Forces in transition and the NBC threat: Where are we now? - nuclear, biological, or chemical warfare

Only a decade ago, as the Berlin Wall fell, the Iron Curtain opened on the stage of a new-world order. The world applauded the final act of the Cold War as the threat of global annihilation faded and the superpowers bowed out in the last dramatic episode of the arm's race. The threat of global annihilation had been vanquished, and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) were just a fading nightmare. We wanted so badly to believe in global peace. Insidiously, while the attention of the world focused on the superpowers on center stage, more sinister dangers were growing in the shadows of our global theater. Who knew this historic event would be an invitation for unrecognized players to step into the leading roles of this real-world drama? While this may sound like a fictional suspense drama, I believe it describes the real nuclear, biological, or chemical (NBC) concerns we face for our contingency forces today.

NBC Threat to Today's Contingency Forces

Today's actors are busy at work expanding their conspicuous proliferation of WMD. Today, about 25 nations have an NBC warfare program compared to only 12 during the Cold War. These same countries have long-range delivery systems and continue to pursue efforts to acquire systems with greater accuracy and range. NBC weapons provide their only feasible counterbalance to U.S. precision-guided munitions and sophisticated weaponry.

"America's military superiority cannot shield us completely from this (nuclear, biological, and chemical) threat. Indeed, a paradox of the new strategic environment is that American military superiority actually increases the threat of nuclear, biological, and chemical attack against us by creating incentives for adversaries to challenge us asymmetrically."

William Cohen

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense

Our nation's senior leadership is on record for expressing their opinions that the superiority of America's conventional warfighting will likely push an adversary towards asymmetric means, including WMD. Adopting the policy of "If you know you cannot win a fair fight, then fight dirty," countries possessing WMD have gained strategic leverage without the cost of a large military force and expensive equipment. The threat of WMD forces any opponent to consider additional planning factors not normally required.

Restraint, or the reluctance to respond to an NBC attack with NBC retaliation, is likely with large-yield weapons; nevertheless, nuclear hazards on the battlefield may result from other sources. Restraint does not apply to chemical and biological weapons (CBW). An adversary's use of CBW is very likely as a means for reducing its military risk of defeat against deploying U.S. contingency forces into a new theater of operations. The former Secretary of Defense embedded these concerns in a number of clear policy statements. For example, the 2002-2007 Defense Planning Guidance states, "The threat or use of chemical and biological weapons is a likely condition of future warfare, including in the early stages of war. Such weapons could be employed by hostile forces as a means of disrupting U.S. operations and logistics." And the Secretary directs that "U.S. forces will be prepared to fight and win in a chemically or biologically contaminated environment. The services also will continue to improve chemical and biol ogical detection and decontamination capabilities at ports and airfields."

Additionally, underpinning the U.S. National Military Strategy, Shape, Respond, Prepare Now, are the concepts of strategic agility, power projection, and decisive force. Joint Vision 2020, the conceptual template for U.S. military operational capability in the early twenty-first century, is based on power projection from the continental United States, achieved through rapid strategic mobility and limited overseas presence. Operations at fixed-site installations, including seaports and aerial ports of embarkation and debarkation, logistical centers, and tactical airbases, are critical to executing this strategy successfully. The consequences of a CBW attack on one of these critical nodes can severely hinder, if not completely impede, military operations and put our national military strategy at risk if not properly addressed and resourced today.

The expectation that an asymmetric CBW will be used as the preferred weapon of attack is even more clearly applicable to the Army Transformation Strategy. The Army Chief of Staff has stated that transformed forces "must be survivable when faced with an adversary employing asymmetric threats." The Initial Brigade Combat Team (IBCT) will face this asymmetric threat for two reasons:

1. The very nature of this highly mobile, lethal force is to use advanced technologies to inflict U.S. "might" rapidly.

2. The United States has renounced its offensive CBW retaliatory capability. Thus, at best, we would only respond with more conventional precision fires probably delivered by the IBCT after an NBC attack.

As the proliferation and availability of WMD continue to expand, so do the threats and the expectation of their use. Aggressive Third World countries and rogue radical groups cannot compete directly with the superpowers. The resources required for supporting a large military force, or even researching and developing innovative weapons systems, are beyond these groups' capabilities. Thus, as they compete for strategic positioning, power, and international recognition, they use the most destructive devices already within their grasp. Even the weakest state and nonstate actor believes large numbers of casualties and the ensuing panic inflicted by their insidious assaults will only promote their political objectives.

Not to be overlooked is a more subtle, indirect threat: the possibility that some seemingly inoffensive Third World state would provide chemical, biological, or radiological weapons (one of the forms of nuclear weapons) to terrorists. Such an action could covertly contribute to the struggle without fear of direct retaliation from the United States. The problem is still growing.

Current U.S. Response to WMD Threat

Renegade proliferation of WMD promotes regional instability with potentially global consequences and, as a result, challenges the interests of the United States. Obviously, a significant element of the asymmetric threat facing U.S. forces today, and for the foreseeable future, is the use of nuclear, biological, chemical, radiological, and toxic industrial chemicals by hostile forces. In response, the U.S. Army Chemical School recently categorized these NBC threats into three levels (see table below).

Level I NBC threats equate to weaponized WMD. Level II threats include accidental or deliberate release from industrial complexes. Level III threats include crude, yet potentially lethal, application of radiation, biological, and toxic and industrial materials. Although Level III threats lack sophistication, these include substances which, when released, can be highly lethal but lack the chemical and physical properties, behavior characteristics, or density to be capable of high-order (WMD) levels of destruction. NBC hazards may result from nonstate or terrorist aggression, collateral damage from conventional weapons, natural disasters and industrial accidents, or other sources of environmental contamination. Ammonia and methyl isocyanate are examples of industrial chemicals with potential operational impacts. For example, methyl isocyanate, released in Bhopal, India, resulted in 15,000 deaths and affected almost 300,000 of Bhopal's 800,000 residents. These agents and others are produced in large quantities in industrial chemical plants around the world and are usually located in and around the airports and seaports and logistical nodes that we would want to use in future operations. Smaller countries and possibly some terrorist groups can exploit this industrial chemical threat. These newly identified threats pose great challenges to military planners and commanders.

While the U.S. Army recognizes that a potential enemy might employ NBC weapons at anytime, planning remains focused on the obvious military threat. The Army usually plans for an NBC attack during a desperate moment in the height of battle, but NBC weapons would actually be most effective during entry or deployment operations. These early preparatory stages of a tactical operation are the most vulnerable. An enemy's goal would be to quickly inflict a large number of U.S. casualties and either slow U.S. military forces deployment or swing public opinion against further involvement.

Future U.S. Response to the WMD Threat

The security of the U.S. Army's future requires an NBC defense system that integrates a full array of land-, air-, and space-based sensors that can detect and identify chemical and biological agents. These sensors must be able to detect production, storage, movement, and environmental releases.

This automated, real-time, joint hazard collection system must also be capable of maintaining situational awareness, analyzing input data from the various sensors, leveraging digitized satellite communications, providing immediate warning and reporting to those affected military and civilian populations, and updating the situational-awareness database for all other forces and population centers. This system must operate from land-based sites as well as air- and space-based platforms-a necessary redundancy if it is to provide sufficient coverage to operate the triad of prevention, deterrence, and defense.

This concept is not unique. It is already being developed as an integrated array of sensors transmitting to a central point of analysis, warning, and reporting as the currently developing theater ballistic missile defense (TBMD) concept. The TBMD concept is built upon three pillars: attack operations, active defense, and passive defense. The attack-operations pillar is focused on the U.S. armed forces' ability to prevent the launch of theater missiles by attacking all elements of the enemy's overall ballistic missile system. The active-defense pillar is focused on the U.S. armed forces' ability to intercept and destroy theater missiles in flight. The passive-defense pillar includes all those individual and collective measures taken to reduce the probability and effects of a theater missile attack by reducing the vulnerability of critical forces and infrastructure and by improving the potential to survive and resume operations after an attack.

Obviously, the U.S. Army has already erected similar pillars for NBC attack operations, as well as active defense. The third pillar, WMD passive defense, is also beginning to rise above its original cornerstone of individual soldier protection. I cannot over emphasize the criticality of networking these three pillars to more closely integrate and, therefore, unify and strengthen them. But before they can be linked, the most essential pillar--passive defense--must be developed more thoroughly.

Conclusion

We may feel as if we are scrambling to keep up with the threat, but the fact of the matter is that we are still, with a few extra precautionary measures, the greatest Army in the world. NBC attacks on our ports may slow our arrival to a theater, but they don't have to stop us. It is imperative to remember that, like the rest of the Army, the Chemical Corps is in transition. Our goal should be to make NBC WMD so ineffective against us that our adversaries won't even bother with them. We are on the right track, from a defensive perspective, but we haven't arrived yet. We have several high-tech concepts--such as advanced point and stand-off biological detection and identification, single-vehicle-integrated NBC reconnaissance, NBC fusion and battle management, distributed low-quality and high-density NBC sensors, and aerial-and space-based NBC reconnaissance and surveillance sensors--yet to integrate into our Corps' structure.

Levels of NBC Threat

Level         Nuclear      Biological      Chemical

I           Weaponized     Weaponized     Weaponized

II           Military/      Military/      Military/
            industrial     industrial     industrial
             facility       facility       facility

III        Toxic residue  Toxic residue  Toxic residue

Examples:    Hiroshima      Chekiang       Iran-Iraq
             Chernobyl      Sverdlosk       Bhopal
           Desert Storm    Rajneeshees    Love Canal

(*)Proliferation of WMD and long- range delivery systems throughout the
world should increase.

(*)WMD-capable countries may leverage their asymmetric advantage over
U.S. forces, especially vulnerable during initial-entry operations.

(*)Levels I, II, and III threats significantly increase the planning
factors to mitigate WMD events versus those of Level I.

References

U.S. Army Chemical School, TRADOC Pam 525-20, U.S. Army Operations Concept for Nuclear. Biological, and Chemical (NBC) Defense (Draft), Washington, D.C., Department of the Army, 31 March 1998, p.1.

Department of Defense, 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review Defense Planning Guidance, Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1997.

Department of Defense, 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review Defense Planning Guidance, Washington, D.C., Government Printing Office, 1997.

U. S. Army, Army Transformation Campaign Plan, Washington, D.C., Department of the Army, October 1999.

Richard A. Jackson and Ralph G. Wooten, "Protecting the Force: 21st Century Chemical Corps," Military Review, September-October 1996, p. 75. Now, more than 20 nations are known to possess WMD. WMD proliferation is occurring exactly where the United States does not want it to occur-- in regional flash points throughout the world.

Booz Allen and Hamilton, Assessment of the Impact of Chemical and Biological Weapons on Joint Operations in 2010 (The CB 2010 Study), McLean, VA, Booz Allen and Hamilton, Inc., November 1997, pp. 1-3.

U.S. Army Chemical School, Theater Missile Defense (TMD) Passive Defense Strategy, Washington, D.C., Department of the Army, May 1997, pp. 2-5.

Major King is the battalion executive officer, 84th Chemical Battalion, Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. His previous assignments include battalion chemical officer, 1st Battalion, 3d Field Artillery, 2AD; smoke platoon leader and company executive officer, 46th Chemical Company (SG)(M); Battalion S1, 2d Chemical Battalion; aide-dc-camp, DCG, III Corps; division chemical training officer, DISCOM chemical officer, company commander, 91st Chemical Company, 24th ID, Battalion S3, 703d MSB, 3d ID, G3 Plans, Eighth U.S. Army Yongsan, Korea; and chief of Concepts Branch, Chemical Division, Directorate of Combat Developments, MANSCEN. MAJ King is a graduate of the Chemical Officers Basic and Advance Courses, CAS3, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies, and Airborne and Air Assault Schools. He holds a bachelor's in chemistry from the University of Richmond in Richmond, Virginia, and a master's in military arts and science from the Command and General Staff College in g eneral military studies and military space applications and from the School of Advanced Military Studies in theater operations and planning.

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