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Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats (2004)

Chapter: 2 General Findings and Recommendations

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Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
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2
General Findings and Recommendations

INTRODUCTION

In developing the findings and recommendations on chemical and biological defense in the areas of operations, non-medical science and technology, and medical countermeasures presented in Chapters 3, 4, and 5, respectively, the committee observed that two general themes emerged. Both are fundamental and must be addressed in order for the more specific recommendations of those chapters to have lasting impact and to achieve the needed improvements in naval forces’ defensive posture. This chapter articulates those two general areas: (1) the leadership considerations for lasting improvement in posture and (2) the approach for getting started. The general findings and recommendations elaborated in the rest of this chapter are as follows:

  1. Naval leadership for chemical and biological warfare defense. In spite of both the general military and the naval-specific concerns and guidance regarding preparedness for chemical and biological warfare defense articulated for more than a decade, little improvement in the Navy’s posture could be found. The Navy’s senior leadership should commit to strengthening and integrating chemical and biological defense throughout all Navy functions in order to achieve both near-term and sustained improvements. Leadership within the Marine Corps has been more visible and sustained, but gaps remain in preparedness. For both Services, especially the Navy, this includes having a much higher profile in the Joint Chemical and Biological Defense (CBD) Program to ensure that navalspecific requirements are being adequately addressed.

Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
×
  1. Getting started with operational net assessments. Chemical or biological warfare defense alone will never be perfect, nor are there single robust elements within any defensive approach. Consequently, a defense-in-depth strategy—that is, a layered defense that exploits the synergies among individual components in order to have the strongest possible performance of the overall system—should form the basis for the future. Models for developing defensive capabilities can be found in the Fifth Fleet, with selected Marine base commands, with most commercial fleet operators, with the British Royal Navy, and with the U.S. Air Force. The Navy and Marine Corps should get started with an operational net assessment, particularized to each combat or supporting commander’s operating environment.

NAVAL LEADERSHIP FOR A FORCE BETTER PREPARED

General Finding: A History of Concerns—and Some Response

Advice to naval leadership on the chemical warfare (CW) and biological warfare (BW) threat can be traced to the Cold War period. As the Navy undertook a major force buildup in the early 1980s, a memorandum from committee member Joshua Lederberg to the CNO, Admiral James Watkins, USN, was instrumental in precipitating the decision to equip some new vessels with collective protection capabilities and improved chemical weapons detectors.1

Following the experiences of the Persian Gulf War in 1991, including the preparations for chemical and biological warfare and controversies about possible exposure to chemical warfare agents during the war, considerable concern existed at senior levels in the Joint Staff, Office of the Secretary of Defense, and U.S. Navy about the ability of U.S. forces to fight and survive in a contaminated environment. As indicated in the following sequence of events, attempts to address these concerns have been made, but sustaining efforts have largely fallen flat.

  • 1992. In the wake of the Persian Gulf War, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell reports that the vulnerability of U.S. forces to biological attack had been one of his greatest concerns.

  • 1993. Secretary of Defense Les Aspin launches the Defense Counterproliferation Initiative, aimed at gaining short- and longer-term improvements in the ability of U.S. forces to project power and prevail against regional adversaries armed with weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

  • 1994. The new Defense Planning Guidance specifies that chemical and biological weapons should be considered a likely condition of war.2

1  

Lederberg, Joshua. 1982. Memorandum for ADM James D. Watkins, USN, re: Report of the Chemical Warfare Task Force of the CNO Executive Panel (U), Chemical Warfare Task Force, CNO Executive Panel, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, D.C. (classified).

2  

Department of Defense. 1994. Defense Planning Guidance, Washington, D.C. (classified).

Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
×

 

  • 1994. Deputy Secretary of Defense John White creates the Counterproliferation Council as a way to generate high-level and sustained Service engagement.

  • Mid-1990s. Navy Under Secretary Richard Danzig makes a serious effort to persuade Service leadership of the high risks to the Navy from failing to address the biological threat.3

  • 1996. The General Accounting Office (GAO) concludes that military Services “face many of the same problems [of chemical and biological defense] that they confronted during the Persian Gulf conflict in 1990 and 1991.”4

  • 1997. The first Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) highlights the risk to U.S. forces posed by the proliferation of WMD in major theater war scenarios.5

  • 1998. Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre creates the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) to encourage improved focus and effectiveness in coming to terms with the threat of WMD.

  • 1998. The CNO issues OPNAV (Office of the Chief of Naval Operations) Instruction 3400.10F, “Chemical, Biological, and Radiological (CBR) Defense Requirements Supporting Operational Fleet Readiness,” outlining revised and comprehensive responsibilities throughout the Navy.

  • 2001. The second QDR, under Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, highlights rising concern about asymmetric challenges to U.S. power and the specific utility of chemical and biological weapons in the hands of adversaries seeking to inhibit U.S. access to their regions.6

  • 2001. The GAO again concludes that major capability shortfalls remain among the Services.7

  • 2002. The Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) issues SECNAV Instruction 3300.3A, “Combating Terrorism Program Standards,” which includes a policy statement directing the assessment of “vulnerabilities and planned countermeasures” to WMD.8

3  

See Danzig, Richard. 1996. “Biological Warfare: A Nation at Risk—A Time to Act,” Strategic Forum Number 58, Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, Washington, D.C.; and Danzig, Richard. 1996. “Why Defense Against Biological Warfare Should Be a Priority,” Surface Warfare Magazine, November/December, pp. 10-13.

4  

U.S. General Accounting Office. 1996. Chemical and Biological Defense: Emphasis Remains Insufficient to Resolve Continuing Problems, GAO/NSIAD-96-103, Washington, D.C., March.

5  

Cohen, William S., Secretary of Defense. 1997. Quadrennial Defense Review Report, Washington, D.C.

6  

Rumsfeld, Donald H., Secretary of Defense. 2001. Quadrennial Defense Review Report, Washington, D.C., September 30. Available online at <www.defenselink.mil/pubs/qdr2001.pdf>.

7  

U.S. General Accounting Office. 2001. Chemical and Biological Defense, Improved Risk Assessment and Inventory Management Are Needed, GAO-01-667, Washington, D.C., September; U.S. General Accounting Office. 2001. Chemical and Biological Defense, DOD Needs to Clarify Expectation for Medical Readiness, GAO-02-38, Washington, D.C., October.

8  

SECNAV Instruction 3300.3A, “Combating Terrorism Program Standards,” May 16, 2002, Office of the Secretary of the Navy, Washington, D.C., includes links to the civilian sector. Available online at <http://neds.nebt.daps.mil/directives/3300_3a.pdf>.

Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
×

This record of high-level concern, guidance, and DOD actions was paralleled by more intense oversight from Congress in defense planning challenges associated with WMD. New committees were formed in both houses to focus legislative attention on these matters. Congressional support agencies, including both the Congressional Research Service and the Congressional Budget Office, were tasked over the decade after the Persian Gulf War with providing numerous studies and analyses to inform the oversight process. Concerned about the seemingly ineffectual and redundant technology investment efforts of the individual Services, in 1994 Congress legislated a joint approach for research, development, and acquisition. (Box 2.1 summarizes the organization of the Joint CBD Program.)

BOX 2.1
DOD’s Joint Chemical and Biological Defense Program

The National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 1994 (Public Law 103160, Section 1703) stipulated that “the Secretary of Defense shall…assign responsibility for overall coordination and integration of the chemical and biological warfare defense program and the chemical and biological medical defense program to a single office within the Office of the Secretary of Defense [OSD].” Concerned about the “backwater” status of chemical and biological defense in the Services, with many redundant and subcritical efforts, Congress sought both to raise the visibility of the new program—the Joint Chemical and Biological Defense (CBD) Program—and to create critical levels of effort around common Service needs. The program integrates and controls funding for all research, development, and acquisition (RDA) but not operations and maintenance or training, which remain the responsibilities of each Service.

The program is managed through a complicated joint Service/OSD committee structure that separately addresses medical and non-medical defensive measures. In the non-medical area, the program is further broken down into requirements and materiel groups, each organized around five “commodity” areas: contamination avoidance, individual protection, collective protection, decontamination, and modeling and simulation. Each committee is governed by the “one Service, one vote” principle. Total funding for the program in Fiscal Year (FY) 2001 was approximately $870 million, with about 45 percent in research, development, testing, and evaluation (RDT&E) and the rest in procurement. Funding for FY 2002 remained at about the same level, but reversed the split between RDT&E and procurement. The Army serves as the executive agent, but a Service lead executes each program.

As of the writing of this report, the management structure of the Joint CBD Program is undergoing change at the direction of the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics. The requirements committee (the Joint Service Integration Group) has been replaced by a single office in the J8 (plans and programs) section of the Joint Staff that will develop the joint requirements documents in keeping with the norm for joint programs. The materiel process for RDA is still undergoing reorganization, but one step taken is that of reassigning the lead role for RDA to the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.

Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
×

In addition to the concerns of DOD and congressional leadership noted above, the Defense Science Board (DSB) has generated a series of reports flagging the urgency of addressing asymmetric threats in general and BW threats in particular, and elaborated strategies for dealing with them. The 1997 DSB study on the transnational threat highlighted the emerging asymmetric challenge posed by new forms of terrorist organizations and, specifically in the chemical and biological weapons domain, recommended strategies for reducing vulnerabilities while “getting smarter” about the problem.9 The 2001 DSB study on biological defense, cosponsored by the Threat Reduction Advisory Committee (TRAC), characterized the threat to U.S. military strategy posed by biological weapons and elaborated a systems approach to dealing with that threat.10 The DSB Task Force on Intelligence Needs for Homeland Defense11 and its Task Force on Defense Against Biological Weapons12 reinforced similar themes and provided direction for analytical and technical investments. The alarm bell rung in these studies has been echoed in a string of consistent statements from senior intelligence community officials before congressional committees describing a growing body of evidence about and increasing sophistication in the capabilities of chemical and biological weapons proliferators.

General Finding: A Navy Not Well Prepared

Despite the high level of concern and guidance described above, there was a substantial body of informed criticism on the progress of the Services, including the Navy, in developing strategies and sustaining readiness to address the growing specter of the threat:

  • 1995 and 1996. The Center for Counterproliferation Research at the National Defense University undertook a series of assessments of Service readiness. A February 1996 report on the Navy concluded that fleet readiness had substantially eroded in the period since the Persian Gulf War.13

9  

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology. 1997. Report of the Defense Science Board 1997 Summer Study Task Force on DoD Responses to Transnational Threats, Vol. I, Washington, D.C., October. Available online at <http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/trans.pdf>.

10  

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics. 2001. Report of the Defense Science Board/Threat Reduction Advisory Committee Task Force on Biological Defense, Washington, D.C., June, p. vi..

11  

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics. 2002. Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Intelligence Needs for Homeland Defense, Washington, D.C., January.

12  

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics. 2001. Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Leveraging Advances in Biotechnology and Medical Informatics to Improve Homeland Biodefense Capabilities, Vol. IV, Washington, D.C., October.

13  

Center for Counterproliferation Research. 1996. The Impact of Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons on Naval Operations and Capabilities, National Defense University, Washington, D.C., February.

Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
×
  • 1997. The Institute for Defense Analyses undertook a review of the counterproliferation effort for the Defense Special Weapons Agency (which was later subsumed by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency). This review included a survey of thinking within the defense community about how much progress had been made by the Services, the combatant commanders, the acquisition program, and so on, in coming to terms with the implications of chemical and biological weapons proliferation as a defense planning problem. That survey described a widespread perception that the Navy was the farthest behind of the Services and that it showed little evidence of seeking to catch up.14

  • 1997 to 2001. The Center for Naval Analyses Corporation (CNAC) undertook a variety of studies, some with Navy sponsorship and others with sponsorship by DTRA, to assess and recommend improvements in the defense against chemical and biological weapons. A number of consistent themes run through these studies:

    • “The Navy does not fully understand if its forces can operate effectively in a CBW [chemical and biological warfare] environment.”15

    • “The Navy currently has little, if any, data that quantify operations in a CBW [chemical and biological warfare] environment.”16

    • “Despite the apparent consensus at the policy level on the seriousness of the CBW [chemical and biological warfare] threat and the need to take action, there seems to be some degree of ambivalence in the Navy outside the CBW community.”17

Many of these studies provide baseline assessments of naval response capabilities to chemical and biological threats. The assessments are strikingly negative. They note technical kinds of deficiencies, including the ability of naval forces to detect chemical and biological warfare agents in a timely and adequate manner; to protect sailors, ships, facilities, and operations; and to decontaminate without compromising mission performance. They also note deficiencies of an operational kind, including both training and readiness shortfalls. The cumulative picture of naval capabilities that emerges from these studies is that naval forces need to substantially improve their preparedness—across the full spectrum of technical and operational requirements—in terms of capabilities, understanding,

14  

Roberts, Bradley, and Victor Utgoff. 1998. Counterproliferation: A Mid-term Review, Institute for Defense Analyses, Alexandria, Va., annotated brief.

15  

East, James R., Stephen J. Guerra, J.G. Ebert, Susan C. McArver, M.W. Ewell, and A.S. Hashim. 1999. Navy Implications of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) Proliferation, Center for Naval Analyses, Alexandria, Va.

16  

East, James R., Stephen J. Guerra, J.G. Ebert, Susan C. McArver, M.W. Ewell, and A.S. Hashim. 1999. Navy Implications of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) Proliferation, Center for Naval Analyses, Alexandria, Va.

17  

Perrin, David A. 2000. Chemical and Biological Defense Requirements Study, CRM D0002877.A1, Center for Naval Analyses, Alexandria, Va., p. 1.

Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
×

and planned improvements, both today and tomorrow, in order to better address chemical and biological threats.18

These studies also emphasize that the Navy lacks a common operational picture of the chemical and biological threat environment and thus is moving chemical and biological defense technology into the force without the concepts necessary to exploit new capabilities for winning at the campaign level against an intelligent and determined adversary. (Without a common operational picture, the Navy might also be moving poorly suited, or even the wrong, technologies into the force.) Navy Component, Central Command (NAVCENT) and other Navy groups facing the possibility of operations in high-threat environments are only beginning to assess and understand the conceptual, operational, and command and control challenges associated with effective protection, defense, recovery, and sustained operations in chemical and biological environments.19

These concerns about naval capabilities, readiness, and even interest have also been echoed in a series of studies commissioned by Congress and conducted under the auspices of the Congressional Budget Office.20 Readiness concerns have been echoed by DOD’s own Inspector General.21

The committee found that, with some notable exceptions as discussed later in this chapter, these assessments appear to be accurate. In fact, the information gathered in the course of this study suggests that the Navy is not as prepared as it should and could be in terms of its readiness posture for defense against chemical or biological attack. The Marine Corps is significantly better prepared than the Navy in terms of operational readiness, but its emphasis has been on dealing with

18  

Brooks, L.F. 1999. Report on CNA Tasks for the Project on Integrated NBC Defense for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Defense Threat Reduction Agency Annual Conference, CME 0599061900, Center for Naval Analyses, Alexandria, Va., June.

19  

Edsel D. McGrady (Center for Naval Analyses) has led a series of studies for the Navy, including “Shipboard Biological Hoax,” “Biological Attack on a Pier,” “Shipboard Biological Contamination Scenarios,” “The NBC Warfight: Concepts from the COMUSNAVCENT Experience,” “Biological Warfare Limited Objective Experiment,” “Preparing a Forward Fixed Site for Chemical, Biological, and Radiological Defense: The COMUSNAVCENT Experience,” “Operation Desert Thunder Quicklook: Chemical and Biological Defense,” “Operation Desert Fox: CBR Defense,” and “Navy Role in Homeland Defense Against Asymmetric Threats.”

20  

See, for example, General Accounting Office. 2000. Weapons of Mass Destruction: DOD’s Actions to Combat Weapons Use Should Be More Integrated and Focused, GAO/NSIAD-00-97, Washington, D.C., May 26; General Accounting Office. 2001. Chemical and Biological Defense: Units Better Equipped But Training and Readiness Reporting Problems Remain, GAO-01-27, Washington, D.C., November 14; General Accounting Office. 2001. Chemical and Biological Defense: Improved Risk Assessment and Inventory Management Are Needed, GAO-01-667, Washington, D.C., September 28; General Accounting Office. 2001. Chemical and Biological Defense: DOD Needs to Clarify Expectations for Medical Readiness, GAO-02-38, Washington, D.C., October 19.

21  

Office of the Inspector General. 1998. Unit Chemical and Biological Defense Readiness Training, Report No. 98-174, Department of Defense, Arlington, Va., July 17.

Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
×

chemical agent threats. (Chapter 3 provides more specific findings and recommendations with respect to the Marine Corps and what the Navy can build on.)

General Finding: Lessons to Be Learned from the Air Force

In the period since the Persian Gulf War, the Navy has been slow in dealing with chemical and biological defense planning requirements, while the Air Force, by contrast, is widely seen as having been more responsive to the new situation and having taken substantial initiatives to innovate and find practical operational solutions. The following short description of the Air Force’s learning curve may be instructive to the Navy as it considers how to reap similar operational benefits.22

  • Awareness. Like the Navy, the Air Force was left with concerns following the near brush with chemical and biological weapons in the Persian Gulf War. Although the Air Force had established passive defense capabilities and a program to bring new technologies into the field, it took a series of discussions in Deputy Secretary of Defense John White’s Counterproliferation Council, backed by associated critical analyses, for Air Force leadership to admit that having some capabilities in hand and some better ones in the technology pipeline does not necessarily equate with an operational ability to fight and survive in a CW or BW environment.

  • Commitment and guiding principles. Following a reorganization to increase command emphasis and focus on chemical and biological defense, the Air Force undertook a series of internal reviews, studies, and analyses in a search for lessons that could guide more effective planning. One of these lessons was that the Air Force could not rely on another Service (in particular, the Army as executive agent for the Joint CBD Program) to understand its unique operational environment. A second lesson was that the specific operational requirements of sustaining Air Force combat operations in a contaminated environment were not necessarily in line with generalizations across all the Services regarding combat degradation factors, as developed in the Joint CBD Program. A third lesson was that there are substantial operational, organizational, and planning differences between CW and BW.

  • Near-term implementation steps. The Air Force then defined a view more tailored to its own needs of what comprehensive chemical and biological defense readiness should look like. That view encompassed clear and executable guidance, educated and aware personnel, the right people responding with the right equipment, training, and exercises focused on these threats—all backed by a comprehensive and functioning assessment and inspection program.

22  

This summary is drawn from a presentation made on December 18, 2001, to this committee by Col Thomas (Dutch) Miller (USAF ret.) and Col Donald Minner, USAF: “Counterproliferation: Air Force Perspectives on Chem/Bio Defense.”

Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
×
  • Longer-term strategy. The Air Force next elaborated its Counterproliferation Master Plan. That plan consolidated existing counterproliferation guidance to provide overarching guidance for coordinating Air Force assets and efforts for counterproliferation, instituted an investment strategy process, and directed the major commands to develop implementation plans to organize, train, and equip forces. It is important to note that the Air Force has addressed chemical and biological passive defense in the context of the broader mission space of counterproliferation to understand the trade-offs and synergies with active defense, counterforce, and consequence management.

  • Refining requirements. Keeping in mind its specific technology needs, the Air Force then took a more critical look at the ability of the Joint CBD Program to meet its long-term needs. This process led to more effective exploitation of the Joint CBD Program to meet Air Force-specific requirements, as well as to a more independent parallel program for defining and meeting Air Force-unique operational needs, most notably for determining agent fate on contact with runway surfaces.23 Of note also are the operational procedures that the Air Force has developed in concert with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to assign risk levels to geographic regions on the basis of local meteorological conditions and to take sensible precautions if warranted (e.g., simple protective masks for sleeping when threat concerns combine with meteorological conditions for “ideal” biological weapons attack conditions at night).

General Recommendation: Strengthen and Integrate Across the Board

Naval leadership should commit to strengthening and integrating chemical and biological weapons defense considerations into all naval functions.

In order for the Department of the Navy to achieve the needed improvements in chemical and biological weapons defensive posture, naval senior leadership, especially in the Navy, should step up to every aspect of the problem. An approach that is too narrow will leave potentially crippling vulnerabilities in naval power projection capabilities. Chemical and biological defense crosscuts warfighting, support, and infrastructure operations. As such, chemical and biological defense should become integral to each area—currently it is not—and it should be supported with expertise in the technical and operational organizations throughout the Department of the Navy—currently it is not. The route to that integration is through the normal institutional mechanisms: experimentation and concept development; policy, doctrine, and tactics, techniques, and procedures

23  

The committee recognizes that the larger chemical and biological defense community has concerns about the technical results of the agent fate studies from which the Air Force has revised its CONOPS, but the committee finds that the general approach the Air Force has taken, as described in this section, offers an excellent model to follow.

Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
×

(TTPs) development and promulgation; RDA prioritization; test and evaluation; education and training; readiness assessments; and so on. The needed integration should also be reinforced through career paths for chemical and biological defense professionals. Such a comprehensive approach can only be motivated and sustained by the CNO and his senior leaders. Commitment also includes a much higher profile in the Joint Chemical and Biological Defense Program to ensure that naval-specific requirements are being adequately addressed. (See also Chapter 4, “Non-Medical Science and Technology,” for a more complete discussion on this point.)

GETTING STARTED

General Finding: The Need for Defense in Depth

As the Air Force experience suggests, an effective defense posture against the CW or BW threat requires far more than passive defense. Effective passive defenses against CW or BW, which are the focus of this report, are an essential capability, but they are only one part of a larger whole—and both the Navy and the Marine Corps should understand the trade-offs and synergies that exist among the other contributors to a robust defensive posture. Against a state adversary willing and able to use chemical and biological weapons in battlefield and theater-wide attacks, effective defense requires not only passive defense, but the development of a more comprehensive architecture that would include the following: counterforce attack capabilities to diminish the adversary’s attack capability, active defenses to reduce any attacks launched by air, passive defenses to diminish the impact of those attacks on forces in theater, decontamination capabilities to restore contaminated facilities and personnel to service, consequence management capabilities to cope with broader base and public demands, medical therapeutics both pre- and post-attack, and so on.24 The existence of robust active and passive chemical and biological defense capabilities would positively influence overall counterproliferation capabilities. Against a state or nonstate adversary employing chemical or biological weapons in covert and limited attacks on U.S. forces, a high level of force protection is also essential. The recent DSB/TRAC study on BW summarized the spectrum of capabilities necessary to meet the BW challenge in this context:

  • Effective intelligence and awareness;

  • Capability for warning and characterization of attacks;

  • Capability for vaccination against biological agents;

24  

Cohen, William S., Secretary of Defense. 1997. Proliferation: Threat and Response 1997, Washington, D.C. Available online at <http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/prolif97/>.

Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
×
  • Widely available passive protection—masks, citadels;

  • Rapid, effective incident and crisis response;

  • Access to therapeutics to minimize casualties;

  • Capability to decontaminate and restore function;

  • Forensic capability to guide attribution, retribution, and deterrence; and

  • International laws and treaties and methods of enforcing them that prevent the development and use of biological weapons.25

Because none of the tools in this toolkit can be relied upon to provide the complete solution to the problem, it is necessary to develop a defense-in-depth approach—essentially, a layered defense that exploits the synergies among individual components in order to provide the strongest possible performance of the overall system. The DSB/TRAC BW study describes the utility of such a systems approach as follows:

This strategy is a composite of defensive components. Individually, none provides a strong defense; collectively, they will make biological attacks uncertain, often unsuccessful, and risky for the attacker, and thus reduce the attractiveness of biological weapons. It will deter the use of biological weapons and blunt their impacts in the event they are used. It will also provide the United States with options to hold accountable those determined to be responsible.26

Given that there is no perfect solution to the problem in the sense that risks cannot be fully eliminated, the challenge for naval forces is to manage those risks in ways that enable it to accomplish its missions at reasonable costs.

General Finding: Basis for Optimism

The kinds of operational capabilities that the Navy needs in order to be able to carry out its missions in a chemical or biological threat environment appear within its reach. To attain the necessary capability and readiness, it should support and sustain improvements in passive defenses, training, and leadership awareness—but it should also do some major things quite differently. It should see the threat in an entirely new way. It should not rely solely on the notion that the mobility of ships at sea is adequate defense against this threat in the era of asymmetric conflict. The Navy should look well beyond passive defenses to understand the full contours of a CW or BW defense posture. It must plan on the basis of a risk-management approach and train and test to refine its TTPs.27

25  

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics. 2001. Report of the Defense Science Board/Threat Reduction Advisory Committee Task Force on Biological Defense, Washington, D.C., June., p. vi.

26  

Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics. 2001. Report of the Defense Science Board/Threat Reduction Advisory Committee Task Force on Biological Defense, Washington, D.C., June, p. 4.

Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
×

Given the apparent lack of progress over the last decade, some will be skeptical that the Navy will actually succeed at engineering the necessary risk management posture, but there are good reasons to be optimistic:

  • Within the Navy there are pockets of excellence on these issues—for example, at NAVCENT, which has been aggressive at finding innovative solutions to the challenges facing naval operations on base and at sea in the Persian Gulf.

  • The Navy’s own experience in struggling to come to terms with mine warfare vulnerabilities, an area with analogous problems, has shown that diligence, leadership, and innovation can pay substantial dividends.28

  • The U.S. Air Force has used risk-based analyses to develop innovative approaches to sustaining air operations in a chemical or biological threat environment, offering another useful model, as presented above. Of special note is the Air Force’s ability to quantify the relationship between sortie generation rates and improved technical chemical and biological defense capabilities and CONOPS for contaminated battle environments.

  • The British Royal Navy has characterized and solved some of the problems now coming into focus for the U.S. Navy and can serve as a useful model and partner.29

  • Fleet operators in the commercial world and emergency response personnel in the civil sector, who face hazardous risks not unlike the chemical and biological threat to naval forces, have developed and implemented an effective risk management capability, which can also serve as a useful qualitative, if not quantitative, model.30

27  

Standards for risk factors in contamination are discussed in the subsection entitled “Decontamination” in Chapter 4 and in the subsection entitled “Standards” in Appendix C.

28  

While there are many differences between chemical and biological warfare (mainly antipersonnel) and mine warfare (mainly antiplatform), there is a broad analogy between them in net effect on operations. In a warfighting context, both are used to slow operations, to deny areas to maneuver, and thereby to affect entire campaigns. Additionally, both involve mixtures of old and new technologies, are attractive for use in “asymmetric” attacks, and are difficult, persistent, and unpopular problems. The Navy had embarrassing mine warfare experience in Desert Storm and has taken corrective steps to improve its defensive mine warfare capability. The Navy has improved the capabilities of its specialty mine countermeasures (MCM) force, not with new systems but through training and organizational changes. The Navy is also moving to gain an organic MCM capability in battle groups so that they will not be slowed waiting for the arrival of its dedicated ships. For chemical and biological warfare, similar steps can be taken (as elaborated in subsequent chapters): train and organize specialty groups and develop an “organic” capability in the fleet to maintain speed of operations.

29  

Examples include assessments on likely threat environments (e.g., toxic industrial chemicals in littorals); operational approaches (e.g., splash wetting by rocking ships’ surfaces in high-threat environments); and technical developments that closely tie the R&D community with operators throughout the development cycle.

Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
×

General Recommendation: Operational Net Assessment

Get started with an operational net assessment.

The landscape of chemical and biological threats and targets is enormous, but all environments and situations do not carry the same level of risk, as discussed in Chapter 1. The basis for focusing energies and investments should be an operational net assessment by each operational fleet commander. Such an assessment would elucidate the consequences of adversaries’ use of chemical or biological weapons, examining not just impacts on individual ships but on missions more broadly, including the combatant commander’s operational theater and strategic goals. The assessment should identify not just primary but also secondary and tertiary effects of attack. It should, for example, look beyond ship and facility vulnerabilities and the challenges of recovering and sustaining operations post-attack. It should understand the impact of an attack on nearby civilian populations, whether CONUS or OCONUS, and the consequences for logistics support and future access to a port if it were attacked. The assessment should also explore the consequences of an adversary’s capability to subject U.S. forces to periodic re-attack. Such an assessment should provide a vision of both mission failure—at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels—and the essential ingredients of mission sustainment and success.

This assignment should be undertaken by groups with the depth of analytical experience needed to conduct such assessments, including those of both threats and responses in context. As an example of what is needed, the Fifth Fleet has enlisted expert help from the analytical community to perform assessments specifically relevant to its area of responsibility (AOR). In addition, the U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) is developing an operational net assessment capability for dealing with terrorist threats in the joint context. N-70, responsible for requirements in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, aided by appropriate organizations with the know-how for performing such assessments, should then work with the regional commands to develop assessments tailored to the specific attributes of the respective regions—specific adversaries’ threats, U.S. and allied

30  

In spite of the impression the press may have created, management of Norwalk virus infection aboard cruise ships is a good example of risk management. The virus is a worldwide problem in both land- and sea-based environments. It is spread by close personal contact, with transmission accelerated in confined spaces. The illness is being brought aboard ships primarily by passengers from Europe and Africa. The detailed record keeping and reporting of the cruise industry compared with that of land-based institutions makes occurrence of the illness in that environment more visible. The cruise industry has established a risk management committee that has developed extensive technical information on the illness and on methods for bringing it under control. Compared with land-based situations in which data are available, these methods have been effective at managing both the incidence and severity of the illness. The techniques employed include surveillance, reporting, and response actions graded to the degree of risk.

Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
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capabilities, geographic factors, and operational objectives—as the foundation for risk-based planning. This task should draw on the collective experience and knowledge of operators within the fleet and naval command as well as on expertise in the intelligence community and regional commands.

SUMMARY

Box 2.2 provides a summary of the findings and recommendations in this chapter.

BOX 2.2
Summary of General Findings and Recommendations

Leadership

Findings

  • For more than a decade, concerns have been expressed in Congress and the Office of the Secretary of Defense and by selected senior naval civilian and military leaders regarding Service-general and Navy-specific abilities to deal with chemical or biological warfare.

  • Internal and external studies and assessments have highlighted the erosion of Navy readiness and capabilities for chemical and biological defense since the Persian Gulf War. The Marine Corps, on the other hand, has been more aggressive and consistent in improving both capabilities and preparedness.

  • Finding the Air Force in a similar situation in the mid-1990s, Air Force leadership undertook internal initiatives to innovate and find practical operational solutions.

Recommendation for the Navy

  • Naval leadership, building on the policies recently established by the Chief of Naval Operations and the Secretary of the Navy, should commit to the integration of chemical and biological defense considerations into all naval functions. As with any warfighting and sustainment function, this integration can be accomplished through the normal institutional mechanisms: experimentation and concept development; policy, doctrine, and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) development and promulgation; research, development, and acquisition prioritization; test and evaluation; education and training; readiness assessments; and so on. (More specific ownership for these actions is discussed in Chapters 3 through 5 of this report.)

Getting Started

Findings

  • Since no single element can achieve the goals for effective chemical and biological warfare defense, a defense-in-depth approach, which creates a layered defense that exploits the synergies among individual components in order to pro

Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
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  • vide the strongest possible performance of the overall system, should serve as the basis for future naval actions to improve posture.

  • Examples of such approaches that assess and weave together options in the context of acceptable levels of risk can be found with the Navy Component, Central Command (NAVCENT); the British Royal Navy; the U.S. Air Force; and commercial fleet operators and emergency responders.

Recommendation for the Navy

  • Following the example set by the Fifth Fleet, each operational fleet commander should get started with an operational net assessment that provides a vision of both mission failure—at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels—and the essential ingredients of mission sustainment and success.

Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
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Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
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Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
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Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
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Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
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Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
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Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
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Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
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Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
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Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
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Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
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Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
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Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
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Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
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Suggested Citation:"2 General Findings and Recommendations." National Research Council. 2004. Naval Forces' Defense Capabilities Against Chemical and Biological Warfare Threats. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/11034.
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U.S. naval forces must be prepared to respond to a broad array of threats. Of increasing importance are those from chemical and biological warfare (CW and BW). To help review its current state of preparedness, the Chief of Naval Operations asked the National Research Council (NRC) to assess the U.S. Navy’s defense capabilities against CW and BW threats. In particular to what extent are they being developed to enable naval forces to sense and analyze quickly the presence of chemical and biological agents, withstand or avoid exposure to such agents, deal with contamination under a broad spectrum of operational conditions, and over what period will these capabilities be realized. This report presents the results of that assessment. It provides an overview of the potential threats, and an evaluation of the Navy’s operations, non-medical programs, and medical countermeasures designed to confront those threats. The report also presents a series of general and specific findings and recommendations based on these assessments.

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