Aug. 18, 2023

2023 Biodefense Posture Review

The Biodefense Posture Review was a whole of DOD effort to develop guidance to achieve National Defense Strategy priorities and address biological threats - especially those with strategic consequences for the U.S. military.

April 30, 2023

How Emerging Technologies Become Emerging Threats: Workshop Report

Identifying how emerging technologies contribute to, or constitute emerging threats can better prepare society to take the appropriate actions to mitigate risks and possibly lead to measures that ensure better governance. The participants of a workshop devoted to examining this question found that social, cultural, political, economic, and other factors contribute to how emerging technologies may become emerging threats. This paper summarizes these discussions and conclusions.

March 15, 2023

Designating North Korean Nuclear Weapons as Proliferation Risks: A Proposal for Forestalling Major Power Conflicts in the Event of North Korea's Internal Collapse

A potential North Korean internal collapse would pose enormous challenges to South Korea, to include the risk of catalyzing a major U.S.-China crisis. Creative diplomacy by Seoul, however, could lay the groundwork for all three states to designate North Korea's nuclear weapons as "proliferation risks" within a notional future crisis, providing common ground for Washington and Beijing--who have worked together on key nonproliferation initiatives in the past--to tacitly cooperate on (or at least de-conflict) efforts to address the security threats posed by Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal within a dynamic internal conflict environment.

Dec. 23, 2022

The PLA’s Strategic Support Force and AI Innovation

The Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) Strategic Support Force (SSF) is has a number of advantages that will allow it to help China achieve its aim of becoming a global leader in AI, including an environment that promotes innovation, its explicit charge for innovation, and leadership's support for “intelligentization”, but also notable weaknesses, including attracting and retaining a high-quality high-tech workforce, China’s inability to fabricate advanced semiconductor chips domestically, and the PLA’s limited combat experience and the consequent dearth of associated “ground truth” data. The SSF will be a significant player in the PLA’s adoption of AI, but the authors do not see it as playing a central role in the PLA’s overall AI innovation and development.

Aug. 30, 2022

Controlling Chemical Weapons in the New International Order

Mr. John Caves, CSWMD Distinguished Fellow, and Dr. Seth Carus, NDU Emeritus Distinguished Professor of National Security Policy examine the breakdown in consensus decision-making at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and place this development in the context of Russia, China, and Iran’s larger challenge to a rules-based international order. The article further considers how this dynamic may play out in the OPCW in the coming years and discusses how the United States can continue to use the Chemical Weapons Convention and OPCW to defend the international norm against chemical weapons while better protecting itself and its allies and partners from a greater chemical weapons threat.

Sept. 16, 2021

A Weapon of Mass Destruction Strategy for the 21st Century

In a recent article in War on the Rocks, CSWMD Expert Consultant, Dr. Seth Carus, and colleagues explore how the U.S. government should, through the National Security Council, formulate a unified strategy that addresses the changing character of, and challenges posed by, WMD. That strategy should align current and future national security capabilities in order to prevent the proliferation of such weapons and discourage adversaries from using them to harm the United States, allied nations, and broader American national security interests.

Aug. 24, 2021

Policy Roundtable: The Future of Trans-Atlantic Nuclear Deterrence

CSWMD's Dr. Amy J. Nelson recently wrote a piece featured in the Texas National Security Review, titled the "The Cost of Uncertainty: European Strategic Autonomy and U.S.-E.U. Relations," that was drafted for a workshop titled “Transatlantic Disruption” at Perry World House, the University of Pennsylvania’s global affairs hub. The workshop was made possible by the Shapiro Global Workshop on Geopolitics Fund and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

Aug. 18, 2021

Taking Stock of the National Stockpile: Modernizing for a Dynamic Response

Many have acknowledged that the COVID19 pandemic was not a failure of our imagination – we’ve been preparing for such an event for decades by building biotechnologies for biosurveillance and medicines, conducting exercises, and stockpiling of medical supplies – furthermore, response to a spreading illness in many ways is not rocket science: treat the sick, protect the vulnerable, and stop the spread – mainly accomplished via the tools and products of biotechnology. Many are now asking, what could we have done better in the pandemic response?

June 24, 2021

Arms Control in Today’s (Dis)Information Environment Part III

Dr. Jaclyn Kerr's article is the final installment in a series of papers by Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) Fellows examining Arms Control in Today’s (Dis)information Environment. The goal of the series is to contribute to a discussion about how disinformation could play a role in future arms control treaties and agreements.

June 23, 2021

Cyber Threats and Weapons of Mass Destruction

For two decades, U.S. policymakers, military leaders, and analysts have drawn connections between cyber threats and WMD that demand attention from experts who work in both fields. While recognizing there are a variety of definitions for WMD in use today, the WMD Center does not believe classifying cyber threats as WMD is warranted or advantageous for the United States at this time.

June 7, 2021

The Origin of Covid-19 and Preventing The Next Pandemic

In a recent article in War on the Rocks, Ms. Amanda Moodie and Dr. Nicholas Evans explore how U.S. policy priorities should focus on both identifying and preventing the spread of zoonotic pathogens and bolstering safety and security in high-containment laboratories.

May 25, 2021

Arms Control in Today’s (Dis)Information Environment Part II

Dr. Justin Anderson's recent article is the second in a series of papers by Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) Fellows examining Arms Control in Today’s (Dis)information Environment. The goal of the series is to contribute to a discussion about how disinformation could play a role in future arms control treaties and agreements.

May 11, 2021

(Dis)trust and verify?: Arms Control in Today’s (Dis)Information Environment Part I

Ms. Sarah Jacobs Gamberini's recent article for Inkstick Media examines arms control and disinformation. This is the first article in series of papers by Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) Fellows on Arms Control in Today’s (Dis)information Environment, the goal of which is to contribute to a discussion about how disinformation could play a role in future arms control treaties and agreements.

March 18, 2021

Quantum Sensing's Potential Impacts on Strategic Deterrence and Modern Warfare

Sarah Jacobs Gamberini and Lawrence Rubin recently wrote an article in the Foreign Policy Research Institute's Orbis journal of world affairs researching how quantum sensing could impact WMD, deterrence, and modern warfare.

March 11, 2021

Want to Grow the Economy? Try Fermenting It Instead

U.S. industry’s distribution system and supply chains were vulnerable before COVID, but pandemic-related disruptions to supply chains fully exposed this already alarming problem. U.S. manufacturers have relied too heavily on foreign materials for production, and the steady off-shoring of critical industries over a course of decades has reduced direct control of vital defense-related manufacturing should it be needed.

March 10, 2021

Three’s Company? Prioritizing Trilateral Deterrence Against North Korea

Dr. Shane Smith and Brad Glosserman, Tama University, recently wrote a piece for War on the Rocks arguing that the United States should prioritize and operationalize a trilateral U.S.-Japan-South Korea approach to deterring North Korea. Their article offers concrete steps toward building a trilateral deterrence partnership.

Feb. 25, 2021

Deterring, Countering, and Defeating Conventional-Nuclear Integration

Dr. Justin Anderson and Lt Col James R. McCue, USAF, propose a three-part framework using the Department of Defense’s Deterrence Operations – Joint Operating Concept (deny benefits, impose costs, and encourage restraint) to bolster US and allied deterrence postures in Europe and the Asia-Pacific.

Feb. 12, 2021

Biodefense and the return to great-power competition

Dr. Gerald Epstein's latest article in The Nonproliferation Review explores the increased likelihood of the development and potential use of biological weapons by Russia and China. This paper is part of a special issue on chemical and biological warfare that is being published in memory of Raymond A. Zilinskas.

Jan. 27, 2021

China’s Hypersonic Weapons

Bernstein and Hancock identify potential strategic and operational issues that will need to be addressed as China's hypersonic capabilities mature.

Dec. 9, 2020

The biosecurity benefits of genetic engineering attribution

In a recent volume of Nature Communications, Dr. Gerald Epstein and colleagues examine the biosecurity benefits of genetic engineering attribution. This paper is a policy companion piece to a technical paper, published in the same issue, announcing new results in using machine learning to recognize the source of a genetically engineered DNA.

Dec. 1, 2020

The rise of the futurists: The perils of predicting with futurethink

In this paper, Dr. Alexander H. Montgomery and Dr. Amy J. Nelson explore probabilistic and possibilistic approaches to uncertainty related to AI, outline their potential advantages and disadvantages, and identify common biases that hinder good prediction.

Nov. 19, 2020

Social Media Weaponization: The Biohazard of Russian Disinformation Campaigns

In the latest edition of Joint Force Quarterly, Ms. Sarah Jacobs Gamberini describes the methods and goals of Russia’s influence operations, assesses the implications for targeting matters of public health, and provides whole-of-society recommendations for countering its influence.

Strategic Assessment 2020: Into a New Era of Great Power Competition Oct. 26, 2020

Weapons of Mass Destruction, Strategic Deterrence, and Great Power Competition

Mr. Paul Bernstein and others examine the role of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons in great power competition in the 2020 Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) Strategic Assessment.

Strategic Assessment 2020: Into a New Era of Great Power Competition Oct. 26, 2020

Contemporary Great Power Technological Competitive Factors in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

In the latest Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) Strategic Assessment, Dr. T.X. Hammes and Dr. Diane DiEuliis explore how the convergence of new technologies is creating a fourth industrial revolution that will transform almost every aspect of 21st-century life.

Fit for Purpose? The U.S. Strategic Posture in 2030 and Beyond Oct. 15, 2020

Toward an Integrated Strategic Deterrent

Mr. Paul Bernstein's article for the Center for Global Security Research Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory explores the need for greater integration across the strategic forces toolkit as a means to strengthen deterrence and defense, the opportunities that exist to advance this goal, and obstacles that must be overcome to ensure progress

Fit for Purpose? The U.S. Strategic Posture in 2030 and Beyond Oct. 15, 2020

The Tripolar Strategic Balance in 2030

Ambassador Linton F. Brooks explores the trilateral strategic relationship among the United States, the Russian Federation, and the People’s Republic of China to give some plausible outlines of that relationship in 2030, the variables on which it will depend and its implications for U.S. nuclear policy.

July 29, 2020

Inevitable bedfellows? Cooperation on military technology for the development of UAVs and cruise missiles in the Asia-Pacific

Will states in the Asia-Pacific develop real capabilities to deter Chinese aggression? In this discussion paper – published as part of the Missile Dialogue Initiative research programme – Dr Amy J. Nelson and Dr T. X. Hammes examine the increased likelihood that UAV and cruise-missile technologies will proliferate throughout the Asia-Pacific.

July 10, 2020

Innovation and Its Discontents: National Models of Military Innovation and the Dual-Use Conundrum

Dr. Amy J. Nelson's Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM) Report explores variations in national models of innovation, as well as the pathways or levers those models afford in controlling innovation’s end product with a focus on dual-use technologies. The report uses case studies of both U.S. and German investment in artificial intelligence and additive manufacturing to highlight national approaches to innovation.

June 24, 2020

The Health-Security Nexus: Reassessing Priorities after COVID-19

While Covid-19 has spurred debate about the need to elevate public health as a security concern, the securitisation of health presents both opportunities and trade-offs that need to be considered if we are to reallocate military spending to prepare for the next pandemic. Mr. Nima Gerami and Ms. Amanda Moodie address these issues in their latest for The Oxford University Politics Blog.

June 15, 2020

Aligning the nuclear and conventional elements of NATO’s deterrence

In the latest NATO Defense College publication, Mr. Harrison Menke considers how a more cohesive and comprehensive NATO deterrence posture can help influence Russian leaders against the use of nuclear weapons.

May 7, 2020

Embrace Experimentation in Biosecurity Governance

Dr. Gerald Epstein and colleagues examine the need to rethink biosecurity governance to address changing technical, social, and political environments.

May 7, 2020

Governing a Pandemic

In their article in Inkstick, Ms. Sarah Jacobs Gamberini and Ms. Amanda Moodie examine China's authoritarian approach to COVID-19 in the context of great power competition.

April 27, 2020

Beyond 1918: Bringing Pandemic Response into the Present, and Future

April 27, 2020 — The current pandemic gives us an opportunity to envision new tools, methods, and response policies that leverage emerging technologies, which, if adopted and prudently employed, would enable capability to far better predict, prepare, if not prevent the “next” biosecurity war, and not merely repeat the errors of the “last”. 

April 13, 2020

Ready or Not: Regaining Military Readiness during COVID19

In the latest Institute for National Strategic Studies "Strategic Insight," Dr. Diane DiEuliis and Dr. Laura Junor examine what the Department of Defense needs to maintain force readiness during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Force readiness and management will be improved by rapidly deploying a point of care serological test to all in the U.S. military.

April 6, 2020

The Virus Of Disinformation: Echoes Of Past Bioweapons Accusations In Today’s Covid-19 Conspiracy Theories

In their latest for War on the Rocks, Ms. Sarah Jacobs Gamberini and Ms. Amanda Moodie examine the similarities between current Covid-19 related disinformation campaigns and biological influence operations conducted during the Cold War.

April 2, 2020

Modernizing biotechnology for the fight against COVID-19 and the future of pandemic response

Alexander Titus, Michelle Rozo, and Diane DiEuliis provide some perspective on the importance of using advanced biotechnology capabilities during the global pandemic.

March 25, 2020

Infodemic

In their article in Inkstick, Dr. Justin Anderson and Ms. Sarah Jacobs Gamberini examine the daunting challenge of attempting to halt the spread of misinformation (erroneous information) and disinformation (deliberately false information) about the coronavirus (COVID-19).

Jan. 22, 2020

Redefining Neuroweapons: Emerging Capabilities in Neuroscience and Neurotechnology

As global conflicts assume increasingly asymmetric and “gray zone” forms, the ability to employ current and newly developing techniques and tools of neurocognitive science to manipulate human thought and behavior must be viewed as a present and increasing challenge. DeFranco, DiEuliis, and Giordano examine how developments in neuroscience and technology (neuroS/T) make the brain sciences of growing value for operational use in warfare, intelligence, and national security…

Dec. 13, 2019

Russia's Hypersonic Weapons

While Russian hypersonic weapons could pose problems for U.S. and NATO defense planning, their introduction in the near-term is not likely to fundamentally alter the existing balance of power or the prospects for strategic stability.

Dec. 4, 2019

Fentanyl as a Chemical Weapon

John Caves provides some perspective on the question of whether fentanyl should be considered a chemical weapon, and offers some recommendations to mitigate the risk that fentanyl compounds could be weaponized in the future.

Dec. 2, 2019

Synthetic Biology Industry Practices and Opportunities for Biosecurity and Potential Roles for the U.S. Government

This report summarizes discussions with industry representatives about the current and future structure of the synthetic biology industry, perspectives on potential misuse and vulnerabilities of synthetic biology tools and capabilities, and business practices to prevent misuse of tools and to protect industry assets.

Nov. 6, 2019

The death of the INF Treaty has lessons for arms control

In her article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Dr. Amy J. Nelson argues that despite the treaty's failure, there is much to be learned from its undoing, as well as from the current state of arms control.

Sept. 20, 2019

Power Under Parity

Distinguished Research Fellow Paul Bernstein contributed his expertise to this report on strategic parity in an era of great power competition.

Sept. 19, 2019

Getting Innovation Right

This monograph is a collection of short papers from a Lawrence Livermore workshop on innovation and long-term competition.

Aug. 22, 2019

Biospecimens and the Information Landscape for Biodefense

As genomic sequencing and synthesis tools continue to grow, the genomic information associated with biospecimens is expanding rapidly; the convergence of the physical and digital worlds has yet unexamined impacts to our traditional biodefense frameworks.

July 23, 2019

Book Review: Biosecurity in Putin's Russia

The extensive research and sober discussion and analysis presented in Zilinskas and Mauger’s work may shed enough light to illuminate a path toward effective action.

July 23, 2019

Systems-based Approach to Biodefense Policy Analysis

In this article, co-authored by Dr. Diane DiEuliis, the authors describe a systems-based analysis of the US biosecurity and biodefense policy landscape to analyze functional relationships between policies. They identify 2 approaches in US policy for countering biological threats: prevention of theft, diversion, or deliberate malicious use of biological technologies, and development of capabilities and knowledge to assess, detect, monitor, respond to, and attribute biological threats.

July 23, 2019

Book Review: The End of Strategic Stability?: Nuclear Weapons and the Challenge of Regional Rivalries

In this book review, published in Strategic Studies Quarterly, Dr. Justin Anderson argues that Rubin and Stulberg's volume will leave readers better informed about how Great Powers and regional actors believe nuclear weapons either undergird or undermine strategic stability.

July 23, 2019

The INF Treaty: A Spectacular, Inflexible, Time-bound Success

This article discusses the changing dynamics that led first Moscow and then Washington to reevaluate the merit of the INF Treaty. It concludes that the treaty's relative rigidity may play a key role in its undoing and suggests that future arms control negotiations develop more flexible and resilient mechanisms of review, dispute resolution, and verification.

May 22, 2019

Honey, I Shrunk the Lab: Emerging Microfluidics Technology and its Implications for Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear Weapons

Emerging microfluidics technology has significant extant and potential implications for chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons threats. In E&C Research Paper no. 5, Cyrus Jabbari and Philipp Bleek argue that policymakers concerned about CBRN threats have an opportunity to get ahead of, or at least less behind, some of these developments.

Dec. 3, 2018

Deterrence in the 21st Century: Integrating Nuclear and Conventional Force

In this article, published in Strategic Studies Quarterly, Robert Peters, Justin Anderson, and Harrison Menke advocate better integration between nuclear deterrence strategies and nuclear deterrence operations with US conventional defense policy, strategy, and planning processes.

Dec. 3, 2018

Biotechnology for the Battlefield: In Need of a Strategy

In her article, published on War on the Rocks, CSWMD Senior Research Fellow Dr. Diane DiEuliis discusses the need for a more cohesive strategy to harness the potential uses of biotechnology on the battlefield.

Oct. 25, 2018

WMD in the Digital Age: Understanding the Impact of Emerging Technologies

In E&C Research Paper no. 4, Dr. Bajema explores three broad trends associated with emerging technologies that are fundamentally altering the WMD context, changing the threat space, and undermining the traditional tool box for countering WMD: digitization, convergence, and democratization.

July 9, 2018

The Digitization of Biology: Understanding the New Risks and Implications for Governance

In research paper no. 3, Dr. Natasha Bajema, Dr. Diane DiEuliis, Mr. Charles Lutes and Mr. Yong-Bee Lim explore the implications of the digitization of biology, identify new risks and challenges for governance.

June 25, 2018

Roadmap for Implementing Biosecurity and Biodefense Policy in the United States

This past year, Dr. Diane DiEuliis, in partnership with Gryphon Scientific and Parsons, undertook an ambitious, systems-based analysis of biosecurity and biodefense policy in the United States. Here you can find the full report, an executive summary of the report, and the resultant Roadmap for U.S biodefense policy.

April 9, 2018

The Age of Commercial Drones: Implications for National Security and Weapons of Mass Destruction

In Emergence and Convergence research paper no. 1, Mr. Kenneth Turner explores the rise of commercial drones and its implications for CWMD.

April 9, 2018

The Future of Defense Innovation: Removing the Silos between the Warfighters and Innovators

Dr. Natasha Bajema explores the challenges of defense innovation under the current defense acquisition system.