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Biological Weapons: Toward a Threat Reduction StrategyA decade ago, the U.S. military and its allies had a close call with biological weapons (BW) in the war to expel Iraq from Kuwait. Iraqi BW could have inflicted horrific casualties on coalition forces, but the war stopped short of the contingency for which Iraq had prepared, predeployed, and preauthorized the use of such weapons: a march on Baghdad to remove the regime. But the close call of a decade ago, and the concern it generated among senior Gulf War military leaders, do not appear to have translated into substantial improvements to the operational capability of current U.S. military forces to project power and prevail against BW-armed adversaries. Despite the efforts of many committed individuals, large vulnerabilities in the U.S. BW defense posture remain. Operational concepts seem founded on the assumption that an adversary would not dare use these weapons or, if he did, that U.S. forces could simply operate around them, as if they were chemical weapons. The present scare seems to have generated even broader high-level concern than did the potential exposure to Iraqi BW 10 years ago. How can this concern be translated into an action agenda that will succeed at reducing present and future threats? How should we understand the risks of BW while the Al Qaeda leadership and anthrax mailer remain at large-and as the prospect of another war against Saddam Husayn looms on the horizon? Our focus here is on the threat of biological weapons to military forces and operations; where appropriate, we sketch out some connections to the BW homeland security challenge.National Defense University. Center for Technology and National Security PolicyRoberts, Brad; Moodie, Michael, 1948-2002-07
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Gathering Biological Warfare Storm -- Chapter 7: Prospects for Biological War in the Middle EastThis is Chapter 7 of the book "The Gathering Bioligical Warfare Storm". From the Introduction: "The proliferation of biological weapons to states in the Middle East has raised questions about whether, when, and how such weapons might be used there. In the absence of systematic investigation of these questions, different views have taken hold in different parts of the Washington policy community. Among defense planners there is a broad-based belief that likelihood of use is high, largely on the view that their military utility is potentially very high--especially for asymmetric conflicts against the United States. Among country and regional experts there is broad-based skepticism that such weapons will ever be used, largely on the view that such weapons are unproven historically and too risky in terms of the harsh responses they might generate. A third view is sometimes expressed among political-military analysts: that such use is likely only in last resort in an effort to assure regime survival--on the model of potential Iraqi BW use against the Desert Storm coalition, as it has come to be understood subsequently. This paper begins with a series of propositions about the patterns of conflict likely to be seen in the region over the coming decade. The resulting taxonomy is then used to develop some propositions about the likelihood of the use of biological weapons by state and non-state actors. Two scenarios are then selected for more in-depth analysis. This analysis elaborates the strategic logic that could lead to the use of biological weapons, including especially the perceived potential benefits and risks of such weapons relative to the other assets, conventional and non-conventional, within the actor's reach. It concludes with a brief review of key insights."USAF Counterproliferation CenterRoberts, Brad2002-03
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American Primacy and Major Power Concert: A Critique of the 2002 National Security StrategyThe Bush administration's National Security Strategy of 2002 has attracted attention and debate largely because of its arguments about the role of preemption. But over the longer term the strategy may prove far more significant in terms of its vision for relations with Russia, China, and the other major powers. As Condoleezza Rice has argued in describing the thinking behind the strategy, "we have an historic opportunity to break the destructive pattern of great power rivalry that has bedeviled the world since the rise of the nation state in the 17th century." This is a bold vision. It extends the notion of transformation from defense strategy to geopolitics. But is it viable? What is required to achieve this ambition? The opportunity is real - this is the conclusion from an informal dialogue among analysts and policymakers from the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council that IDA cosponsored between 1999 and 2001. That dialogue explored the differences of worldview, historical perspective, and national interest informing strategy and policy in each capitol. Ranging across such myriad topics as the balance of power, the legitimacy of humanitarian interventions, the impact of ballistic missile defense, and the tensions between multipolarity and unipolarity, that dialogue also gave vent to debates in each country about the requirements of peace and stability in the current era. To the surprise of many, that dialogue extended into a deep exploration of sovereignty's contribution to peace and to the requirements of political legitimacy. Also to a surprising extent, issues related to weapons of mass destruction cut across much of the agenda, and with them, questions about the ability of a "nuclear aristocracy" to provide nuclear order over the long term. For the Americans in the dialogue process, the main message from the others was simply that doubts about American power and purposes on the world stage permeate every aspect of the global security dialogue. In its moment of unprecedented power and dominance, what will America choose to do? What will it do with primacy?United States. Department of DefenseRoberts, Brad2002-12
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Tripolar Stability: The Future of Nuclear Relations Among the United States, Russia and ChinaThe purpose of this work is to identify policy and strategy issues associated with long-term nuclear threat reduction. For fiscal year 2002, the ASCO commissioned this follow-on paper. Its purpose is to explore the emerging nuclear dynamic among the United States, Russia, and China in the context of the new strategic framework pursued by the Bush Administration. The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union brought with them the end of the bipolar nuclear standoff and the East-West divide in international politics. What will succeed bipolarity? Multipolarity is one possibility, with a diffusion of power and nuclear weapons among multiple power centers in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Unipolarity is another, with a growing gap in the power differential between the United States and other powers, major and minor. A third possibility is tripolarity, in which the competition for influence and nuclear security between the United States and the Soviet Union is replaced by a three-way competition among the United States, Russia, and China. Is this a realistic possibility? How might it come to pass? Would this be a stable world? How should the new strategic framework and the strategy for stability being pursued by the Bush administration be informed by this analysis of tripolarity? Note: This document has been added to the Homeland Security Digital Library in agreement with the Project on Advanced Systems and Concepts for Countering WMD (PASCC) as part of the PASCC collection. Permission to download and/or retrieve this resource has been obtained through PASCC.Institute for Defense AnalysesRoberts, Brad2002-09
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Nuclear Multipolarity and Stability"What are the implications of nuclear multipolarity for stability? This is one of a dozen questions set out by the Nuclear Deterrence Sustainment Panel of the Threat Reduction Advisory Committee as a part of its effort to stimulate 'a more profound level of intellectual activity' about how to meet and reduce threats posed by weapons of mass destruction. In trying to come to terms with this question, analysts in the United States clearly work with a very significant intellectual inheritance from the Cold War. This inheritance defines some very specific ways of thinking about nuclear stability, with an emphasis on the twin problems of arms race and crisis instability. It also defines some specific ways of thinking about multipolarity, with an emphasis on the balance of power system and nuclear proliferation. To better appreciate where inherited concepts remain valid, where they can help generate useful new insights, and where their limitations are crippling requires a new approach based on the strategic realities of the emerging nuclear era, rather than the past one. Toward that end, this paper explores three levels of analysis: The major power core, the regional subsystems, the connections between the two. In each case, new or newly significant nuclear dynamics are identified and explored. Potential sources of instability are then considered. These are then collected together to frame an assessment of the changing nuclear stability agenda." Note: This document has been added to the Homeland Security Digital Library in agreement with the Project on Advanced Systems and Concepts for Countering WMD (PASCC) as part of the PASCC collection. Permission to download and/or retrieve this resource has been obtained through PASCC.Institute for Defense Analyses; United States. Defense Threat Reduction AgencyRoberts, Brad2000-11
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Asymmetric Conflict 2010"Asymmetric warfare emerged as a major theme in U.S. defense planning with the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the shift in focus from peer adversary wars to major theater wars and smaller scale contingencies. At the same time, there has been rising concern about the proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) weapons, as well as missile delivery systems, and about their potential utility in asymmetric strategies. These twin factors gave rise to the Defense Counterproliferation Initiative in 1993, which sought to improve the capability of U.S. military force to project and prevail against regional adversaries employing weapons of mass destruction. A decade later, and as the United States begins a Quadrennial Defense Review with a new administration, it is useful to take stock so that mid-course corrections might be made to ensure that desired capabilities are achieved and the challenges of asymmetric warfare fully and competently addressed. Over the last decade, a good deal of thinking has been devoted to defining the asymmetric challenge. Asymmetric conflicts are understood to involve asymmetries of both capability and interest. On capability, the asymmetry in both conventional and nuclear power is much to the benefit of the United States, with the aggressor's imperative to act in ways that do not motivate Washington to bring to bear its full power potential. On interest, the asymmetry--as the aggressor might perceive it--contrasts his ostensibly vital concern against U.S. interests that by definition are over-the-horizon. Asymmetric strategies are the means by which the militarily-weaker state tries to bring whatever advantages it has to bear on the critical weak points of the stronger party. The perceived weak points of U.S.-led coalitions include, for example, the need to project power over long distances, the need for partners in such regional wars, and casualty aversion." Note: This document has been added to the Homeland Security Digital Library in agreement with the Project on Advanced Systems and Concepts for Countering WMD (PASCC) as part of the PASCC collection. Permission to download and/or retrieve this resource has been obtained through PASCC.Institute for Defense AnalysesRoberts, Brad2000-11
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Nonproliferation- Challenges Old and New"Since the advent of the nuclear era in 1945, Americans and others have been debating whether or how it might be possible to prevent the proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction (WMD). As each new proliferation challenge has emerged, debate about the shortcomings of the various policy tools for coping with proliferation has intensified. These debates have grown only more intense in the last ten to fifteen years. Despite such debates, American presidents have steered a fairly consistent course promoting nonproliferation, innovating along the way, while also coping with its periodic failures. The end of the Cold War seemed to make new things possible for nonproliferation, with the promise of even more cooperation between East and West on specific proliferation challenges. And the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91 seemed to make new things necessary, as the United States faced the first regional war under the shadow of weapons of mass destruction. First President George H.W. Bush and then President William Clinton committed the federal government to significant political efforts to strengthen the tools of nonproliferation policy."USAF Counterproliferation CenterRoberts, Brad2004-08
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Geopolitics and Nuclear Order: The Nuclear Planning Environment in 2015"With the end of the Cold War and demise of the Soviet Union nearly a decade ago, the American debate about nuclear weapons shifted to new ground. It is now dominated by two opposing camps, the 'nuclear abolitionists' and the 'nuclear guardians'. These two camps see the world in starkly contrasting terms, though they seem rarely to debate the assumptions that underpin their worldviews. But worldviews will shape policy. The nuclear planning environment as it might exist in the year 2015 will be shaped fundamentally by how policymakers understand the principal themes of international politics and the new challenges posed by changing relations of power among major and minor actors in the interstate system. By thinking through a range of feasible alternative international orders in the year 2015, it is possible to get beyond simple best- and worst-case projections of the future. This helps to illuminate the range of demands, both political and operational, that might be put on the nuclear posture of the United States. Whether the world will become more multipolar or unipolar, or whether new variants of bipolarity or even non-polarity will emerge cannot be known today. We can anticipate, however, both benign and stressing variants of each. Relatively benign environments may lead U.S. policymakers to conclude that the numbers and types of deployed weapons may not matter very much; survivability and to an increasing extent safety would seem likely to matter much more. In the relatively stressing environments, numbers and types would likely matter a good deal more. In some variants, renewed theater nuclear roles are likely; while in others extended deterrence matters hardly at all." Note: This document has been added to the Homeland Security Digital Library in agreement with the Project on Advanced Systems and Concepts for Countering WMD (PASCC) as part of the PASCC collection. Permission to download and/or retrieve this resource has been obtained through PASCC.Institute for Defense Analyses; United States. Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Advanced Systems and Concepts OfficeRoberts, Brad1999-09
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China-U.S. Nuclear Relations: What Relationship Best Serves U.S. Interests?This paper on China-U.S. nuclear relations has been prepared to help put China more adequately into America's nuclear picture. We will need to understand China's nuclear modernization effort to inform choices on ballistic missile defense, nuclear reductions, and arms control that will promote the desired stability and security. We need to understand the potential for U.S.-China confrontation over Taiwan, under a nuclear shadow, to define the requirements of the deterrence posture. We need also a better notion of how China fits into the global nuclear equation to craft and implement strategies to reduce short-term nuclear threats and long-term risks. The author undertakes a comprehensive review of the challenges in the China- U.S. nuclear relationship. The purpose is to help with the process of defining American interests in the bilateral nuclear relationship and of identifying strategy choices that help secure those interests. Note: This document has been added to the Homeland Security Digital Library in agreement with the Project on Advanced Systems and Concepts for Countering WMD (PASCC) as part of the PASCC collection. Permission to download and/or retrieve this resource has been obtained through PASCC.Institute for Defense AnalysesRoberts, Brad2001-08
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East Asia's Nuclear Future: A Long-Term View of Threat ReductionThe Bush administration has committed itself to the effort to construct a new framework for stability and security suitable to the new, post-Cold War environment, a framework that will encompass to the maximum extent possible cooperation with others. How might a view of the East Asian security environment, and especially the view of U.S. friends and allies there, inform the effort to deploy ballistic missile defenses, pursue nuclear reductions, and adjust arms control strategies? How might a view of the challenges of long-term nuclear threat reduction in the region inform U.S. policy development? This paper begins with a survey of the debate about the requirements of security and stability in East Asia after the Cold War. It identifies four different camps, each with its own definition of stability, as: a balance of power, principally between China and the United States; continued progress toward a regional security order based on cooperative or common security principles; the absence of significant defections from existing strategic alignments; preservation of the nuclear status quo. For analytical purposes, this study defines East Asian strategic stability as a balance that permits changing relations of power among states in the region without war; reassures states that significant departures from the status quo are unlikely, or at least predictable, and can be managed so that they are not disruptive or particularly threatening; enables progress toward more cooperative approaches to security; and reassures states in the region that they need not more aggressively hedge against unanticipated strategic developments. The study also discovered among American experts a lack of consensus about the relationship between stability and security in the region. The conventional wisdom holds that stability and security are common gods and that, from an American perspective, a more stable Asia makes America more secure. But that perspective is not shared by all. Note: This document has been added to the Homeland Security Digital Library in agreement with the Project on Advanced Systems and Concepts for Countering WMD (PASCC) as part of the PASCC collection. Permission to download and/or retrieve this resource has been obtained through PASCC.Institute for Defense AnalysesRoberts, Brad2001-08
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Dissuasion and China"How can dissuasion be operationalized--which is to say, how can U.S. military forces be postured to achieve the intended strategic objectives in relation to China? This Strategic Insight provides some initial insights to these issues, in the hope of stimulating broader discussion and debate. It begins with a discussion of how best to define the goals of dissuasion vis-à-vis China. It next considers how to structure U.S. strategic forces--defined as all elements of the New Triad--with the aim of achieving dissuasion. It closes with some observations on implementation challenges."Naval Postgraduate School (U.S.). Center for Contemporary ConflictRoberts, Brad2004-10
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Beyond the Moscow Treaty: Alternative Perspectives on the Future Roles and Utility of Nuclear Weapons"What requirements will guide the planning of U.S. nuclear forces in the decade ahead? The Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) of 2001 promulgated the Bush administration's guidance on future nuclear requirements, with an emphasis on adapting the U.S. nuclear posture to the requirements of 21st century security. And the administration's agreement in 2002 to the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT, or the Moscow Treaty) bound the United States to a force structure of a certain size, with some important implications for the functions of the force in deterrence, dissuasion, and assurance. In 2009, a new administration will arrive. It will conduct its own NPR, building on the foundations of the congressionally mandated Strategic Posture Commission report due that spring. And it will review and assess the inherited strategic framework with an eye toward advancing its own interpretation of the national interest in the years ahead. The nuclear policy and strategy choices of the next administration, like those of the current one, will be driven by many factors. What policy, strategy, and capabilities will be needed in the decade from 2013 to 2022? A primary consideration will be the requirements as defined by the military community. What are those requirements? How might they evolve? A key premise of this study is that military requirements deliberations have not advanced much beyond the framework of strategy and doctrine set in place by the 2001 NPR and 2002 Moscow Treaty. To help fill this gap, the Advanced Systems and Concepts Office (ASCO) of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency has a large portfolio of work underway. This portfolio is aimed at defining the opportunities and challenges for defense threat reduction as it relates to weapons of mass destruction (WMD). As part of this portfolio, the ASCO has commissioned a series of projects at IDA to address questions related to the future nuclear security environment." Note: This document has been added to the Homeland Security Digital Library in agreement with the Project on Advanced Systems and Concepts for Countering WMD (PASCC) as part of the PASCC collection. Permission to download and/or retrieve this resource has been obtained through PASCC.United States. Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Advanced Systems and Concepts OfficeRoberts, Brad; Utgoff, Victor A.2008-06
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Asia's Major Powers and the Emerging Challenges to Nuclear Stability among Them"With the end of the Cold War, an international nuclear order dominated by concerns in the transatlantic security environment has given way to a different world, one in which the Asian factor in the global nuclear equation appears to be on the rise. This paper examines the evolving relationships of strategic military power among Asia's major powers with the objective of identifying potential sources of instability and their policy and strategy implications. This paper begins with a catalogue of key factors in Asia's nuclear landscape in order to put the major power dimension in context. [...] This paper argues that U.S. strategy should instead be built around a sixth organizing concept: anticipatory threat reduction. This concept has elements of competition and hedging, but its distinctive attribute is its efforts to identify and tackle specific potential sources of instability in the Asian major power nuclear system. What would be the objectives of this approach? [...] The paper closes with a series of questions and answers about the Asian major power nuclear landscape." Note: This document has been added to the Homeland Security Digital Library in agreement with the Project on Advanced Systems and Concepts for Countering WMD (PASCC) as part of the PASCC collection. Permission to download and/or retrieve this resource has been obtained through PASCC.United States. Defense Threat Reduction AgencyRoberts, Brad; Keifer, Michael H.2009-02
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Operationalizing Dissuasion of China: Practicalities and Pitfalls"The 2005 QDR [Quadrennial Defense Review] brings with it questions about how to operationalize dissuasion in U.S. military planning. Doing so requires coming to terms with continued confusion about the means and ends of dissuasion. Especially important will be balancing the desire to discourage military competition by China with the desire to encourage strategic partnership. Operationalizing dissuasion can be done in a variety of ways, with at least four different organizing principles: (1) aggressively impose costs and reduce benefits, (2) prepare for the second move advantage, (3) mix competition at the conventional level with restraint at the strategic level, and (4) bet on transformation. Each has potential benefits, costs, and risks. But none can succeed without an effective strategic communication campaign that effectively integrates the interagency process in support of a consistent set of U.S. 'messages' to Beijing." Note: This document has been added to the Homeland Security Digital Library in agreement with the Project on Advanced Systems and Concepts for Countering WMD (PASCC) as part of the PASCC collection. Permission to download and/or retrieve this resource has been obtained through PASCC.Institute for Defense AnalysesRoberts, Brad2005-04
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