It has been decades since Americans worried about a nuclear attack, and longer since our government took seriously the issue of preparing our people to survive one, or what used to be called “civil defense.” The astronomical dollar costs of readying hundreds of American cities against a massive Russian nuclear strike during the Cold War made civil defense impractical. Some experts and leaders even feared it provocative, signaling preparation for fighting rather than preventing nuclear war. The gradual muting of communism as a global threat followed by the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 seemed to render the issue...