successful attack in the United States that produces mass casualties. Linkages between states and non-state actor could also take less direct forms, such as

terrorists' employment of scientists who once worked in a state program.

The events of September 11 and the subsequent anthrax attacks suggest that the statenon-state actor connection is more important than ever before. Analysts have tended to conceptualize and address the state CBW proliferation challenge and chemical and biological terrorism along separate tracks. Today, however, we must appreciate that we confront a new challenge that is neither war nor terrorism as we have known them. The distinction between the two has become blurred; in fact, war and terrorism have become inextricably linked as has been demonstrated by the fact that Osama bin Laden has both depended on and provided support to various national governments. Our challenge is to see the problem as a whole.

We do not confront terrorism as we have witnessed it for the last 30 years, that is, the discrete use of violence to achieve defined, limited political objectives. Rather, our adversaries have declared war on the West, and the United States in particular, and they are using terrorist tactics as part of their campaign. And we confront an adversary that is not a state but, nevertheless, has chemical and biological weapons potential (at a minimum). State involvement, however, cannot be ruled out. Press accounts have raised the possibility that the anthrax used in the recent attacks can perhaps be linked to weapons programs in Iraq, the former Soviet Union, or some other states pursuing a CBW capability (including North Korea, Syria, or Libya). These reports may be true.

But they still highlight the need to understand better the links between states and non

state actors who may be joined by a common interest in chemical and biological

weapons.

As this war unfolds, then, the United States may find itself at war against one or more CBW-armed adversaries, whether state or non-state. How do they think about the strategic and tactical utility of chemical, and especially biological weapons? Their willingness to resort to such capabilities depends, of course, on their strategic objectives. Certainly, CBW's role in asymmetric strategies of adversaries who seek to avoid direct confrontations with overwhelming U.S. conventional military power is an important consideration. But saying CBW capabilities will be part of an asymmetric strategy is not enough. Different strategic goals point to different CBW uses. A number of alternative

possibilities - each of which has both a limited and ultimate form - suggest themselves as examples:

The desire to generate fear among the U.S. population, ultimately pushing such

fear to the point that it raises questions about the integrity of U.S. society;

slowing military action, or ultimately crippling U.S. strategies, for example, that

depend on power projection and coalition warfare; or

disrupting the U.S. economy, or ultimately undermining it by attacking such

critical components as the agricultural sector (a threat that has received

insufficient attention) or the financial centers of the country.

The importance of understanding the strategic objective, whether of the leadership of a terrorist group or of a nation-state, underlines the need for better intelligence about and analysis of the strategic cultures of our adversaries.

What does this approach to defining the threat suggest about the needs for responding effectively to that threat?

First, because the threat is multidimensional and complex, an effective response must be strategic in nature. Effective action depends on the existence of a strategy that – for both the military and domestic defense dimensions - defines the contribution of each individual tool of policy, relates them to one another, and integrates them in such a way that they all work together toward the achievement of defined goals and objectives.

A strategic response addresses requirements that span a spectrum: deterrence-preventiondefense-preparedness-response. Today, to perform each of these strategic missions effectively, difficult challenges must be overcome. Although there is a temptation to rely on deterrence, for example, because the problem has often looked too hard, the concept of deterrence cannot be translated easily from its Cold War context. We need to understand better the requirements of deterrence and how to do it in the current, more complex environment. Similarly, effective responses - whether on the battlefield or in terms of homeland defense - demand meeting both short-term needs such as adapting military concepts of operations or upgrading the public health systems, and long-term measures, including an effective research and development program.

Second, a strategic response is also a multifaceted response. A range of tools must be exploited. These include intelligence, defenses (both passive and active), diplomacy, legal measures, preparedness efforts, financial measures, and military options. Arms control is also important, but, particularly with respect to biological weapons, classic multilateral arms control (of the kind reflected in the Chemical Weapons Convention) is unlikely to yield significant results. The combination of politics, science and technology, and treaty language that surrounds the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and efforts to negotiate a legally binding protocol to the BWC argue for an approach that goes beyond the traditional modalities of arms control to new ways of thinking about how to strengthen the Convention and the norm against BW which the treaty embodies.

Export controls also have an important role to play, but it is not necessarily the traditional contribution of the past. Export control regimes – which do not really control but rather regulate through licensing systems can be effective in delaying the acquisition of sensitive technologies, but in the longer term they cannot realistically be expected to stop the transfer of technology that may be used for weapons purposes, particularly since so much of that technology also has legitimate commercial, medical, and other uses. If Iraq was capable of assembling the necessary materials and equipment for a robust CBW program as much as 15 years ago, how much more difficult will it be to deny access to technology to a determined player in an era of rapidly expanding knowledge and accelerating global dissemination of capabilities?

But this does not mean that export controls should be abandoned; they perform other functions. Regulation through export controls facilitates the global dissemination of materials and equipment. By defining the rules of the game by which companies must abide, for example, export controls is easier for those companies to engage in international trade and cooperation. As Brad Roberts, chair of the CBACI Research Council, has argued, export controls can, in fact, be trade enablers rather than trade constraints. It is this role for export controls that should be emphasized in the future. At the same time, the United States must maintain open markets and avoid neoprotectionist practices that deny or severely limit access to markets or appropriate technology which would make key states less inclined to pursue cooperative measures.

Each tool of policy contributes something to an effective response to the CBW proliferation challenge. But each tool also has shortcomings that must be overcome, and none of them constitutes a silver bullet that provides the total answer. Rather, for an effective response, the individual tools of policy -- including export controls - must be integrated into a coherent strategic framework that realizes the synergies among the various tools of strategy, and facilitates tradeoffs among them so that they do not work at cross-purposes but maximize their potential contribution.

The CBW threat is not static and will continue to evolve. Changing actors and evolving technology - especially in biology-related areas - will be major drivers of such change. In this fluid environment, like the offense-defense relationship in military affairs, the relationship between CBW proliferators - whether state or non-state - and responders is constantly in flux. It is not always possible to state precisely at any given time how the balance stands between them. The important point, however, is that certainty will only be achieved if we take ourselves out of the game and do nothing. Then we are certain to lose. It is not a loss that the nation or the world can afford.