The web of measures that comprise the nuclear non-proliferation regime continues to hold at bay the "nuclear-armed crowd" that was part of President John F. Kennedy's alarming vision in 1963. The number of nuclear weapons states in 2004 stands at only eight or nine, and assertive steps may yet keep this number from growing. The proliferation of biological weapons, however, is quite another matter. Biotechnological capacity is increasing and spreading rapidly. This trend seems unstoppable, since the economic, medical, and food-security benefits of genetic manipulation appear so great. As a consequence, thresholds for the artificial enhancement or creation of dangerous pathogens--disease-causing organisms--will steadily drop. Neither Cold War bilateral arms control nor multilateral non-proliferation provide good models for how we are to manage this new challenge. Much more than in the nuclear case, civilization will have to cope with, rather than shape, its biological future.

This report describes the results of some calculations on the effectiveness of penetrating nuclear weapons of yield 1 and 10 kilotons against targets containing biological agents. The effectiveness depends in detail on the construction of the bunkers, on how the bio-agents are stored, on the location of the explosions with respect to the bunkers, the bio-agent containers and the surface of the ground, and on the yield of the explosion and the geology of the explosion site. Completeness of sterilization of the bio-agents is crucial in determining effectiveness. For most likely cases, however, complete sterilization cannot be guaranteed. Better calculations and experiments on specific target types would improve the accuracy of such predictions for those targets, but significant uncertainties regarding actual geology, actual target layouts, and knowledge of the position of the explosion with respect to the target would remain. Aboveground effects of the nuclear explosions, all of which would vent to the surface, are estimated. They include intense local radioactivity and significant fallout, air blast, and seismic effects to kilometers distances. It is likely, however, that casualties from those effects would be less than the casualties that would result from the dispersal of large quantities of bio-agents.

One spring morning in 2004, Professor Steven Kurtz of the State University of New York (SUNY), Buffalo campus, woke to the horrid discovery that his wife of twenty years had died overnight from a heart attack. He called 9-1-1 for emergency services. Paramedics arriving at the Kurtz home noticed technical equipment that would normally only be found in a clinical or research laboratory. If the emergency responders had not been suspicious and had not acted on those suspicions, it would have been worrisome. What happened later--the investigation of Kurtz and colleagues by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI's) Joint Task Force on Terrorism under bioterrorism statues--might have more worrisome implications for both academic research and limiting the threat of bioterrorism.

In the recent past the issue of covert trade in nuclear material gained public prominence when it was erroneously claimed by British intelligence sources that the former Government of Iraq under Saddam Hussein had tried to obtain uranium from Niger. The far reaching consequences of such assessments for society were clearly demonstrated by U.S. President George W. Bush in his speech on January 28, 2003, using this incorrect information as one of the reasons why terrorists and countries belonging to the "Axis of Evil" posed a potential nuclear threat. In view of the occurrence of such significant errors even in the intelligence community, it is not surprising that information in the media on the topic of illicit trafficking of nuclear material is frequently flawed by errors.

In order to avoid the pitfalls of evaluating important security-related decisions from questionable sources of information, this paper discusses only the most reliable currently available data on illicit trafficking of weapons-usable nuclear material, contained in the Database on Nuclear Smuggling, Theft, and Orphan Radiation Sources.

The anthrax attacks in fall 2001, and the fear and confusion that followed, made it all too clear that the United States lacks a comprehensive strategy for coping with bioterrorism. For too long, thinking about biological weapons has been held hostage to misplaced analogies to nuclear or chemical weapons. An effective strategy must begin by focusing on the special challenges posed by biological threats.

Reprinted in R.D. Howard and R.L. Sawyer, eds., Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Understanding the New Security Environment (Guilford, CT: McGraw-Hill/Dushkin, 2002), pp. 174-184.

The United States is in the midst of its third major debate on nationwide ballistic missile defense-the first culminating in the 1972 ABM Treaty and the second sparked by President Reagan's "Star Wars" speech in 1983. This time the Cold War is over, the objectives for the defense are limited, and technology has advanced to the point where some options may be technically feasible.

However, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are not the primary threat to the United States, as events since September 11 demonstrate. Other homeland defense programs, especially civil defenses against bioterrorism, are more important. Yet emerging missile states may acquire ICBMs some day. To the extent that this is a concern, diplomatic efforts can limit the spread of ballistic missiles, and deterrence can dissuade their use. National missile defense (NMD), then, is insurance against the relatively unlikely event that ICBMs will be launched against the United States.

If the United States decides to deploy a limited NMD, the questions become what type and how much? A midcourse NMD system (one that attempts to intercept missile warheads as they fall through outer space) of the sort proposed for deployment in Alaska is the most technically mature option and would probably work well enough against emerging ICBM threats to justify limited deployment, assuming that the threat materializes. However, such a defense should contain only about 20 interceptors to minimize adverse political reactions from Russia and China. Over the long run, midcourse defenses may be vulnerable to sophisticated countermeasures. Therefore, the United States should place greater emphasis on land, naval, and air-based boostphase intercept options (defenses that attempt to intercept the ballistic missile while its rocket motors are still burning) because they are more robust to countermeasures and they pose relatively little threat to Russia and China. Space-based boost-phase NMD systems have the advantage of global coverage; however, they are technically more challenging, probably more expensive, and more destabilizing.