Donald C. Hickman

Biological Warfare and American Strategic Risk Donald C. Hickman

The United States faces in biological warfare the very real prospect that virtually any actor-a state, terrorist group or individual-with the necessary will, ingenuity and resources could threaten or attack her cities for strategic effect or her military for operational or tactical purposes. Adversaries seeking asymmetric advantage against overwhelming American conventional military dominance may choose biological weapons. Ironically this superiority actually increases the threat of biological attack and the Department of Defense (DoD) assumes such attacks are likely conditions of future warfare. After the Cold War and absent a monolithic threat, the Department of Defense adopted a threat assessment based on "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD) called Proliferation: Threat and Response. Further, President Clinton identified generic WMD as the greatest potential threat to global security. This deluge of rhetoric associated with the diplomatic term of art "weapons of mass destruction" and the doctrinal amalgamation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons obscures and confuses understanding of modern biological warfare. Unfortunately, most military and national security leaders do not consider biological weapons as independently decisive; instead, they view them as they regard airpower, as simply tools to be used on the battlefield. As this thesis shows, however, biological warfare is fundamentally distinct from chemical and nuclear warfare and must be treated as such to fully understand its nature and prepare its defense. This thesis disengages biological weapons from WMD and focuses on biological warfare's unique characteristics and constraints. Biological weapons in the hands of state or non-state actors pose intricate and multi-level national security conundrums.