Until recently I subscribed to the theory that as a crisis manifests, previously prepared operational plans “on the shelf” are reached for and executed, bypassing regular order policymaking.

If true, this mechanism suggests one potent way to prepare for future crises might be stocking future shelves with many such plans. Unfortunately, closer study of three putatively paradigmatic examples of crisis plan execution, reveals that shelf-stocking alone may be insufficient.

In three examples: initiation of the Manhattan Project, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the 2001 passing of the USA PATRIOT Act — not one, but two crises were necessary to move from planning to action, despite extensive prior policy planning. 

The Manhattan Project, triggered by the European War, failed to launch in earnest despite heroics by Einstein, Szilard, Alexander Sachs, a legion of Brits including Churchill himself, the MAUD report, three National Academies studies etc. — not receiving FDR’s approval until January 1942, a month after Pearl Harbor.¹

The USA PATRIOT Act was signed only 45 days after 9/11, and initially drafted in a mere 48 hours. This was possible by recycling previous antiterror ideas— seemingly a “slam dunk” example for the shelf-stocking model. However, on closer inspection, the reused provisions didn’t just come from any shelf— they were remnants of the failed Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995, itself drafted in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City terrorist attacks.² Nor were the plans lifted or implemented in isolation. The original author of the OKC antiterror measures was dragooned into the crash drafting session, generating a 20 page document that over subsequent weeks would balloon into the eventual 342 page/1016 section law passed in October, 2001.

Finally, the second Iraq War is often misremembered as an example of the sudden/spontaneous implementation of a longstanding war plan—OPLAN 1003. However, as recounted in Bob Woodward’s “Plan of Attack”, this is mistaken. While the intention to invade Iraq after 9/11 manifested as early as Day 0, the invasion plan later implemented required over a full year of constant iteration by Tommy Franks, spurred relentlessly by SECDEF Rumsfeld, with the backing of POTUS, VPOTUS etc.

The final plan itself was not executed until after the second “crisis”, the casus belli concocted around WMD and purported Iraqi violation of UN Resolution 1441.

Therefore, I have updated. The theory that reluctant or lukewarm policymakers animated by sudden crises might implement well-crafted, previously overlooked plans merely as a function of necessity and accessibility, now seems imperfectly coherent. Rather, this history suggests that even motivated policymakers at the highest possible levels of power require not only executable plans (themselves requiring a process of emergency iteration), but also external momentum in the form of crisis at not one but at least two moments in the life cycle of execution. This suggests we might update our approach to “break glass” policy planning to include not only the drafting and peacetime socialization of the plans themselves, but also anticipation (as in the case of the OKC-9/11 series) and preparation for follow-on triggering crisis event(s), as in the Iraq War 2 case.

1. Rhodes, R. (2012). The making of the atomic bomb
2.  Wong, KC (2006) The making of the USA Patriot Act I: The legislative process and dynamics
3. Woodward, B. (2004). Plan of attack