Advanced Information Technology to Counter Biological Terrorism David Siegrist Potomac Institute for Policy Study Arlington, VA Siegrist@Potomaclnstitute.com As the sole remaining super power, the US creates inadvertent incentives to challenge it with unconventional means. Rather than ttying to match the US plane for plane and tank for tank in an overt confrontation, disaffected national and subnational actors who resent the United States may seek at some point to lash out directly at American society. If they do, biological agents may be their weapons of choice. Biological agents can have destructive power comparable to some nuclear ones, but they are far more accessible to would-be attackers. For instance, kilograms of dried anthrax spores could inflict as many casualties as the fallout from a ten kiloton atomic weapon, or the release of radioactive materials from a nuclear plant 1. As working knowledge about biology grows, the capability to use it for destructive, as well as constructive, purposes grows as well. The incubation period of disease may also make it attractive to perpetrators, since they could disseminate their germs covertly and seek to escape before their act was detected. CCnrrently, the offense is well ahead of the defense in the area
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