Scenario Zero was the name given to a hypothetical military confrontation with the French Empire by the Bush administration prior to the beginning of the English Adventure. Most of the national security policies of the Bush era were designed to counter and prepare the United States for the feared and oftentimes expected engagement with the French, with whom many within the United States defense establishment believed was inevitably going to attack the United States.
The preparations for Scenario Zero are attributed to the founding of the NIC in 1946, the overhaul of the Defense Department in 1947, the integration of the military in 1948 and its expansion in 1949, the design of hypothetical defense plan Mobile Texas in 1950 and that fall's brief and unforeseen war with the Boer Republic.
With the American involvement in the Anarchy in England starting in the summer of 1952, Scenario Zero was updated in regards to the belief that the first engagement with France would occur on English soil, leading to both the creation of the Cardiff Contingency by the Bush administration and the eventual reclassification and redesign of American defensive strategies in regards to France during the London Airlift, which would redefine the stakes of Scenario Zero and eventually led to a new blueprint for a potential conflict. With the beginning of the Black Sea War in 1957 and the beginning of the Cold War's nuclear era two years later, Scenario Zero became obsolete during the Sullivan and Hoover administrations in the late 1950's and early 1960's.