The committee was tasked with evaluating strategies against chemical terrorism at a time of evolving national strategy. The United States’ highest-level strategies recently explicitly shifted away from focusing primarily on violent extremist organizations (VEOs) to focusing on GPC,¹ which is indicative of a shift in perceived threat prioriti-

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¹ Beginning with the 2018 National Defense Strategy of the United States of America: Sharpening the American Military’s Competitive Edge, December, 2017, and continuing and increasing in the current administration’s strategies.

zation. This shift in strategy does not mean terrorism is now regarded as unimportant; rather, it simply means that other issues have risen in importance, a fact which is most apparent in the National Security Strategy (NSS, 2022) and the 2022 National Defense Strategy (NDS, 2022). The Biden Administration NSS states:

The document does not ignore terrorism completely. The NSS also states:

The NDS delineates four top-level defense priorities—none of which directly mention terrorism of any kind. Although terrorism, including chemical attacks and VEOs, are mentioned in the document, they are implicitly subordinated in the 2022 NDS by neither including them in the top-level priorities, nor mentioning them in the executive summary or the conclusion of the strategy.

Both of the above strategies portray a similar theme: While the threat of terrorism remains real, our nation is shifting its focus to prioritize different strategic threats, namely GPC over VEOs. With the apparent shift of strategic focus to GPC comes a shift in risk perception, risk assessment, and risk acceptance. Eventually, new strategies and risk assessments generate new mitigation strategies; new guidance, policies, and laws; and ultimately, new tactics, techniques, and protocols (TTPs) on the ground. The full ramifications of recent strategic shifts have not yet been realized at all levels of the government, nor at all agencies.

FINDING 7-1: The highest-level strategies of the United States, the NSS and NDS, have overtly shifted away from focusing on the threats from VEOs to GPC in recent years. This change indicates a shift in relative perceived threat and consequent prioritization and will impact efforts against chemical terrorism. Changes in strategy lead to changes in funding priorities, and while operational changes are anticipated from this major strategic shift, neither their mechanism, magnitude, nor timing is currently understood.

RECOMMENDATION 7-1: The shift in the global threat landscape has led to a corresponding shift in countering WMD to a focus on GPC, but care should be taken to ensure that existing capabilities focused on countering terrorism are maintained. Recommendations based on revised risk assessments that are aligned with new national-level priorities should be developed.

7.1 DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY (DHS) STRATEGY

DHS was created in response to the most significant international terrorism attack perpetrated against the United States. Because DHS has a primarily domestic

security function, its risk and threat assessments will not necessarily follow the same pattern as DoD or the intelligence community IC. Furthermore, how the strategic shift from VEOs to GPC will impact DHS’ strategic posture, programs, human resources, and missions is yet to be fully understood. Reducing the terrorism threat, including chemical terrorism, will continue to remain at the organization’s core, as articulated in the overview of the DHS document, Preventing Terrorism, “Protecting the American people from terrorist threats is the reason DHS was created, and remains our highest priority” (DHS, n.d.). Preventing terrorism is one of 13 issues (with some overlapping scope) handled by DHS. Furthermore, DHS’s 2020–2024 Strategic Plan outlines six strategic goals that align with general national prosperity under VEO-focused or GPC-focused strategies, but they do not specifically acknowledge GPC as a top national threat (see Figure 7-1).

DHS overtly acknowledges the shift to GPC in its 2021 China Strategic Action Plan (SAP)—which predates the most recent NSS—and which asserts that its fundamental mission of safeguarding the homeland, upholding DHS’s values, and preserving the American way of life remains, even in the evolving geopolitical environment (DHS, 2021). The SAP addresses the following areas: maritime security, cybersecurity and critical infrastructure, trade and economic security, and border security and immigration. Aspects of terrorism including chemical terrorism are absent from the discussion. The only chemical threat specifically mentioned was China’s direct and indirect involvement in supplying fentanyl and its precursors to drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations, contributing to more than 70,000 deaths in the United States in 2019 (DHS, 2021, 6, 9).

More recently, in April 2023, DHS published the Third Quadrennial Homeland Security Review (QHSR) (DHS, 2023). While recognizing the NSS, the QHSR only implicitly emphasizes the shift in national strategy to GPC by highlighting issues facing the United States as a result of GPC. The QHSR does not explicitly discuss China’s role in the Strategic Competition section of the document but does detail actions to address issues facing the U.S. because of strategic competition with China specifically. The document embraces the role of increased partnerships in DHS’s strategy, a theme found in the NSS and NDS. With respect to terrorism, the opening letter from Secretary Mayorkas states,

More specific to chemical terrorism is the DHS Chemical Defense Strategy of December 2019, which the committee evaluated in detail. As of June 2023, the DHS Chemical Defense strategy has not been updated after the release of the DHS 20–24 strategic plan nor since national strategies have shifted their focus to GPC (DHS, 2022). QHSR does not specifically address chemical terrorism apart from other types of terrorism.

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² NOTE: The committee recognizes that at the time of producing the report, the newest NDS for CWMD may not be publicly released.

state-based or by nonstate actors, are not technologically deterministic. This will require efforts to ensure as gaps in knowledge, approaches that may arise as new personnel are hired, and others transition. The best way to do this needs to be determined by individual offices and agencies in consultation with the wider homeland security or defense community.

7.4 CHEMICAL TERRORISM RISKS

In addition to the strategic shift to GPC, the NSS speaks with a sense of urgency in implementation. Without recapitulating the entire strategy, the urgency is best summarized in the final words of the NSS, “There is no time to waste” (NSS, 2022, Pg. 48).

With respect to chemical terrorism, none of the briefings to the committee (see List of Briefers in Appendix A) fully acknowledged the GPC as the top strategic priority of the United States nor the urgency desired in the most recent national strategies. To be fair, often the briefers focused on more operational aspects related directly to chemical defense and this was not in the original set of questions put forward by the committee. The committee acknowledges that the nation is in a dynamic state of developing new strategies.

If GPC intensifies, there are potential implications for chemical terrorism threats, beyond a possible reduction of resources available to address the threats. As discussed in Chapter 4, decisions states make may wittingly or unwittingly lead to a dramatic increase in the sophistication of chemical terrorism, in terms of both the agent employed and/or the means by which it is delivered. Another increased risk of the shift to GPC is that assumptions about what chemical terrorism will look like will increasingly be influenced and modeled on state-based programs, motivations, and thinking. While there certainly are lessons to be learned, the capacity, capability, and willingness to innovate—as well as network structures—differs significantly between states and nonstate actors. As attention on nonstate actors and threats decrease, the tendency to treat terrorism as a “lesser included” case or type of chemical weapons use may increase given constraints on budgets and time. Terrorism is different—a fact that is particularly important in the context of strategies to identify and counter, including deterrence.

CONCLUSION 7-5: The shift in strategic focus to GPC will likely lead to reduced resources for CWMDT broadly, although the mechanisms, magnitude, and timing are currently poorly understood. How these changes are made is important; sudden changes without thoughtful preservation of functions could impede tactical readiness against chemical terrorist threats and increase risk in unforeseen or undesirable ways.

RECOMMENDATION 7-5: The DoD should conduct risk and threat assessments to understand how best to direct resources to address risks of chemical terrorism events in an era of GPC-focused strategies.

prevent a planned attack. Similarly, efforts undertaken to implement the 2022 National Strategy for Combatting Terrorist and Other Illicit Financing help to identify VEO activities which could in turn help prevent a planned attack (Treasury, 2023). Information derived from lines of effort in this strategy can support and inform Know Your Customer (KYC) initiatives undertaken by chemical producers and equipment manufacturers (SWIFT, n.d.).

At the time of writing this report, the committee learned that CFATS’s statutory authorization was allowed to expire. Therefore, CISA

FINDING 7-6: The legislation establishing the CFATS program (6 CFR Part 27) expired at the end of July 2023. Reauthorization would provide regulatory certainty for one of America’s critical infrastructures in support of reducing the threat of chemical terrorism.

RECOMMENDATION 7-6: Congress should immediately reauthorize the CFATS program and consider long-term reauthorization.

Counter

Activities undertaken under “counter” largely fall under DoD or Special Operations Forces (SOF) and FBI and are perhaps the most broadly applicable to each CWMDT focus area. In the case of DoD, direct kinetic action against a VEO may be the most effective at countering a WMDT attack that is already underway. SOF could be made aware of specific supply nodes to facilitate such activities.

Respond

BARDA’s practices of using existing chemical medical countermeasures (MCMs) for prioritized toxidromes and to promote decontamination as a first step whenever possible are likely to facilitate time-relevant response in the aftermath of an attack and to make sure first responders are aware of, and equipped to treat, the most likely toxidromes. More broadly, diplomatic efforts and messaging directed toward attributing attacks to specific VEOs and entities who support them can be highly effective without

having to identify the specific chemical used in an attack (2018 National Strategy for Countering WMDT Terrorism; Joint Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction).

7.6 THREAT-AGNOSTIC APPROACHES TO MCMS AGAINST CHEMICAL THREATS

If resources for counterterrorism decrease due to the shift toward GPC, then a burden will be placed on existing programs to use their resources more efficiently in countering chemical threats. Despite the potential loss of focus on chemical terrorism, the growing trend toward more broadly extensible strategies being implemented by many agencies (see Chapter 2) may help reduce risk. By focusing response, particularly MCM, on the main physical and symptomatic effects of a chemical rather than the particular chemical or how and why it was used, responders may address the impact of chemical events more quickly.

Explicit adoption of a threat agnostic, or agent agnostic, approach in the context of response, (e.g., MCM development, and the explanation of the reasoning behind that change in approach) can also be found in the DoD’s CBDP Approach for Research, Development, and Acquisition of Medical Countermeasure and Test Products (CBDP, 2022).

Notably, a broad spectrum, rather than specific one-bug(agent)-one-drug, approach has been a goal in the realm of biological threats for many years. In 2007, the CBDP initiated an effort that became known as the Transformational Medical Technologies Initiative (TMTI) to “develop broad-spectrum medical countermeasures against advanced bio-terror threats, including genetically engineered, intracellular bacterial pathogens and hemorrhagic fevers.” (TMTI, 2007, Pg. 3)

TMTI identified: “the possibility that future state or nonstate adversaries could develop and deploy new genetically engineered biological threats for which current countermeasures would be ineffective and the time needed to develop defense would be insufficient” (TMTI, 2007, Pg. 3) as a driver for the major policy endeavor as part of science and technology efforts to respond to national security threats that the military might have to face in future years. In so doing, even as the threat evolves (e.g., use of different chemical agents or different types or sources of attack), a given MCM should continue to be effective.

Building on earlier work from the DoD’s CBDP, Figure 7-3 shows BARDA’s prioritization of five diagnostic toxidromes for chemical exposures (neurologic, pulmonary, respiratory, metabolic, vesicating) bypasses the need to identify the specific agent that

caused the injury and allows for “broad spectrum therapeutic utility” (BARDA) using FDA approved drugs for treatment. The adoption of a toxidrome-based approach can be observed in BARDA’s CBRN MCM chemical threat portfolio, which as of June 2023, lists 16 drugs undergoing different phases of development whose purpose is to treat both chemical-specific injury and non-agent-specific symptoms (BARDA, n.d.). Alteplase, for example, is a therapeutic that, if approved, will be the first drug to treat sulfur mustard inhalation or pulmonary exposure. RWJ-800088 thrombopoietin mimetic is another drug that aims to address both the radiation/nuclear and chemical threat areas by protecting vulnerable human cells from radiation and chemical exposures. It also accelerates recovery in the lungs and thrombocytopenia (low platelet counts in the blood). BARDA’s toxidrome adoption and growing CBRN MCM portfolio have positioned the agency to more readily develop and deploy effective chemical medical countermeasures across multiple sectors to “treat the injury, not the agent” (BARDA, n.d.).

The committee endorses this approach to MCMs and notes that the same kind of conceptual approach may apply to identifying and preventing threats. Many counterterrorism programs have long taken this kind of approach. For example, major terrorist plots require financing, secrecy, and communications. As mentioned earlier, several intelligence, LE, and threat reduction programs seek to track and disrupt illicit financing, make it harder to operate without observation, and monitor or disrupt communications among threat actors. In an environment of increasingly constrained resources, extending this conceptual approach could be an efficient strategy.

FINDING 7-7: Current broadly extensible strategies could support effective identification, prevention, and response to the widest range of anticipated and yet-to-be-recognized chemical agents.

CONCLUSION 7-7: Further adoption of approaches with broad extensibility can partially mitigate the loss of focus on chemical terrorism due to the shift to GPC.

RECOMMENDATION 7-7: Federal agencies should prioritize broadly applicable approaches beyond the specific mission sets represented by the U.S. Army DEVCOM CBC, BARDA, and CISA, to all areas of the CWMDT enterprise to maximize the United States’ government capacity for appropriate response on time scales of relevance.

CONCLUSION 7-8: Strategy documents that include implementation plans with descriptions of current levels of inter- and intra-agencies coordination will significantly enhance communications across relevant entities. The areas of identify, prevent, counter, and response to chemical threats and chemical terrorism will especially benefit from this improvement. With respect to chemical terrorism events, communication between state and local law enforcement during an emergency could be impeded by classification issues.

7.7 SIMILARITIES AND CROSSOVER IN EFFORTS TO COUNTER THREATS FROM BIOTERRORISM AND CHEMICAL TERRORISM

Addressing biological and chemical threats requires inter- and multidisciplinary approaches that bridge the life, data, medical, physical, and social sciences, along with engineering, skill sets, and expertise. This includes the importance of data integration when information is coming in from different areas. Historically, much analysis has been technologically deterministic and/or based on limited empirical case studies and often limited analysis. While the United States tends to focus on technological solutions to both chemical terrorism and bioterrorism threats, there is less policy focus on motivation for both forms of terrorism.

A number of important and effective programs were developed after 9/11 to enhance the capabilities of the United States to prevent, prepare for, detect, respond, mitigate, and recover from terrorism events. Over time, many programs have been hampered by the gradual erosion of federal support and competing challenges. These include critical diagnostic networks and resources, surveillance efforts (national and international), and exercise programs to integrate cross-sector emergency personnel groups together.

Coordination across and inside government agencies is important. While there is a good deal of coordination—some very effective—within the chemical terrorism defense communities and within the bioterrorism defense communities, crossover between the two communities is often lacking. The United States government (USG) would benefit from increased sustained interaction. Coordination across and among federal, county, state, local, territorial, and tribal (SLTT) governments is critical and often a challenge. Training and exercises are critical for planning, preparedness, response, and remediation.

Mis- and disinformation represent an expanding challenge for chemical and biological threats and require additional study to identify mechanisms to effectively counter their influence. These studies should inform U.S. policies to counter mis- and disinformation. The critical need for clear consistent information is recognized at the federal level in responding to chemical and bioterrorism incidents; how to deal with

mis- and/or disinformation is often not included. (Perhaps a consequence of broader USG challenges of dealing with mis/disinformation rather than unique to any WMD). Uncertain information exists regarding interactions between the federal and state levels or at state levels.

• The approach to assessing and addressing biological and chemical threats should take human, plant, animal, and ecosystem health into account.
• In terms of attribution, reference collections and databases have been significantly improved or outright created for both chemical and biological threats. In the case of databases relating to bioterrorism threats, the level of curation (i.e., how good is the data), has not been pursued/validated as well as with chemical terrorism threats. Much of this may be due to the newness of the underlying technology (e.g., genetic and microbiome databases). This is a potential vulnerability that may not be well recognized (i.e., are we fooling ourselves into believing we have greater capabilities than we do?).
• New technologies are neither panaceas nor inherently threats. The underlying drivers and manner in which people may choose to use/misuse them are understudied/under-recognized in U.S. policies.
• Experts do not agree on the nature, scope, or scale of biological and chemical terrorism threats. Lots of uncertainty surrounds this area.

7.8 BUDGET RECOMMENDATIONS

Through a series of information-gathering meetings, several briefers noted to the committee that budgets were inadequate to address the breadth of possible chemical threats. (See list of briefings in Appendix A.) Presenters also indicated concern that constrained budgets may make it difficult to invest sufficiently in promising low technology readiness level (TRL) concepts to enable them to mature sufficiently for transition into operational use. Even when countering WMD terrorism was among the highest priorities, some federal agencies had tightly constrained budgets to counter chemical terrorism. For example, in an information-gathering meeting, the committee was informed that the FBI’s WMD directorate has had static staffing levels for the past 17 years. Aligning to the national strategic shift to GPC may compromise efforts to counter chemical terrorism in this agency. Regardless, the national strategies have evolved significantly; new budgets should follow suit.

RECOMMENDATION 7-9: WMD budgets should be aligned with evolving strategic priorities.

Strategies employing flexible funding, such as the State Department’s Nonproliferation and Disarmament Fund (NDF), enable prompt, effective responses that build on activities across the USG and in cooperation with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and allies.

NDF was created to enable the USG to respond quickly to “high-priority nonproliferation and disarmament opportunities.” Many USG programs have geographic, budgetary, or political restrictions on their authorities. As explained on the NDF website:

NDF is a relatively small program (approximately $20 million per year vs. several hundred million dollars per year for cooperative threat reduction programs at the Departments of Defense and State) that has, because of its notwithstanding authority, supported an array of efforts from removal and destruction of the last of Libya’s legacy chemical weapons program to removal of highly enriched uranium from a civilian facility in Serbia. Starting around 2017, there was an interagency agreement to apply these funds more flexibly to fill gaps where other programs lacked authority or funds to address threats before they became acute.

Despite the fact that many of the recommendations made in this report would not require a significant increase to the budget appropriation or authorization, the federal budget process presents significant barriers to effective transitioning of promising research and development (R&D). According to “U.S. Federal Scientific Research and Development: Budget Overview and Outlook,” Federal funding for science and technology (S&T) is complicated by the U.S. budget process and the highly decentralized organization of federal R&D activities. The lack of a central mechanism to coordinate federal R&D programs leads to lengthy negotiations and decision-making among agencies, congressional committees (oversight and appropriation committees), and the White House. Beyond these challenges, various developments impacting the overall domestic and international strategic environment—such as the shift to GPC—can further complicate the effective transitioning of promising R&D. In this regard, the report states:

The article also discusses the impact on S&T as a result of delayed approvals as well as abrupt changes in the budget. Delayed budget approvals severely disrupt agency operations as they must work under previous budget guidelines without knowing when or what the new fiscal budget will be. This uncertainty and possible budget disruption impacts the continuity of data collection, staffing, and the ability to start new projects and maintain large-scale facilities. An example of these challenges is evident in the Trump administration’s de-emphasis of basic R&D in favor of development (efforts to take very mature R&D and transition it to operations) and then the Biden administration’s reversal which proposed increases in all areas of R&D (basic, industrial, and development) as shown in Figure 7-4.

There are two high-level budget gaps among the strategies the committee evaluated. (1) Some of the newer U.S. strategies have shifted to a GPC-focus (NSS, NDS) and others have to a lesser extent (DHS). Resourcing differently focused strategies in a

hierarchy must be rationalized. (2) Detailed resourcing of new GPC-focused strategies has not yet occurred. The importance of aligning resourcing with strategy has been declared (NDS, 2022), but the rebalancing has not appeared in public budgets to date. As stated throughout this report, robust anti-terrorism efforts are still important but other efforts associated with GPC now have higher strategic priority.

RECOMMENDATION 7-10: Counter weapons of mass destruction (CWMDT) budgets should incentivize activities to transition promising research to operations.

As stated earlier in this chapter, chemical terrorism and broader terrorism are deemphasized but not ignored in the shift to GPC. The highest-level strategies (NSS, NDS) speak to both an urgency to adopt GPC as a priority and a willingness to accept risk from other threats when doing so. In this dynamic context of a strategic shift with at present undefined budgetary implications, it is difficult for the committee to make specific budget recommendations in dollar amounts. Instead, the committee recommends that chemical terrorism risk assessments (e.g., full risks, threats only, national-level, state-level, and others) be performed in the context of the latest strategies to align budget priorities with strategic priorities and most clearly understand where and why the United States is accepting risk. Table 7-1 shows the budget functions and resources the committee believes should be considered under budgetary constraints that may result from the national strategic shift to GPC. These factors include risk priorities that are expressed in budget requests.

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