timeline. It's the long-term devolutionary haul that will wear many out ...

But today is gorgeous indeed :^)

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), April 15, 1999.

"I have also seen recent studies describing great uncertainty re: electrical supply due to a history of widespread outages caused by small, concurrent malfunctions. There appears to be no way to predict what will happen until it does."

I found this to be a very disturbing comment. It certainly casts some doubt on happy face comments heard from other .gov folks recently. Love to see *that* study...

I'm glad that Defense has their priorities in order, but if we are still entangled in the balkans at rollover, I guess we can't expect much help at home.

Thanks, Busy. Be careful.

Hi Guys- Haven't been around much lately. Glad you're still on the beat.

-- Lewis (aslanshow@yahoo.com), April 15, 1999.

Andy,

>Pull the other one.

The fantasies to which I refer are the ones about the U.S. military imposing countrywide martial law.

>Why, No Spam, were the DOD caught LYING, TWICE, in 1998. Blatant lying to the press.

Why do you pose this question to me as though I were defending the DOD's lying? I haven't and don't. I have condemned those incidents (I assume you're referring to the DOD's false claims of Y2k compliance, since that would be on-topic for this forum, rather than any of the multiple off-topic threads you've started), so why do you direct this to me?

>Facts are facts - dispute these three if you dare.

Folks,

What Andy does here is a form of the straw-man tactic -- implying that his rhetorical opposite has stated or supported something which his opposite has actually not stated or supported at all. He issues a challenge for me to dispute his statements in his preceding paragraph, when actually what I wrote earlier in this thread has nothing to do with them.

Andy,

I'm going to start calling you on this and similar rhetorical tactics everytime you direct them to me. Everyone else who reads these threads will see for themselves (if they haven't already) your intellectual dishonesty in these instances.

-- No Spam Please (No_Spam_Please@anon_ymous.com), April 15, 1999.

No Spam,

I'm directing these questions at you because you keep popping up trying to silence/censor me. I've called you on several subject s lately, as you well know, and I haven't heard a peep.

Now is this on topic or off topic Judge judy?

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), April 16, 1999.

Andy,

>you keep popping up trying to silence/censor me.

Since everyone else reading this forum can see very plainly that I requested that you post your off-topic-for-this-forum threads in another forum where they would be on-topic, it won't take them long to figure out that I have not, and am not, trying to silence or censor you.

>I've called you on several subject s lately, as you well know,

No, Andy, what you've done has been to use the same strawman trick as you did above. You pretend that I wrote something that I actually didn't write, and then you issue a challenge that makes no sense unless people accept your false premise.

>is this on topic or off topic

You're the one who posted the nonsequitur strawman earlier in this thread.

-- No Spam Please (No_Spam_Please@anon_ymous.com), April 16, 1999.

No Spam

Do you know what a LOOP is in computer terms?

Then why try to morph into a human one...

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), April 16, 1999.