Steering by our WMD rearview mirror

U.S. NEWS: "White House Focus on Nuclear Terrorism Gets Scrutiny: Some Proliferation Experts Warn Chemical or Biological Attack Is More Likely--And Threat Doesn't Get Enough Attention," by Keith Johnson, Wall Street Journal, 23 April 2010.

My point for years now: nukes are so 20th century, while this one will turn out so biological in orientation. So instead of focusing on nuclear terror and energy nets, I see us shifting inevitably to biological terror and food nets--especially as global warming unfolds.

Biological is just the biggest bang for the buck in terms of impacting the economy. Also the easiest to pull off.

But our historical obsession with nukes is a hard thing to break.

Comments

[David Smart]

Biological is [...] the easiest to pull off..

In theory, but in practical terms no state has yet managed to weaponise BW successfully.

The Soviet Union spent astronomical sums and failed utterly.

That doesn't rule out the possibility of a non-state (or state) actor coming up with an ingenious asymetric-type solution, but it's a mistake to ignore this hard fact.

[Tom Barnett]

I would suggest thinking outside the box of nation-states--as you caveat. What the Sovs tried to do was weaponize within the military context (biologicals as bombs on delivery systems).

The universe of quick-and-dirty applications that--in certain instances--involve spreaders willing to die in the process is significant.

Plus, avoid the exotic scenarios: the simplest stuff can do the worst damage--economically speaking. Terror doesn't require death and works best when sheer uncertainty is created.

How hard, for example to intro "mad cow" to a national population of cattle? That happens--by all accounts accidentally--in the US in 2003 and our exports go from $1.3T to .3T in one year--and it still hasn't recovered (0.9T last year).

[Mark]

Hacking a waterworks or power plant or breaking into same is easier than whipping up a batch of biological agent. Cooking up a bomb is not that tough either...I speak from the experience of an evil childhood.

12 or so bad guys armed with sidearms attacking schools or malls is about as simple as it gets. That is the big worry for local cops. We can disrupt such attacks in the planning and logistics stage; once such an attack starts we can only react. The response to an active murderer is simple...ride to the sound of the guns and kill bad guys as quickly as you can get there.

DC sniper is a perfect example of low tech, keep it simple stupid, highly effective terror tactic. Nukes, Bio and chemical weapons is really over thinking this issue.

I had better stop now as I am spiking my blood pressure.