Re: I've chatted with J. about this subject before, and he feels that biological agents are just too sloppy or hard to get a hold of for terrorists to effectively use them as a weapons of mass destruction.
With respect, that's not my point. I do think that some BW agents can cause mass casualties, but the bad players are limited to anthrax, plague, smallpox, and MAYBE tularemia. Many BW agents are non-lethal incapacitants, like brucellosis and SEB toxin (or at least with minimal casualties). Many other bio-organisms are not ideal BW agents, like Ebola virus. I don't like how people lump all BW threats into one category - super bugs like anthrax - and assume that will always be the agent of choice. You don't assume that the enemy has 12.7 mm bullets do you? Of course not, so you don't design kevlar vests for heavy ammo like that. So why the fear about BW agents? they're all unique.
There is a long history of think tanks and others that attribute terrorists with the same weapons design skills as countries that spend billions and years on BW programs. I don't think terrorists have (or even desire) mass casualties with BW agents. They will want small-scale exposures that make the news but don't invite instant retaliation. History has supported this theory so far.
Would you consider the Oct 2001 anthrax letters to be a WMD incident? They only killed 5. Where's the earth-shattering KABOOM?
I would not consider the Anthrax attacks a WMD attack. They are an effective terrorist attack, since they caused so much alarm.
However, I still disagree with this statement:
"I don't think terrorists have (or even desire) mass casualties with BW agents. They will want small-scale exposures that make the news but don't invite instant retaliation. History has supported this theory so far."
I don't think history supports this idea at all. Whether we are talking about terrorists or geurilla fighters, I think that we should expect that these "weak" actors would actually desire retalliation. I don't think that Al Qaeda flew those planes into the WTC just to bring pain to America, but to provoke the US to attack and invade the Middle East, thus making bin Ladin's words seem like prophecy. Fortunately for Bin Ladin, we have a leader without the strength or courage to withstand a relatively small attack without overeacting, causing us to spread our forces thin, to sacrifice our young men and women, to lose prestige in the eyes of the world, to serve as a recruitment tool for future juhadists, and to spend billions of dollars on a war.
Even if they feared retaliation, where and against whom would we retaliate against?
I have to disagree - first, history does support my statement, you have not shown any instances where terrorists have used CBRN hazards as mass casualty weapons. Even Aum Shinrikyo only killed 12. The oft-quoted number 5000 is the "worried well" that swarmed the hospitals but had no symptoms. About 700 Japanese did have slight exposure that they all recovered from, and another 150 or so emergency responders got a taste of nerve agent but recovered.
If you check out the blog "Arms and Influence," there is a great post on "grand strategy" of terrorists. Also read Hammes' "The Sling and The Stone." They aren't blindly swinging out and daring us to hit them back. They have a plan, they are avoiding extermination, and using mass casualty devices is not in that agenda. They are sending a message and have goals in their home countries, and it's not overthrowing the United States or seeking to become nuclear targets.
The problem with lumping bio, chem and nuclear together is that there is no way that bio and chem can compare with nuclear. So that brings down the nuclear threat in people's minds and makes nuclear more thinkable. I'm talking about a genuine nuclear explosion, not a dispersal device, which is down there with bio and chem, maybe less.
On the other hand, there's a visceral horror to all three that wears off as you get used to them. The public doesn't get to tour chem weapons plants, so their bodies don't get the practice of heart beating, sweating (two of the three symptoms that are supposed to be the basis for using the atropine self-injectors), and general unease that inoculates you against that horror when you emerge alive.
For serious contemplation of the risks, we've got to get beyond that horror and look at what the dangers really are.
J- I still disagree with you on two points. First, I disagree that terrorists have any concern with retaliation, with their own lives or the lives of those they supposedly "represent," which is why it's almost impossible to deter a terrorist.
Second, just because we haven't seen a terrorist use a tactic or a weapon doesn't mean that we won't or that it isn't likely. We hadn't seen any planes being flown into buildings before 9-11, nor did most security thinkers ponder this as a threat, and yet I sat on my roof an watched as the WTC fell.
In general, I just don't get how people can say that a biological attack isn't likely on the same scale as a nuclear attack. Now, it may be that the attack isn't even caused by a human (as this piece notes "Stephen Morse, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, has said that Mother Nature is the greatest terrorist."). To pull from that Clarke quote again: "Who does the damage to you is far less important than the fact that damage can be done. You've got to focus on your vulnerability . . . and not wait for the FBI to tell you that al Qaida has you in its sights."
If Al Qaeda had successfully released the H2N2 influenza strain, would it really have been any better than if a pandemic was mistakenly started from a mistakenly sent influenza kit?
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