The United States and its allies and partners face an increasingly complex range of potential biothreats. How should the United States conceptualize, plan, and implement tailored deterrence strategies against evolving biological weapons threats? DTRA sponsored the NDU Institute for National Strategic Studies Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction (CSWMD) to hold an exploratory roundtable to examine this topic.
The roundtable brought together subject matters experts on biothreats, deterrence strategy, and related issues to discuss key deterrence concepts (deterrence by cost imposition, deterrence by denial, and deterrence by encouraging restraint), how these concepts apply to biodefense, and provide input and guidance on a draft framework of biothreat deterrence to identify potential areas for further exploration.