Contingency operations are military actions requiring rapid deployment of the full spectrum of military forces in support of national policy short of war. These operations are normally undertaken when vital national interests are at stake and when direct and indirect diplomacy or other forms of influence have been exhausted or need to be supplemented by either a show of force or a direct military action.
Section 215 (32 CFR §215.5 to 215.10) which provides the basis for executive power in this area, provides a contingency plan for martial law including plans for troop deployment, control of the populace, and control of information passing between civilians and the government. These contingency procedures delegate to the Secretary of the Army most of the authority given to the President by chapter fifteen. Section 215 authorizes the Secretary of the Army and politically appointed subordinates to call federal reserve units and state National Guard units into active service. The Secretary coordinates the mobilization with all local civil and military authorities and directs deployment of military resources through military commanders. A civil disturbance need not be present to deploy troops; it is sufficient that there is a potential for a disturbance.
Although the military has established military tribunals only in grave situations, such as in the midst of actual warfare, this limitation is maintained only in older cases such as Ex parte Milligan. Training procedures for establishing military tribunals are maintained but will not, according to the Doctrine, be implemented unless civil courts are closed. The military, however, may close the courts as they did in 1941 when martial law was established in Hawaii after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
By claiming the right to use the military in national disasters and calamaties, the executive can utilize the contingency plans of the Office of Emergency Preparedness. These plans provide for
control of elements within a geographic area. Deploying troops means that the Joint Chiefs of Staff and their military subordinates assume command over the locale, displacing state and local officials. All information released to the public is controlled ,by the Assistant Secretary of Defense. In certain instances the military may even take control of the news media in the area, particularly the broadcasting industry, and disseminate the news (J.A.G. Lectures, supra note 119 at 33).