PROFESSOR YONAH ALEXANDER AND PROFESSOR DON WALLACE, JR.
EDITORS
The national, regional, and global spectrum of biological challenges is limitless. Throughout recorded history, these safety concerns stem essentially from two inevitable sources of enduring actual and potential dangers to individuals, communities, societies, and civilizations.
The first critical threat is caused by Mother Nature’s disasters, such as earthquakes, cyclones, and infectious diseases. The second concern is man-made menaces, including violent radicalism, terrorism, and war. The key question is whether the United States and the international community are prepared to identify, prevent, and counter current and future biological threats.
This Preface of the current report on “Combating Terrorism Amid Covid-19: Review of 2020 and Future Outlook” (February 2021) offers an overview of the national and global implications of biological challenges, both natural and man-made, as well as providing a brief academic perspective.
MOTHER NATURE AND MAN-MADE BIOLOGICAL THREATS
Biological agents are micro-organisms too small to be seen with the naked eye and can include bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Some of the most serious viral agents are those that produce, for example, smallpox and yellow fever. Bacterial agents can induce the plague and Anthrax.
Biological threats are difficult to control as they require a delivery system, or “vector,” that can make distribution difficult and dangerous. Furthermore, it seems likely that if terrorists were to use a biological weapon, they would probably choose a bacteriological rather than a viral or rickettsial agent due to available countermeasures as well as the difficulty of cultivating viruses.
In addition, toxins, the poisonous byproducts of micro-organisms, plants, and animals, fall somewhere between biological and chemical agents as they are non-living substances. Toxins are relatively easy to manufacture and extremely virulent. Botulinum toxins, for example, can be more toxic than some nerve agents on an equal-weight basis.
Moreover, many agents are considered capable of spreading disease among humans, animals, or plants. Disease develops when people and animals are exposed to infectious micro-organisms or to chemicals which are produced by such organisms. After an incubation period, during which organisms are multiplied, the disease may even cause death. Mention should also be made of a number of fungal pathogens, such as smut of wheat that is capable of destroying crops as well as resulting in famine and costly diseases.
Despite the wide array of biological challenges, historical and contemporary records provide extensive evidence regarding the nature, intensity, and health security implications of existing threats. These massive data sources also serve as a warning to beware of future catastrophic losses to human lives as well as political, social, economic, and strategic costs to those societies affected by biological pathogen attacks.
For example, in the 14th Century, the Black Plague wiped out 30-60 percent of Europe’s population. Likewise, the 1918 influenza pandemic, regarded as the deadliest in modern times, killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide, about 675,000 of them in the United States. In addition, the Asian flu, originated in China in 1957-1958, resulted in the death of some one to four million people.
More recently, the sudden Ebola outbreak that began in 2014 presented a major health security challenge nationally, regionally, and globally. This deadly disease created unprecedented fear and anxiety over public safety, not only in parts of West Africa, but also in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere.
In fact, the Ebola virus reappeared in the Congo at different times during 2018-2020. Similar outbreaks as well as other contemporary health security challenges are anticipated in the future.
Mention should be made of the Zika virus infection that is spread by mosquitoes (which are also the vectors of many other diseases), sexually, and through blood transfusion as well as laboratory exposure. The disease causes microcephaly and many other birth defects. Another grave humanitarian concern is the cholera epidemic that has occurred in war-torn Yemen where more than 100,000 cases have been recorded by World Health Organization (WHO) sources, a quarter of them children. This disease is caused by bacteria from water or food contaminated with feces.
Supplementing Mother Nature’s biological threats are man-made intentions and capabilities to deploy a wide range of weapons against perceived or actual adversaries in the struggle for power within and among nations. From the dawn of history to modern times numerous theologians, philosophers, politicians, military strategists, scientists, academics, and other participants and observers of the world’s security concerns have underscored the continued trends toward mass destruction capabilities.
In sum, to prevent a potential “Black Plague”- like disaster as well as man-made threats, it behooves all nations to recall the warning in Shakespeare’s King Lear. “We make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars, as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsions...” (Act 1, Scene 2).
Bill Gates similarly asserted in a February 2017 Security Conference in Munich that “by the work of nature or the hands of a terrorist...an outbreak could kill tens of millions in the near future unless governments begin to prepare for these epidemics the same way we prepare for war.”
