A few weeks ago, a government booklet started landing on doormats across Ireland. It explains what to do when the lights go out, and it is being sent to roughly 2.2 million households. Finland plans to post about 3.5 million printed guides covering crises and even drone threats. In Britain, a three-year “Be Ready” campaign began on 22 October, asking families to plan for at least three days without essential services.

The Pentagon is thinking along the same lines, only bigger. Reports say major US bases would be expected to run their own power, water, fuel and communications for at least 90 days. One outlet points out that the 90-day benchmark hasn’t been confirmed by any published directive, so the details deserve some caution. The direction of travel, though, is hard to miss.

Stack these headlines together and you get the kind of viral social media post now doing the rounds, which shouts that the world is preparing for the worst. I think that framing is overblown. But the instinct behind it deserves a serious look.

The list of governments giving this advice is longer than most people realise, and it goes well beyond the “largest countries” the viral post boasts about. In Europe it now covers the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the Nordic states, and by most compilations the Baltic states, Poland, Austria and Switzerland as well. Smaller countries have joined too. Belgium launched a four-year campaign in April urging households to cope alone for at least 72 hours. Luxembourg is handing out about 300,000 copies of a 72-hour guide from 14 October. In Portugal, the interior ministry and the National Republican Guard (GNR), the country’s gendarmerie, recommend keeping a 72-hour........

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