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1511. The Problems of Preparedness: Challenges Facing the U.S. Domestic Preparedness Program

Author:
Richard A. Falkenrath
Publication Date:
12-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
The U.S. government is now actively engaged in preparing the nation for highly destructive acts of terrorism, especially those involving chemical and biological weapons. This effort involves multiple federal agencies and a wide variety of programs. Collectively known as the “U.S. domestic preparedness program,” these programs are a very recent innovation in American governance. The budget of federal weapons of mass destruction (WMD) preparedness programs has grown from effectively zero in 1995 to approximately $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2000. 1 This made the U.S. domestic preparedness program one of the fastest growing federal programs of the late 1990s.
Topic:
Environment and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States

1512. Analytic Models and Policy Prescription: Understanding Recent Innovation in U.S. Counterterrorism

Author:
Richard A. Falkenrath
Publication Date:
10-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
The threat of terrorism has received enormous attention in the last decade. Anxieties ran particularly high at the turn of the millennium, which fortunately passed without a major terrorist incident. Virtually all states expend some resources to combat terrorism. The policies, programs, and operations that governments undertake to meet this challenge are known collectively as counterterrorism. Although this term is only a few decades old, the practice of counterterrorism is as old as terrorism itself. Like terrorism, counterterrorism is easily recognized, even if its boundaries are somewhat imprecise.
Topic:
Environment and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States

1513. Responding to the Threat of Agroterrorism: Specific Recommendations for the United States Department of Agriculture

Author:
Anne Kohnen
Publication Date:
10-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University
Abstract:
The threat of biological weapons (BW) is usually associated with terrible outbreaks of human illness. Receiving substantially less attention from the media, however, is the fact that BW can also be used against agricultural targets as strategic economic weapons. Agriculture accounts for about 13 percent of the United States' annual gross domestic product. 1996 U.S. cash receipts for livestock, poultry, and crops totaled more than $200 billion. An attack on agriculture could have enormous economic consequences.
Topic:
Environment and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States

1514. The Next Wave: Urgently Needed New Steps to Control Warheads and Fissile Material

Author:
Matthew Bunn
Publication Date:
03-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Nothing could be more central to U.S. and world security than ensuring that nuclear warheads and their essential ingredients—plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU)—do not fall into the hands of terrorists or proliferating states. If plutonium and HEU become regularly available on a nuclear black market, nothing else we do to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons will succeed. Similarly, unless stockpiles of nuclear warheads and fissile materials can be secured, monitored, and verifiably reduced, it will be impossible to achieve deep, transparent, and irreversible reductions in nuclear arms. Measures to control warheads and fissile materials, therefore, are central to the entire global effort to reduce nuclear arms and stem their spread. The tens of thousands of nuclear weapons and hundreds of tons of plutonium and HEU that remain in the U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles represent a deadly legacy of the Cold War, and managing them securely must be a top U.S. security policy priority.
Topic:
Security, Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Russia, United States, Europe, and Asia

1515. Constitutional Problems with Enforcing the Biological Weapons Convention

Author:
Ronald D. Rotunda
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
The 1972 Biological Toxins and Weapons Convention—often called the Biological Weapons Convention, or BWC—requires the signatories to renounce the development, employment, transfer, acquisition, production, and possession of all biological weapons listed in the convention.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Diplomacy, International Law, and Terrorism

1516. From the Sea: National Missile Defense Is Neither Cheap Nor Easy

Author:
Charles V. Peña
Publication Date:
06-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Sea-based missile defense is being advocated as an alternative to the Clinton administration's limited land-based national missile defense (NMD), which is in the early stages of testing. Proponents of sea-based NMD (which is only a concept, not a program) argue that such a system can be deployed more quickly and will be less expensive than the Clinton administration's land-based system. Some argue that the Navy Theater Wide (NTW) system—which is being designed to provide midcourse intercept capability against slower, shorter-range theater ballistic missiles—can be upgraded to attack longrange intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) in their boost phase (when under powered flight at the beginning of their trajectories). Interestingly enough, advocates of sea-based NMD include not only traditional supporters of missile defense but also people who were previously opposed to missile defense.
Topic:
Security, Defense Policy, Politics, and Terrorism

1517. Are We Prepared for Terrorism Using Weapons of Mass Destruction? Government's Half Measures

Author:
Eric R. Taylor
Publication Date:
12-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
In 1996 the U.S. Congress passed and the president signed the Nunn-Lugar-Domenici Act on domestic preparedness for terrorism using weapons of mass destruction. That law directs various departments and agencies of the federal government to make available to state and local governments training and equipment to respond to acts of terrorism involving the use of radiological, biological, and chemical weapons. The program—costing tens of billions of dollars per year—seeks to train local law enforcement, fire, medical, and other emergency response personnel to deal with such an attack against the American public.
Topic:
Security, National Security, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States

1518. A New Paradigm For Arab-Israeli Peacemaking: A Comprehensive Regional System For Security and Cooperation

Author:
Abraham Tamir
Publication Date:
09-2000
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
Over the last two decades, the reliance on separate negotiating tracks in the Arab-Israeli peace process has resulted in a cumulative loss of territories vital for the defense of Israel's very existence, without any corresponding buildup of peace and security for Israel that could last for generations. The military capabilities of Israel's potential adversaries have not diminished, but, in fact, have expanded considerably. The normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab world, as stipulated in the peace treaties between Israel, Jordan and Egypt, has not advanced, but, rather, has been held hostage to further Israeli concessions in each of the separate negotiating tracks. Finally, the employment of terrorism and violence by Israel's neighbors became part of the negotiating process with Syria and the PLO.
Topic:
Security, Religion, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
Middle East, Israel, Syria, and Egypt

1519. A Proposal for an International Convention on Cyber Crime and Terrorism

Author:
Seymour E. Goodman and Abraham D. Sofaer
Publication Date:
08-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for International Security and Cooperation
Abstract:
The information infrastructure is increasingly under attack by cyber criminals. The number, cost, and sophistication of attacks are increasing at alarming rates. Worldwide aggregate annual damage from attacks is now measured in billions of U.S. dollars. Attacks threaten the substantial and growing reliance of commerce, governments, and the public upon the information infrastructure to conduct business, carry messages, and process information. Most significant attacks are transnational by design, with victims throughout the world.
Topic:
Security, International Law, Science and Technology, and Terrorism
Political Geography:
United States

1520. Syria and Weapons of Mass Destruction

Author:
Anthony H. Cordesman
Publication Date:
10-2000
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
The Middle East is the scene of an ongoing process of proliferation. Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, and Syria all have significant capabilities to deliver weapons of mass destruction Israel, and Syria has made considerable progress in acquiring weapons of mass destruction since the mid-1970s. Syria has never shown a serious interest in nuclear weapons, although it did seek to buy two small research reactors from the PRC in 1992, including a 24-megawatt reactor, and purchased a small 30-kilowatt research reactor from the PRC in 1991. It allowed inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency for the first time in February 1992. Syria does, however, deploy sheltered missiles, armed with chemical warheads, as a means of both countering Israel's nuclear forces and maintaining its rivalry with Iraq. As the attached article Syrian Defense Minister Gen. Mustafa Tlas shows, Syria has a major interest in biological warfare, and the fact his article first appeared in public in an Iranian journal may not entirely be a coincidence.
Topic:
Security, Nuclear Weapons, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:
Iraq, Iran, Middle East, Israel, Libya, Syria, and Egypt