1 Security affects In this paper we explore the relations between affect and security through a case study of how events are governed through a specific apparatus of security, `UK civil con- tingencies' and through a specific technique for securing life öthe exercise: rehearsals of response to and recovery from a range of disruptive events.To introduce this case, and how exercises work affectively, we begin with a moment of shared laughter that briefly interrupted an exercise held in a UK city in late 2009. The exercise was a rehearsal of one aspect of response to a trans-species pandemic and took place in the midst of a collective nervousness amongst emergency responders about the `effects'and `impacts' of the `novel virus' given the name swine influenza A H1N1. (1) Approximately forty people from the emergency services, various health authorities, and local, regional, and central government sit at six circular tables. Some sip tea, others furtively check mobile phones, a few yawn or try and stifle yawns.We are in the meeting room of a hotel, at the end of the day-long exercise, and in the final phase of a scenario. Swine flu has worsened as the scenario has unfolded. Finally, the participants are faced with a life or death decision. In the scenario there is only one critical-care bed left, and six patients require it. Each group is asked by a moderator who leads the exercise to take a decision: who gets the bed? According to the exercise planner, the task is designed to retain interest at the end of a long day and make real the serious- ness of the imagined crisis by creating a pressurised situation. Immediately after the Affect and security: exercising emergency in `UK civil contingencies' Ben Anderson Department of Geography, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, England; e-mail: Ben.anderson@durham.ac.uk Peter Adey School of Physical and Geographical Sciences, Keele University, Keele ST5 5BG, England; e-mail: p.adey@esci.keele.ac.uk Received 10 August 2010; in revised form 22 March 2011 Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2011, volume 29, pages 1092 ^ 1109 Abstract. In this paper we explore the relation between affect and security through a case study of one technique for making futures present and actionable: the use of exercises in UK emergency planning after the 2004 Civil Contingencies Act. Based on observation of exercises and interviews with emergency planners, we show how exercises function by making present an `interval' of emer- gency in between the occurrence of a threatening event and its becoming a disaster. This `interval' is made present through a set of partially connected affective atmospheres and sensibilities. By making futures present at the level of affect, exercises function as techniques of equivalence that enable future disruptive events to be governed. Through this case study we argue against epochal accounts that frame the relation between affect and security in terms of an `age of anxiety' or a `culture of fear'. Instead, we understand security affects to be both a means through which futures are made present in apparatuses of security and a part of the relational dynamics through which apparatuses emerge, endure, change, and function strategically. doi:10.1068/d14110 (1) The exercise tested how the `escalation plans' of UK government agencies interrelate. An `escalation plan' describes how the normal distribution and prioritisation of finite healthcare resources will change as the severity of a health emergency changes. They are normally based on a set of preidentified `thresholds' that trigger a change in resource use.