Roger Brent provides a commentary on current and future biological security challenges and possible strategies / approaches.During the 20th century, advances in biological understanding sparked a global
revolution in biological capability, or RBC. Since that time, the revolution has proceeded
in a Moore's-law-like fashion for many decades. One negative consequence of the RBC
is that the US now faces a large and growing threat of catastrophic biological attack. To
deal with the threat, this article advocates a two-part strategy. First, during the current
period of high and growing risk, Period 1, "the Valley of the Shadow of Death", the US
should bring into being a patchwork of agile technical capabilities to detect and respond
to attacks, and social and normative policies to diminish their risk of occurrence. Second
and simultaneously, the US should initiate research whose fruits will eventually deter
biological attacks by rendering them "impotent and obsolete". Creation of effective,
responsive, and agile Period 1 capabilities will buy time, by lowering the probability of
attacks and blunting their impact, until strong technical defenses enabled by longer-term
research can become operational in Period 2. Executing the two components of this
strategy will be far more costly and complex than is generally contemplated, albeit
probably less expensive and difficult than execution of the containment strategy during
the Cold War. However, the increased security, human health and felicity, and economic
growth that this activity will engender will repay the effort and cost many times over.
Entry into Period 2, defense so strong as to deter attack by making it unlikely to have any
effect, coincides with the effective elimination of most naturally occurring infectious
diseases as a factor in human affairs. But at the moment, the best names for Period 2
seem to be "Partial Victory" or "Basin and Range", in that later trends may shift once
again to favor attack
