Scientific Openness and National Security after 9/11

CBW Conventions BulletinThe events of 11 September 2001 and the anthrax letters have reignited the longstanding debate over scientific openness and national security. And for the first time, the life sciences community is the focus of concern. Recent proposals for self-governance are unlikely to provide sufficient reassurance that information, in the words of the Corson Report, "not directly and significantly connected with technology critical to national security" is not disclosed. A more formalized system for considering the security implications of biodefence and other dual-use research, including specific criteria for making decisions on dissemination restrictions or classification, is needed in order to maintain support for the very endeavours on which both public health and national security depend. Fear of bioterrorism has emerged as a priority concern of American security policy as a result of the anthrax letters of 2001. That event resonating with the September 11 terrorist attacks crystallized a much more urgent sense of threat than had previously been perceived. It is now commonly assumed that malicious organizations will attempt to exploit the destructive potential of biotechnology, and it is also implicitly conceded that a dedicated effort is likely to succeed. In response to this surge of fear, the American political system has sharply increased investment in biodefence research intended to provide protection against deliberate biological attack. Nowhere is this more true than at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which has seen its funding for biodefence grow by over 3,200%, from $53 million in fiscal year 2001 to a record$1.8 billion (requested) in fiscal year 2006.2 These funds have resulted in a 1,500% increase in the number of grants for research on anthrax, plague and other top biological warfare agents, from 33 between 1996-2000, to almost 500 between 2001 and January 2005.3 This research is dedicated to determining the character and magnitude of potential threat in order to develop better methods of protection. But at least some of this effort will assuredly identify more advanced methods of attack as well. Elisa D Harris is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland John D Steinbruner is the Director of Center for International Security Studies at Maryland

Climate and Social Stress: Implications for Security Analysis

Climate change can reasonably be expected to increase the frequency and intensity of a variety of potentially disruptive environmental events--slowly at first, but then more quickly. It is prudent to expect to be surprised by the way in which these events may cascade, or have far-reaching effects. During the coming decade, certain climate-related events will produce consequences that exceed the capacity of the affected societies or global systems to manage; these may have global security implications. Although focused on events outside the United States, Climate and Social Stress: Implications for Security Analysis recommends a range of research and policy actions to create a whole-of-government approach to increasing understanding of complex and contingent connections between climate and security, and to inform choices about adapting to and reducing vulnerability to climate change

Controlling Dangerous Pathogens: A Prototype Protective Oversight System

CISSM MonographAs has become increasingly evident in recent years, advances in biology are posing an acute and arguably unprecedented dilemma. The same basic science that could in principle be highly beneficial could also be enormously destructive, depending on how it is applied. Although the scope of actual consequence remains uncertain, the potential is clearly extraordinary with the health of individuals, the stability of societies and the viability of the global ecology all apparently at stake. Since compelling good and appalling harm cannot be disentangled at the level of fundamental science, a burden of management is being imposed that human institutions are not currently prepared to handle. The dilemma itself has been exemplified in several widely noted experiments1 and professionally acknowledged in reports issued by the United States National Academies of Science (NAS) and by the British Royal Society. Not surprisingly, however, and perhaps inevitably, efforts to devise an effective response are still at an embryonic stage. The proposals separately advanced by the two scientific societies are directed at their own communities and are largely voluntary in character. Those are natural initial steps but would not alone provide robust global protection. In an effort to encourage productive discussion of the problem and its implications, this monograph discusses an oversight process designed to bring independent scrutiny to bear throughout the world without exception on fundamental research activities that might plausibly generate massively destructive or otherwise highly dangerous consequences. The suggestion is that a mandatory, globally implemented process of that sort would provide the most obvious means of protecting against the dangers of advances in biology while also pursuing the benefits. The underlying principle of independent scrutiny is the central measure of protection used in other areas of major consequence, such as the handling of money, and it is reasonable to expect that principle will have to be actively applied to biology as well. The monograph outlines an advanced oversight arrangement, provisionally labeled the Biological Research Security System (BRSS), which is designed to help prevent destructive applications of biology, whether inadvertent or deliberate. The arrangement is put forward with full realization that meaningful protection can only be achieved by imposing some constraint on freedom of action at the level of fundamental research, where individual autonomy has traditionally been highly valued for the best of reasons. Constraints of any sort on research will not be intrinsically welcome and will have to demonstrate that the protection provided justifies the costs entailed. A great deal of conceptual innovation, legal specification, institutional design and political accommodation would admittedly be required to establish such an oversight process, and there is very little precedent to work with. Because of the demands imposed and the inconvenience involved, the monograph concedes that human societies after due reflection might choose at least initially to accept lesser standards of protection and it discusses more limited incremental measures that might be undertaken. The central contention, however, is that the eventual outcome should be a fully considered choice and not the default result of inertia or neglect. John Steinbruner is the Director of the Center for International Security Studies at Maryland.Elisa D. Harris is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center. Nancy Gallagher is the Associate Director for Research at the Center. Stacy Okutani is a Graduate Fellow in the Advanced Methods of Cooperative Security Program

Modeling civil violence: An agent-based computational approach

This article presents an agent-based computational model of civil violence. Two variants of the civil violence model are presented. In the first a central authority seeks to suppress decentralized rebellion. In the second a central authority seeks to suppress communal violence between two warring ethnic groups

Controlling Dangerous Pathogens

Advances in science has led to a situation where dangerous pathogens that are enormously beneficial for research can also be greatly destructive. However, scientific institutions are not prepared to handle such a burden. Proposals advanced by scientific societies are voluntary by nature but do not alone provide robust global protection. This monograph outlines an advanced oversight arrangement, provisionally labeled the Biological Research Security System (BRRS), which is designed to help prevent destructive applications of biology, whether inadvertent or deliberate. Unfortunately, in order to provide adequate protection, constraints might be necessary on freedom of action at the level of fundamental research, and infringing on autonomy of researchers. In addition a great deal of conceptual innovation, legal specification, institutional design and political accommodation would admittedly be required to establish oversight processes. The author concludes that due to the demands and burdens imposed, that human societies might accept lesser standards of protection and rather acquiesce to more limited and incremental measures