Civil defense, civil defence (see spelling differences) or civil protection is an effort to prepare civilians for 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 but only became widespread after the threat of nuclear weapons was realized.

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, the all-encompassing nature of civil defense is denoted by the term "total defense" such as the Swedish word totalförsvar.

The name suggests committing all resources, hence the term total, of the nation to the defense. In most of the NATO states, such as the United States, the United Kingdom or Germany as well as the [then] Soviet Bloc, and especially in the neutral countries, such as Switzerland and in Sweden during the 1950s and 60s, many civil defense practices took place to prepare for the aftermath of a nuclear war, which seemed quite likely at that time. Such efforts were opposed by the Catholic Worker Movement and by peace activists such as Ralph DiGia , on the grounds that these programs gave the public false confidence that they could survive a nuclear war.

There was never strong civil defense policy because it fundamentally violated the doctrine of "mutual assured destruction" (M.A.D.) by making provisions for survivors. Also, a fully fledged total defense would have been too expensive. Above all, compared to the power of destruction a defense would have been ineffective.

In the M.A.D. doctrine, there are not supposed to be any survivors for a civil defense system to assist (thus the acronym). Governments in the West sought to implement civil defense measures against nuclear war in the face of popular apathy and scepticism.

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