Armchair Generalist

When Idealism Hits Reality

I think there's room for two on that log... Hat tip to Gordon.

Historical Illiteracy in CBRN Defense

One of my great disappointments with the Army Chemical Corps - and perhaps this is something that is true of the Army in general - is its failure to appreciate its own history. It's difficult to find a field grade chemical officer who knows of - let alone understands what - the Sheep Incident of 1968 at Dugway Proving Ground, or what the Army did under Project 112. We've lost our appreciation of the Cold War and how that shaped today's defense issues. But even events during "popular" history such as World War 2 are hazy, causing people to bring up myths as "truthiness" when they discuss CB warfare topics. Take this posting on the "HistoryNet" that discusses why Hitler didn't use poison gases during his regime:

Why didn’t Hitler use poison gas in World War II?
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I currently am privileged to have as a graduate student a captain in the US Army.  He’s an interesting guy–as most of the officers I’ve met tend to be.  He currently works in military intelligence (“MI,” I’ve learned to call it).  Like just about anyone in the army today, he’s done more than one tour in our current Global War on Terror (that’s “GWOT”, sometimes pronounced ironically as a question, “G-what?”), and at one time in his career he was a specialist in nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare (and yes, that’s usually referred to as “NBC”).

The Good Captain’s take on Hitler’s tentativeness is this:  there was no “value added” for Hitler in using gas.  By the 1940s, just about any literate society could produce various forms of poison gas.  Thus, there was no real advantage to Germany in introducing it into the war.  Countermeasures would immediately follow, for which Germany had no more effective response than any other combatant.  And that went equally for the vesicants like mustard gas as well as the new “nerve” agent just discovered in Germany’s Wuppertal-Elberfeld lab in 1939–the deadly compound that we know as Sarin.

When it came down to it, Hitler was a man who knew no limits, and who made his decisions relatively free of moral considerations.  Sarin didn’t strike him as particularly inhumane or ghastly.  It just seemed… ineffective.

Now bad enough that a junior officer and former NBC specialist trots out this lame, arms control myth that the German military considered chemical weapons to be  "ineffective." The idea that a professor with 25 years experience in history would publish this tripe on a website called the "HistoryNet" staggers the mind. It shows a blinding lack of desire to do the most basic research on an issue that has been around for some time. The discussion in the comments to this HistoryNet post show that most of the responders fall for the "well, Hitler was gassed in WW1" story, but there are a few who demonstrate a more keen appreciation for the facts.

Tony Blair's Fall From Grace

Ray from the UK continues to follow the Iraq War investigations, sending this article for our observation. Everyone is trying to follow former Prime Minister Tony Blair's logic here.

Speaking on BBC One's Fern Britton Meets programme, Tony Blair was asked whether he would still have gone on with plans to join the US-led invasion had he known at the time that there were no WMD.

He said: "I would still have thought it right to remove him. I mean obviously you would have had to use and deploy different arguments, about the nature of the threat."

He added: "I can't really think we'd be better with him and his two sons still in charge, but it's incredibly difficult.

"That's why I sympathise with the people who were against [the war] for perfectly good reasons and are against it now, but for me, you know, in the end I had to take the decision."

'Cynical ploy'

He added that there had been "12 years of United Nations to and fro on this subject" of Iraq's weapons and that Saddam had "used chemical weapons on his own people".

Wow, that just sounds so... familiar. Where have we heard this line of rationale before? Oh yes, it's practically identical to the Bush administration's story. And why should we be surprised? Blair can't be bothered to just stick with his original line, that the United Kingdom was just going to support the United States no matter what? Just sad. Spencer Ackerman is a little more angry:

I suppose it’s past time to start a fund to create Tony Blair’s headstone, just to have this craven, blithe admission of pretext permanently affixed to his legacy. Yes, Prime Minister, “obviously” once the justification for a war that has killed tens if not hundreds of thousands of people turns out to be disproven, one must pivot to a new rationale for its existence. What one must never do is recognize that the war is in error and work to correct it.

Because for Blair it’s not an error, “obviously.” Whatever he told us is whatever he needed to tell us at that moment, as the war was a fixed idea. I wonder why people occasionally say that Blair was the only one who could have prevented the war from happening. He was an active architect of the invasion. His gaudy and theatrical public pronouncements of doubt are just part of the fucking ruse.

And I know where he was coming from. Bush, he was playing the dumb cowboy act, we knew he was a dangerous idiot for authorizing the Iraq invasion. But Blair had polish, he had style. He could speak in clear, commanding language. We didn't want him to be the bad guy, and now that it's clear what a stooge he was, it's all the more painful to see his swan dive off of Big Ben.

Deep Thoughts

Do you think that the fact that the US government popped 105 nukes in the open atmosphere in 1962 - during my formative years - had anything to do with my generation's inability to live up to the feats of the "Greatest Generation"?

Biothreat Strategy - the Inside Scoop

I've been told by fellow insurgents and progressive sympathizers that the failure of the National Strategy to Counter Biological Threats should not be blamed on the State or Defense staffers who actually do give a damn about this issue. The NSC does, in fact, have hold-overs from the previous administration who bulldozed this report through the system with little to no interagency input, with a very short suspense. Under Secretary of State Tauscher was not really interested in the details of the issue or in developing any nuances other than what was on the script. She is, at heart, a nuclear weapons advocate, not an arms control advocate.

The arms control and nonproliferation communities see this as just a check against the Graham-Talent WMD Commission's list of recommendations - nothing to be taken seriously. The same staffing process is about to happen to the Select Agent List, where the Senate Homeland Security Commission recommended a reshuffling/re-categorizing of the biological organisms - which amounts to busy work, again a check in the box, but no real change in day-to-day procedures. 

At the convention itself, there are a few optimists who believe that the Obama administration would not block negotiations to create a verification regime for the BWC, that this language represents areas that could, in the future, be worked out. Others say that while the tone is different from the previous administration, the actual policy differences are not apparent. Prevailing opinion is that the Bush policy is unchanged.

"Our long-term goal is to develop mechanisms to verify compliance with this convention," said Swedish Ambassador Magnus Hellgren, who was representing the 27-nation European Union.

Hellgren, one of about 100 diplomats who saw Tauscher's presentation, said the U.S. was making a "welcome contribution." But he told The Associated Press that he would reserve his verdict on the Obama administration's commitment to the process until 2011, when the entire convention will be reviewed.

Comments from Dr. Amy Smithson:

Tauscher tabled a modest, constructive set of proposals, but given the $49 billion in U.S. biodefense spending since 2001, the international community will want more in terms of transparency from Washington than just posting the US confidence-building declarations-already available to all member governments-on the web and inviting one person to Ft. Detrick. New money earmarked for building international disease surveillance and reporting capacities would have more emphatically conveyed U.S. support for thorough implementation of the International Health Regulations. If the Obama administration hopes to claim the leadership mantle in the biological nonproliferation arena, they will have to bring something much bolder to the table. The sooner they do, the better.

Comments from Dr. Jonathan Tucker:

Although none of the elements of the U.S. strategy are new, taken together they provide a comprehensive and cooperative approach to the prevention of biological threats, both natural and deliberate. The main disappointment is the strategy’s lack of ambition with regard to strengthening the Biological Weapons Convention, both with respect to the treaty’s institutional deficit and the festering suspicions of non-compliance by a few member states. The measures proposed to address compliance concerns—increased transparency, confidence-building measures, and bilateral diplomacy—appear too weak to make much of a difference.

More as the situation develops.

UPDATE: From Dr. Marie Isabelle Chevrier, Chair of the Board of Directors, Biological Weapons Prevention Project:

Ellen Tauscher’s speech to the Meeting of the States Parties of the Biological Weapons Convention was much anticipated by delegations. Yet there was little excitement or enthusiasm by the delegation following her speech. Delegations and NGO observers welcomed the change in tone from earlier US interventions during the Bush administration, contrasting it, in particular, with the strident address by John Bolton to the 5th Review Conference in 2001. Nevertheless the lack of specificity of proposals in Tauscher’s address was notable. People wondered about the meaning of language in the statement such as “compliance diplomacy” and “robust bilateral compliance discussion.” Optimists greeted the statement with hope that the statement will be followed by real engagement absent the arrogance of the past while pessimists found little if anything in the statement that would lead to real policy changes from the Bush administration. The inclusion of CBMs on an open website was generally welcome, as a small measure of transparency but not something that would likely lead to real confidence in compliance. Many NGOs are looking forward to greater transparency among all stakeholders rather than mere “bilateral…discussions.”

Unbelieveable - The Ignorance

I become more and more frustrated with the seemingly inability for Democratic administration officials to think clearly about the issue of countering weapons of mass destruction or terrorist CBRN incidents without falling back on trite, overused, and inexcusable exaggerations developed by alarmists, extremists, and right-wing politicos. Ellen Tauscher has released her speech,Download UnderSecretaryTauscher-Address I don't have the text yet, and here's the highlights from Reuters:

President Barack Obama is sticking to the U.S. refusal to negotiate monitoring of biological weapons, the top U.S. arms official said on Wednesday.
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Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, rejected a draft inspection protocol to the convention in 2001.

Tauscher said the Obama administration's National Strategy for Countering Biological Threats, released on Tuesday, recognised that there was no comprehensive strategy to deal with gaps in efforts to prevent the proliferation of biological weapons and scientific abuse.

"President Obama fully recognises that a major biological weapons attack on one of the world's major cities could cause as much death and economic and psychological damage as a nuclear attack could," she said.

Advances in the life sciences, which have put such weapons within the reach of groups as well as countries, meant the United States was more concerned about the possibility of bioterrorism than state-sponsored biological warfare.

Really? Do you really want to make that utterly ridiculous statement? My suspicions are that either there are Bush administration moles in the NSC and State Dept who want to subvert progress toward a rational approach to addressing biological warfare research, or that the NSC, State, and Defense Departments are too busy with Iraq/Iran/Afghanistan to really care about the quality of research being done for them.

Somewhere, Dr. O'Toole and former Senators Graham and Talent are dancing and celebrating their win against rationality and sober analysis.

UPDATE: More commentary from GSN:

The Obama administration will not seek to revive negotiations on a verification protocol to the convention," Tauscher said today. "We have carefully reviewed previous efforts to develop a verification protocol and have determined that a legally binding protocol would not achieve meaningful verification or greater security."

She said ensuring compliance is "extraordinarily difficult" because of the ease with which biological weapons programs could be disguised as legitimate activities. In addition, rapid advances in biological research make it harder to detect violations.

"We believe that a protocol would not be able to keep pace with the rapidly changing nature of the biological weapons threat," Tauscher said. She did not elaborate.

What horseshit. Embarrassing. Bush league, as it were. Only nuclear weapons count, children. Never forget this lesson.Again, here's the report.

Obama's New Biodefense Strategy

The Washington Post reveals that Under Secretary of State Ellen Tauscher (Arms Control and International Security) is in Geneva, at the Biological Warfare Convention (BWC) talks, where she intends to reveal a new national strategy addressing biological threats. As is increasingly apparent with this administration, it's a good news, bad news story. On the one hand, the administration wants to address this threat. On the other hand, it has no intention of developing a much-needed verification regime for the BWC treaty.

The new strategy, according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post, envisions increased U.S. assistance to countries to develop systems to detect and respond to outbreaks of infectious disease, whether from natural causes, like the H1N1 flu, or from the release of a germ agent. The plan calls for promoting international guidelines for the handling of high-risk pathogens and supporting countries' efforts to criminalize the development of biological weapons.

It also says the U.S. government will promote universal membership in the Biological Weapons Convention.

On the domestic front, the strategy emphasizes improving intelligence on biological threats, enhancing policies to secure high-risk toxins and establishing better data-sharing among law enforcement and health professionals.

From the NY Times:

“It’s almost beyond the capacity of traditional arms control, which is why they are proposing these alternative means,” said Jonathan B. Tucker, an expert on biological weapons at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. “They would deal with it with a lot of indirect measures.”

Among these are joint law enforcement efforts and efforts to bolster surveillance of infectious-disease outbreaks.

Mr. Tucker said the administration would face criticism for “not addressing the fundamental weakness of the convention.” At the same time, he said it was offering a comprehensive approach that emphasized working with other countries, in contrast to the Bush administration.

I thought Jonathan Tucker was a chemical weapons expert, but I digress. He does know arms control issues, and certainly they are similar in addressing chemical and biological weapons. That's why it's so unfortunate that the administration is - once again - following the Bush administration's position rather than this faltering half-step. I'm not saying that the OPCW is an ideal organization - it's not, not by a long shot - but it is a model to allow for the process of verifying the existence and/or use of chemical weapons. We need the same for biological weapons.

It's sad, in a way. We ought to have the courage to "...do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills..." But I suppose Obama is really no Kennedy. Or maybe it's just that he has no staff equal to the challenge.

UPDATE: Here's the report.

Joe Cirincione Does The Colbert Report

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I Am Shocked, Shocked to Discover

 ... that the British political leadership was aware that the WMD intel was weak to nonexistent and still marched on to war in 2003.

Tim Dowse, the Foreign Office’s head of counter-proliferation at the time, said that in 2001 the threat from Iraq had been placed behind those from Iran, Libya and North Korea. Iraq’s nuclear programme was believed to have been stopped by UN inspectors in the 1990. The chemical and biological weapons Iraq was thought to possess were not regarded primarily as battlefield weapons, he said.

But new intelligence suggesting that chemical and biological weapons were being produced by Iraq began to arrive in August and September 2002. “In a way it did not come as a great surprise,” Mr Dowse said. “It enabled us to firm up the assessment that had previously been carefully caveated.”

He told the inquiry that he was not surprised by the now notorious claim, in a government dossier published before the invasion, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that could be used within 45 minutes. He assumed that the claim referred to a battlefield weapon, not an interstate missile, but that was not spelt out. 

Not that it's surprising to any of us who actually were in the plans and assessment mode in 2002-2003, but the political bullshit kind of overwhelmed the system. But it's always good to ensure that the public knows how rotten the system was. The sad thing is that, if you look at the record, both Colin Powell and Condi Rice are on the record in early-to-mid 2001 as saying that Iraq wasn't a significant threat. Then in the summer of 2002, everything changed, the assessments were tweaked, the rhetoric flowed. And now here we are looking back.

Talking with a Chemical Weapon Incinerator Operator

Check out this dialogue between a person associated with the Army's Chemical Materials Agency and curious laypersons. It's pretty interesting and somewhat entertaining... the expert here is calling himself/herself "sniff," which is funny (considering the topic - sorry, we're all sick puppies).

mfriedm 16 points 1 day ago[-]
 Are there weapons that, when burned, produce toxic gases? I imagine there are – how do you deal with them? Filters?

---sniff--- [S] 29 points 1 day ago[-]
Each furnace has a rather intricate Pollution Abatement system. The gasses pass through a deluge of sodium hydroxide (lye) and then into some carbon filters. In reality the chem weapons are broken down by the high temperatures so there is no danger of toxic off gassing. It is CO and particulates that are common to any facility that burns things that are of concern.

mfriedm 9 points 1 day ago[-]
 How hot is it that it breaks down everything?

---sniff--- [S] 20 points 1 day ago[-]
 1500ºF - 2700ºF depending on the process

starspangledpickle 8 points 1 day ago[-]
 So how does the incinerator get the temperatures that high?

---sniff--- [S] 17 points 1 day ago[-]
 Natural gas

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 FLX 1 point 1 day ago[-]
 Has there ever been a serious accident? Stories please!

aeflash 14 points 1 day ago[-]
 One time this disgruntled war vet stole a bunch of canisters, garrisoned a decommissioned prison, and put the canisters on rockets aimed at a city. Nicholas Cage had to go in and defuse the situation.

---sniff--- [S] 3 points 1 day ago[-]
 I acted as a ninja in that movie helping Nick. Look closely and I'm that dark blur in the background.

Actually this is a pretty good conversation, and I sincerely wish there would be more frank discussions like this by government workers about this topic. 

I Want New Nukes!

Gen. Kevin "Chilly" Chilton, commander of USSTRATCOM, is still voicing his concern that the US government needs to retain its ability to make new nukes in the DOE national labs. And the best way to retain that expertise? Build new nukes, of course...

Of particular concern, Chilton said, is the deterioration of the nation’s nuclear laboratories, which he called “decrepit.” These laboratories must be modernized in order to attract and retain the scientists needed to sustain a weapons program, he said.

He also said that since the U.S. no longer tests nuclear weapons, the nation must continue to invest in an aggressive stockpile management program to ensure that existing weapons remain reliable and safe.

Chilton warned that the community of nuclear experts has become dangerously small and the military has failed to replenish the talent pool since the 1980s and 1990s.

“We have skipped a generation,” he said. “We’ve got to do something about that.”

Unfortunately for Gen. Chilton's argument, the JASON Defense Advisory Group is saying that there really is no need for a replacement for the current nuclear warheads. At the same time, the group also agrees with Chilton that the failure to maintain expertise in the labs is a problem.

All options for extending the life of the nuclear weapons stockpile rely on the continuing maintenance and renewal of expertise … The study team is concerned that this expertise is threatened by lack of program stability, perceived lack of mission importance, and degradation of the work environment.

There ought to be a middle ground here, where young and aspiring nuclear engineers could spend a few years at the lab, researching the work and exploring the aspects of nuclear weapons. Maybe it will be more like a government subsidy, but it would be more worthy than most of the agricultural subsidies.  

UK Examines Motives for Iraq War

Ray in the UK sends this short BBC article, which says that the UK government is going to delve into that nebulous mess about why it was so motivated to plunge into Iraq with its partner, the United States. Was the intelligence on WMD solid? Only time will tell.

The UK government's claim that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction is being probed by the official inquiry into the war.

On its second day of hearings in London, the Iraq inquiry is questioning former senior Foreign Office staff Tim Dowse and William Ehrman.

They will discuss the intelligence available to ministers on Iraq's weapons prior to the US-led invasion.

The inquiry is not expected to report its full findings until 2011.

The reasons for going to war in Iraq - including the now discredited claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction which could be used within 45 minutes of an order being given - are a long-standing source of controversy.

The above photo is from a 2003 meeting in the British Parliament, where Blair stated that they couldn't question the war's justness. "The future is for us to make in a way that will stand the judgment of history," he said.That judgment is still coming, I think. 

And please, don't deluge me with the usual "well, we all know the intel said it was there, everyone agreed" responses. It's not like this is a new topic. One can only hope for some honesty out of the hearings, some acknowledgment that it was in fact the policy makers who said "well, the intel isn't persuasive enough to overthrow the Iraqi government, but what the hell, let's go in anyway." That kind of honesty wasn't apparent in the US Senate intelligence committee's first report (2004) on the US intelligence community's prewar assessments of Iraq. That report basically dumped the blame all on the people who wrote the NIEs. There is also part 2 (the INC connection) and part 3 (postwar Iraq findings).

We had to wait until Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) was no longer the chair before we got into the "phase 2" reports in 2007, which are much more honest. There are also the following reports on activities in DOug Feith's office and on how badly the Bush administration officials had twisted the intel in their public statements. That's what led Sen. Rockefeller (D-WV) to say this in 2008:

"It is my belief that the Bush Administration was fixated on Iraq, and used the 9/11 attacks by al Qa’ida as justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. To accomplish this, top Administration officials made repeated statements that falsely linked Iraq and al Qa’ida as a single threat and insinuated that Iraq played a role in 9/11.   Sadly, the Bush Administration led the nation into war under false pretenses.  

 “There is no question we all relied on flawed intelligence.  But, there is a fundamental difference between relying on incorrect intelligence and deliberately painting a picture to the American people that you know is not fully accurate."

I'm not sure that we've had our moment to recognize the "reasons for going to war in Iraq" but at least the official inquiries have been made, the air has been somewhat cleared. Our American attention span is so fleeting, I'm not sure that a majority of the population either cares or understands the difference between bad intel and bad policy judgments. It's all about getting out of Iraq now, isn't it? Who cares why we went into Iraq in the first place, other than the tens of thousands of military personnel's families who have seen their loved ones injured or killed, and the millions who know that the bill for paying for that flawed operation is going to eventually come out of their pockets?

"WMDs" in Australia

Australian government officials announced the discovery of a World War 2-era cache of mustard-filled 105-mm artillery shells last week. It's causing a bit of a stir, but then again, it's just mustard agent and they're not leaking. Still, a bit of historical interest here as to where they came from and how they are going to be disposed of.

THE Defence Department yesterday ducked questions about a deadly cache of mustard gas discovered at a former United States’ military depot near Columboola between Chinchilla and Miles.
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A spokesman said 144 unexploded shells, some containing the deadly mustard gas agent Mustard H, were found during a survey commissioned by coal mining company Syntech Resources Pty Ltd a few months ago.

“Defence technicians attended to the items and using specialist equipment were able to confirm that at least three of these munitions contained a Mustard agent,” the spokesman said.

“The munitions are securely and safely stored and are not a hazard in their current state.”

The UN inspectors are on the way to check it out - we can't have the Aussies threatening New Zealand with chemical weapons, now can we? The US Army's Chemical Materials Agency will probably be on its way as well with a transportable explosives ordnance chamber to dismantle the shells. Funny how those old chemical weapons keep popping up in southeast Asia.

Why Is It So?

Things you will never see in a conference about chemical-biological warfare - a brief titled, "Geostrategic Illusions and Strategic Realities: the Question of Strategic Deterrence in a Pre-Strategic Multipolar World Order" at a recent Naval Postgraduate School conference.

I don't know why this is, other than the eternal rule that "only nukes matter," that we get very serious academics and big thinkers who have such discussions. (I point this out in reference to the Danger Room's misguided post on an alleged "rift" between the military and the Obama administration on nuclear abolition - there is no rift.) When it comes to talks about CB warfare and how it fits into the Grand Scheme of Things, we get a contractor from Low-Bid, Inc., who pounds out a really worthless 2000-page report, and they all sagely nod their heads.

And then they say, "it is what it is," because they really don't want to change the situation as long as the worthless report enables to continue programs and concepts that have their roots in the 1980s. They're happy with the status quo, where big thinkers can use the term "WMD" when they really only mean "nukes." If you think I'm aimlessly blathering (which does occasionally happen), then consider this review of "The Hawk and The Dove," and you might understand this strange world better ("better" being a relative term).

Continuation of The Emergency

What's the difference between liberal hawks and conservative hawks? No, I don't know either. Both of them love to fear the "WMD threat" - no matter how improbable the event, no matter how clearly the talk is just empty rhetoric without real action. President Obama has continued the "state of emergency" regarding the threat of WMDs.

On November 14, 1994, by Executive Order 12938, the President declared a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States posed by the proliferation of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons (weapons of mass destruction) and the means of delivering such weapons. On July 28, 1998, the President issued Executive Order 13094 amending Executive Order 12938 to respond more effectively to the worldwide threat of weapons of mass destruction proliferation activities. On June 28, 2005, the President issued Executive Order 13382 that, inter alia, further amended Executive Order 12938 to improve our ability to combat proliferation. The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States; therefore, the national emergency first declared on November 14, 1994, and extended in each subsequent year, must continue. In accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)), I am continuing for 1 year the national emergency declared in Executive Order 12938, as amended. This notice shall be published in the Federal Register and transmitted to the Congress.

Now I know why President Clinton did this, he was reacting to the "threat" of Saddam Hussein after the end of the first Gulf War in 1994. When Aum Shinrikyo hit Tokyo with nerve agent in 1995, this led to a number of studies and directives, leading to the second executive order in 1998. I also know why President GW Bush extended the Executive Order, because he needed an excuse to link Saddam Hussein to terrorists and to exaggerate the threat to a degree that would "demand" US preventive actions. 

But I don't understand why President Obama wants to continue the "state of emergency," since Saddam is gone and al Qaeda is on the run. I've heard President Obama talk about nuclear terrorism - of course this is a concern, but it's not an existential threat. But we can't allow the public to think that Democrats are less of a paranoid wreck tough guy on security than Republicans...

Cleaning Up North Korean Nukes

Defense News reveals talks ongoing between the South Korean government and the US military on the issue of cleaning up North Korea's nuclear weapons program when the regime collapses. It seems odd, in a way, that our new mission there isn't to defend the South from an invasion as much as it is to help manage the chaos after the expected collapse - as if it will happen any day now. The article notes:

U.S. Gen. Walter Sharp, commander of the ROK-U.S. Combined Forces Command (CFC), confirmed the move. Speaking at a seminar here Oct. 30, the four-star general, who concurrently serves as chief of the U.S. Forces Korea and the U.N. Command, said both militaries agreed that American forces will still spearhead operations to eliminate North Korean WMDs and Marine amphibious assaults after the OPCON transfer on April 17, 2012.

A South Korean CFC commander said that under OPLAN 5029, "either" South Korean and U.S. troops would conduct stabilizing operations in North Korea, such as securing the North's WMDs and nuclear sites, in a flexible manner in case of an emergency.

"There are various case-by-case scenarios in the operational plan," the commander said. "Both troops will conduct contingency operations jointly or independently in accordance with emerging situations. That is, the U.S. military will take charge of WMD elimination works if needed." 

Now when they say "WMD elimination," what they really mean are the nukes. The big discussion is on ensuring that China doesn't get concerned about who gets the nukes after the regime collapse. South Korea, being a signatory of the NPT and not an existing nuclear power, shouldn't get ideas of keeping any of the North Korean arsenal. If the US government handles that end with the intention of dismantling the nukes, everyone is happy. As for the alleged chemical and biological weapons up there, no one cares quite as much. Since South Korea formerly had chemical weapons (which, like Israeli nukes, we don't talk about in public) and it destroyed those weapons, it could do the same with any captured North Korean stocks.

On the US side, the Army's 20th Support Command (CBRNE) is expected to be the point of the spear on any "WMD elimination" missions, with support from other DOD and DOE agencies. We'll see how it all works out, if or when the great collapse occurs.

Cordesman's Disappointing WMD Terrorism Report

I have great respect for Tony Cordesman as a military analyst. His four-volume "Lessons of Modern War" series are solid, informative sources for anyone interested in a serious study of the Arab-Israeli conflicts, Iran-Iraq war, Falklands conflict, or the first Gulf War. Each one of them has some amount of detailed discussions of CB warfare (yes, even the Falklands), which is why I have the complete series on my bookshelf. That is why it pains me to see this level of trash with his name on the cover.

To call "Terrorism and WMD: The Link with the War in Afghanistan" either informative or timely would be an utter falsehood. This report puts together a weak collection of information about NBC weapon systems and radiological hazards with vague statements about terrorist intent to develop a WMD capability, resulting in a warmed over powerpoint-type presentation that I would not expect a graduate student to turn in as a solid academic effort. This is amateur hour. This is the level of discourse that it presents:

This study addresses the critical linkage between the increase in the attacks initiated by the Taliban insurgency against the coalition forces and the size of the coalition forces, whether increasing or decreasing, with the probability that al-Qaida and other terrorist groups will re-establish training camps and a central command structure in Afghanistan, and start launching terrorist attacks against the U.S. and Europe using WMD.
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The threat of terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), is a real one that represents a very serious threat to the U.S. and other nations that are potential targets of sub-national terrorist groups or networks. Transnational terrorism and the potential acquisition by terrorists of weapons of mass destruction are part of the ‘asymmetric’ dynamics of the new threats that have emerged and have thrust the international community into a new era of warfare.

As far as is presently known, terrorist groups do not have in their possession nuclear weapons. However they could have the capability sometime soon given that knowledge about these kinds of weapons are available worldwide. Recent terrorist attacks have shown a rise in the tendency towards the use of mass-causality weapons for which WMD could be very well suited.
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The likelihood of terrorist groups acquiring WMDs is probably low in the short run but could be high in the long run. There is no way to demonstrate that terrorists will acquire and use such weapons, but, conversely, there is no way to demonstrate that they will not do so.

Okay, first of all, if you have to keep telling your readers that "the threat is real," then there's a strong likelihood that no one believes you and there's a good reason for that. For being such a "real" threat, we have not seen, since Aum Shinrikyo's use of nerve agent in 1995, a transnational terrorist group use CBRN materials with the result being a mass casualty event. That's not a real threat. Second, to make a statement that terrorists "could have the capability" to obtain and use a nuclear weapon "sometime soon" is just irresponsible and ridiculous (see Jenkins, 2008). Third, this loose assessment that the probability of terrorist WMD attacks are "probably low in the short run but could be high in the long run" is something that my dog could have told me. Honestly, there are no facts supporting these statements.

If you flip through the report, you get a strange collection of facts. Cordesman and his co-author have the usual threat information about NBC warfare agents but use nation-state delivery systems to make their point (FROG and SCUD missiles and a BM-21 launcher - really? Are these basic terrorist systems now?). In a table used to compare the effects of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, the report uses these releases - 300 kg of sarin nerve agent, 30 kg of anthrax spores, a 12.5 kT nuclear weapon, and a 1 MT hydrogen bomb. Yep, reminds me of the Tokyo subway incident and the Amerithrax cases exactly.

The report doesn't discuss how terrorists would employ these agents or why they would switch from highly-successful IEDs and RPG attacks. The report features a series of slides and charts on the Afghan conflict, as if to say, hey, the fight's going on, it's continuing, so given the steady advance of technology and availability of material, added to the fact that the Afghans dislike us, there's no doubt that the Taliban and AQ are going to nuke NYC or London any time now. Wow.

Cordesman should have never put his name on this report. He should stick to analysing nation-state military capabilities, which is what he does best. This is a disgrace to his previous good work and to the CSIS think tank.

Chem Demil Update

The US Army Chemical Materials Agency notes that an Oregon judge has ruled in favor of continuing incineration of its chemical munitions. Color me unsurprised.

Petitioners had challenged Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality on the approval of a Temporary Authorization Request for the trial burn of mustard agent containing elevated levels of mercury. Petitioners had questioned the use of incineration as the best available technology, claiming other, safer methods were readily available and should be used instead. Petitioners had also alleged that the state agency had allowed the Army to operate in violation of hazardous waste laws, without a Clean Air Act Permit, and without adequate characterization of wastes. Hearings began on Oct. 26, 2009, and, after three days of testimony and argument, Judge Marcus ruled against petitioners on all counts.  
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 “We are confident in our technology in terms of eliminating the stockpile and in doing so safely and effectively,” said Col. Robert B. Billington, Project Manager for Chemical Stockpile Elimination at the CMA. “Scientifically, our technology continues to withstand these kinds of legal challenges and Judge Marcus’ ruling once again shows that the best available technology is truly in place to ensure public safety and environmental protection.

“Now we can shift our focus out of the courtroom and back to the mission at hand—safe, total and complete elimination of the stockpile and the risk it poses to our communities.” 

The next time you wonder why the Army's chem demil program is over budget and behind schedule, take a look at all the failed lawsuits that these idiotic critics of the program have brought forth. Certain members of Congress use these critics to get federal pork in their states, which adds to the waste of time and money. So instead of completing the stockpile destruction by 2012, it's going to extend to beyond 2017 primarily because of the actions of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

Arguing About Definitions

David Hambling points to this report by Michael Crowley that discusses the challenges of addressing riot control agents (RCAs) and incapacitating chemical agents under the Chemical Weapons Convention. I think it's a load of crap - buncha lawyers arguing about what the definition of "is" is. 

For example, Article 1.5 of the CWC specifically prohibits the use of “riot control agents as a method of warfare.” However, the Convention fails to define ‘method of warfare.’ Similarly, although toxic chemicals are permitted for “law enforcement including domestic riot control purposes” under Article 2.9(d), neither the term ‘law enforcement’ nor ‘domestic riot control purposes’ are defined. In this case, the ambiguity caused by a lack of definition of these terms is exacerbated by the fact that there is a potential overlap between permissible ‘law enforcement’ activities and prohibited ‘methods of war.’ Certain commentators believe that such ambiguity was intentional, accommodating the interests of certain States. 

Much the report meanders on like this. Can military forces use tear gas if they are conducting law enforcement responsibilities, as one could argue the Russians did in that Moscow theater? Can law enforcement officials use incapacitants if they are participating in irregular warfare operations? WHO CARES? I know what toxic chemical warfare agents are, and I know that the US Senate got an exemption on RCAs when it ratified the CWC.

The argument I like the least is this idea by arms control enthusiasts that RCAs and incapacitants are like a gateway drug to more potent chemical warfare agents. It hasn't happened yet - the treaty wording and the specific agents that its inspectors are pretty clear. More importantly, the CWC treaty isn't something that the UN police force enforces. It's just a treaty, and if a country wants to get into offensive chemical warfare, it will do it. All this noise about RCAs and incapacitants is just an indication of CW inspectors who are bored because all the chemical weapons are going to be gone soon. And then what will they do?

There are a lot worse things than non-lethal chemical agents such as RCAs and incapacitants. In this new age of irregular warfare, it would be stupid to put these tools down because of lawyers bitching about shades of gray.

Worrying About Iranian Nukes

Rob Farley has an interesting observation about the alleged threat of a future Iranian nuclear weapon against Israel - that is, if Israel has such a kick-ass missile defense system, exactly what does Israel's government have to worry about a single Iranian nuke? And more importantly, why would Israel - or the United States - need to attack Iran's nuclear program to stop its progress?

Why does Israel need to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear program? The answer would seem to be some sort of nebulous claim about how Iranian nuclear weapons would somehow immeasurably improve Iran's negotiating position in the Middle East; Iran and its allies would suddenly become emboldened, or something. This ignores a) the reality that states balance against power and threat, and b) the reality that nuclear states very often have a bloody difficult time getting what they want from non-nuclear states. The entire argument seems based on a 1962 Paul Nitze vision of nuclear weapons, in which more nukes automatically grant extraordinary diplomatic leverage. Allowing that there's something to the stability-instability paradox, I think it's fair to say that nuclear weapons have, at best, proven to be blunt, unsophisticated, and not terribly useful tools of diplomacy.

In general, I agree with Rob and I like his argument. But I don't think he sees the regional aspect of this argument. I've heard Middle East experts express their concern that once Iran gets the bomb, its leadership doesn't intend to use it or give it to terrorists. That would be silly. But they will have an elevated statue in the region, and they might become more bold about backing Hezbollah terrorists attacks against non-Muslim interests in the region. And then they sit back and say, who us? We're just peaceful Persians. But don't screw with us.

It's not my point of view, but then again, I haven't been studying the Iranians for the past few decades. I understand concerns over an emboldened Iranian government that had extreme Islamic clerics running it, but it's still not a reason to attack the Iranian nuclear program.