Bureaucracy vs. Bioterrorism: Countering a Globalized Threat - Biothreats, Biological Weapons, Shopping List for Do-it-Yourself Bioterrorist, Life Science Officers in Military Service, Germ Warfare

This excellent report has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. Rapidly advancing technology is providing new and novel biothreats to our adversaries. Globalization and the increasing availability of knowledge required to develop biothreats coupled with declining computing costs work together to dramatically increase the likelihood of biological weapon proliferation over the next 25 years. Given a future proliferation of biological weapons to terrorist groups facilitated by globalization and rapidly increasing technological advancements, can a bureaucracy develop an effective network of countermeasures to bioterrorism?

Developing a network of credible countermeasures requires a consistent demonstration of intent to defeat bioterrorists backed by a viable capability. Intent to counter bioterrorism must be communicated to both potential terrorists as well as scientists who may be vulnerable to terrorist propaganda. Scientists considering facilitating terrorists with technical support needed to develop biological weapons may be deterred through professional pressure by their peers in the life science community. The medical profession has long had a concentration of knowledge which, if used wrongly, had the capacity of harming the very patient needing care. Even with this potentially dangerous information, trained medical personnel have developed a set of standards efficiently applied across their professional community. Perhaps the life sciences professions can increase acceptable behavior through adopting a similar ethic, code of standards and self-policing professional community.

In addition to efforts to deter individuals through professional peer pressure, a credible network of countermeasures will include the ability to detect and attribute unacceptable activity. Scientists secretly working to develop biological weapons for terrorists may be further influenced to return to the mainstream if their work is detected and attributed to them directly. Attribution has the effect of removing anonymity from those bioterrorists who might otherwise believe they are impervious to retribution. With removal of anonymity through increased attribution, rogue scientists may be influenced to stop their unprofessional behavior.

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