How should the U.S. prepare for possible attacks using biological and chemical weapons?

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FAQ Index buttonNuclear deterrence is a leading U.S. strategy to counter threats of biological and chemical warfare. The U.S. has adopted a nuclear weapons use doctrine based on the principles of deterrence capacity and the pre-emptive destruction of chemical or biological weapons and facilities of an enemy nation or non-state actor. This policy was most recently updated in Presidential Decision Directive 60 (PDD60), which was signed by President Clinton in late 1997. This document confirmed a policy that was in place as early as 1994. Detailed scenarios for nuclear operations by forces in the European theater (from where, for example, an assault on Libya would be launched) were enshrined in a "Silver Book" in 1994.

Planning for this eventuality had begun as early as 1990, when the Pentagon began searching for new missions to justify the retention of nuclear forces following the end of the cold war. The policy now in place allows for nuclear weapons to be used in response to a chemical or biological weapons attack; against facilities for chemical and biological weapons (CBW) production or storage; or against an enemy thought to be preparing a CBW attack. This is part of a policy called counterproliferation, a military response to the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). There is strong pressure from the Department of Energy weapons labs, from some officials in the administration, and a small number of military personnel for the development of new, smaller nuclear weapons that could be used for such counterproliferation missions. If the U.S. suffers a large number of casualties in a biological attack, the probability of nuclear retaliation would be high.

If the administration would declare, for example, that the recent anthrax attacks were criminal or terrorist actions and could then trace them back to the bin Laden network, this would permit U.S. forces to attack Afghanistan with nuclear weapons, if a target requiring nuclear weapons to destroy it could be found. The same would be true with Iraq. If the U.S. suffers a large number of casualties in a biological attack, the probability of nuclear retaliation would be high.

The problems with this strategy are manifold:

First, if the country hosting the WMD terrorists is a non-nuclear weapon state, then the U.S. has promised not to use nuclear weapons against it unless it attacks the U.S. in alliance with a nuclear weapon state. In the case of Africa, South America, and other nuclear weapon free zones (NWFZ), those promises are legally enshrined in protocols to NWFZ treaties--the U.S. action would therefore be illegal.

Second, the human and environmental cost of such action across generations would far exceed any damage done to the U.S., and there would be no way to ensure that fallout would be contained within the country attacked.

Third, the development of new nuclear weapons would likely require a return to nuclear testing, killing any chance that the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) could come into force, and probably spurring new weapons developments in China, India, and Pakistan.

Finally, there is no support for this U.S. policy, even among U.S. allies. NATO has adopted a watered-down version of the U.S. nuclear doctrine, but has been unable to agree on any guidance for military planners to operationalize the policy. Using nuclear weapons would make the U.S. a pariah state.

Internal Security, U.S. Response, and Ending the Threat of WMD Attacks

It is important not to exaggerate the dangers of a large-scale biological or chemical attack by terrorists. Experts generally agree that producing agents, such as a modified flu virus or a chemical agent like sarin gas is relatively easy. The difficulty lies in weaponizing the agent effectively so as to deliver it in such a way as to kill or injure the maximum number of people. The recent anthrax outbreaks may represent a test of the public health system or, more likely, they clearly represent a failure to deliver anthrax as a weapon of mass destruction. The same failure characterized the Aum Shinrikyo sarin gas attacks in the Tokyo metro. In national security terms, it is likely that a combined public health/police response would be adequate to respond to such attacks, with no need for military involvement.

A major part of the prevention strategy must be in the development of strict verification regimes for the conventions banning the weapons that already exist. The Chemical Weapons Convention has entered into force, and has a reasonably satisfactory verification procedure. To improve upon this convention, steps could be taken to establish a verification regime that would be able to catch private production of chemical agents.

Weaker than the Chemical Weapons Convention is the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), which has no verification regime. Unfortunately, the U.S. in July 20001 withdrew from the negotiations aimed at producing a verification protocol. That protocol had already been greatly weakened by the Clinton administration, acting largely under pressure from the pharmaceutical manufacturers association. In effect, the U.S. action ensured that no effective international control regime is likely to be in place for a long time to come. In the future, U.S. efforts would be well directed in working to build medical and public health responses to the current threat and, in the long run, supporting the BWC verification protocol.

 

Source for More Information

FPIF Four Part Policy Framework: A New Agenda to Counter Terrorism
By John Gershman, Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC)
http://www.fpif.org/justice/tobedone.html

"Bioterrorism: Federal Research and Preparedness Activities," GAO (September 2001)
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d01915.pdf

Dr. Bruce Blair, "What if the Terrorists go Nuclear?" Center for Defense Information, http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/nuclear.cfm

Martin Butcher, New Nuclear Weapons and the War on Terrorism: Counterproliferation, Nuclear Doctrine and the Chemical and Biological Weapons Threat (The PSR Center for Global Security and Health, November 2001).

Hans Kristensen, U.S. Nuclear Strategy Reform in the 1990s, A Working Paper (The Nautilus Institute, March 2000).
http://www.nautilus.org/nukepolicy/USA/StratRef.html

BASIC, "A BASIC guide to Biological Weapons Control," October 2001.
http://www.basicint.org/biobrochure.htm

Martin Butcher, Otfried Nassauer, Tanya Padberg and Dan Plesch, Questions of Command and Control: NATO, Nuclear Sharing and the NPT. (Project on European Nuclear Non-Proliferation (PENN) Research Report, March 2000).
http://www.bits.de/frames/publib.htm

Federation of American Scientists, "Biological and Chemical Weapons: Recent Developments," November 2001.
http://www.fas.org/bwc/news.htm

Barbara H. Rosenberg and Milton Leitenberg, "Who's Afraid of a Germ Warfare Treaty?," The Los Angeles Times, September 6, 2001.
http://www.fas.org/bwc/news/RosenberLATimes_6_Sept_01.htm

Barbara H. Rosenberg, "A Way to Prevent Bioterrorism," The San Francisco Chronicle, September 18, 2001,
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2001/09/18/ED180411.DTL

Ehud Sprinzak, "The Great Superterrorism Scare," Foreign Policy, Fall 1998, pp. 110-124.
http://radiobergen.org/terrorism/super-1.html

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