Ashton Carter

What is the essential nature of international security in the post-Cold War world? And what is the American security strategy for this new period in time? The fact that we have no other term for this era than post-Cold War tells us that we know from whence we came but not where we are or where we are going. This uncertainty was acceptable in the early post-Cold War years when the task at hand was to manage the adjustment in a safe way. But a decade later we no longer have an excuse for not developing a better conception of a national security strategy.

Although there have been regional crises that have required military intervention by the United States—such as in Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda, and Haiti—these situations do not directly affect U.S. vital interests. Moreover, the U.S. Department of Defense's (DOD) budget is largely defined by the need to be able to conduct two near-simultaneous major theater wars. This is the basis on which our force structure is sized and on which the preponderance of the defense budget is measured. However, although these important contingencies require readiness and would directly affect vital U.S. interests, they do not threaten the survival of the country, our way of life, or our position in the world. Problems of the highest order, those that make up the so-called A list, are those that do.

Today the A list is empty, which is a happy fact but one that could change in the not too distant future. The absence of immediate A-list threats creates a whole other dimension to national and international security that does not take the form of a traditional military threat and that therefore often goes unnoticed. Over time we have tended to conceive of our national security strategy as one that is based on perceived

threats; that is, once identified, threats are properly addressed. But the threats posed by prospective items on the A list are not well defined and require a more preventive approach toward national security strategy.

In 1999, William Perry and I wrote a book entitled Preventive Defense: A New Security Strategy for America (The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.) in which we intended to make the analogy to preventive medicine. That is, while curative medicine takes care of people once they are sick, preventive medicine keeps them from getting sick in the first place. And while curative defense may be appropriate for situations that are not on the A list, preventive defense is what is needed for situations that are on the list. As riveting as the crises in such places as Kosovo are, we were concerned that as a nation the United States is losing sight of preventive defense.

Among the A-list problems that William Perry and I identified as requiring preventive measures is the state of affairs in Russia. Of particular concern is whether Russia develops a Weimar Russian syndrome, in which it believes it is being treated in a disparaging way, much as Germany did after World War I. The danger of such a response would be the resulting embitterment and isolation. Another area of concern is the emergence of a more prominent China and its subsequent geopolitical effects.

A third issue central to the theme of this colloquium is what we call “catastrophic terrorism” or “grand terrorism,” of which bioterrorism is probably the most menacing variety. By catastrophic terrorism we mean an attack outside the context of traditional warfare but with war-scale consequences. Such an attack might take the form of biological, chemical, nuclear, or cyber warfare unleashed on the critical infrastructures that allow our complex and interdependent societies to function. Catastrophic terrorism is orders of magnitude more serious than hostage taking, bombs in the marketplace, or airplane hijackings. In other words, we are not talking about the destruction of a building in Oklahoma City but of Oklahoma City itself, not just disruption and some damage to the World Trade Center towers in Manhattan but the total destruction of both buildings and the surrounding area.

Just because these attacks have never happened does not mean that they cannot or will not. With a little protection, though, we can make the possibility even smaller. Unfortunately, this destructive potential is falling into the hands of smaller and smaller groups of people, an inevitable consequence of the passage of time and the rising tide of technology. We are also becoming increasingly vulnerable as societies. International networks of money laundering, crime, and drug peddling abound, provid-

ing an infrastructure for transnational terrorism. In addition, our society includes groups with messianic or vengeful motivations. These kinds of groups have nothing to lose and are the ones most likely to resort to grand terrorism. Conversely, groups with a political agenda that hope to become legitimate political forces are not likely to resort to grand terrorism.

Because no country or group in the world can take on the United States in a frontal way militarily, some groups might believe they have no option but to attack us in an “asymmetrical” manner through terrorism. Such an incident would abruptly undermine Americans' sense of security on their own soil. In America's experience, security emergencies occur elsewhere. The last time we felt vulnerable in our own country was in 1949, when Joseph Stalin exploded an atomic weapon and it became clear that cataclysmic damage could be inflicted on the United States. That began a 50-year process of trying to understand and prepare for an emergency of such magnitude while simultaneously preserving the American way of life.

The second aspect of such an attack is its likely transnationality. Terrorism is not a problem that will respect borders. It will be a threat from within as well as from without, and it raises the possibility that the circles of violence will quickly widen. Imitators will try to replicate an early success, and in our search for those responsible we are likely to set aside treasured civil rights. Moreover, the likelihood that we will fail to prevent this incident and respond to it properly will discredit the authorities in the eyes of the public. We need only be reminded of German terrorists in the 1970s and 1980s, whose objective was to disgrace the public order, to demonstrate the German government's inability to protect its own population, and/or to provoke the German government to take repressive steps that would in turn undermine its authority.

A number of national security law enforcement experts, intelligence officers, and scientists have begun to address the issues of building an architecture for response to catastrophic terrorism in this country. It will take decades to adjust to this new reality and to comprehend the dimensions of the problem. We must consider the entire spectrum of prevention, ranging from broad to focused surveillance (which involves narrowing down on a group or installation), to tactical and strategic warning, to psychological prevention strategies, to deterrence.

We also need to develop various protections, including vaccines, masks, interdiction of terrorism, and detection of terrorist acts as they are being prepared or executed, and we need to plan to clean up after such an attack and to develop a forensic plan for determining the culprit. An

important dimension of prevention and response is the multidisciplinary and multiagency nature of the need. How the event is labeled—as an attack, as a crime, or as a disaster—will determine who takes the lead. Like many new significant challenges to governance, this problem cuts across the lines we have drawn for conducting public business and argues for the establishment of a central coordinating office —a “czar.”But first the capability and infrastructure must be developed.

A strategy that addresses catastrophic terrorism includes many components. The first and most sensitive one is intelligence, which if mishandled can cut right to the heart of our civil liberties. Transnational terrorism falls into the chasm that is deeply carved in our government 's topography between the national security and law enforcement communities. One deals with threats to our security, the other with crime. For two centuries we have tolerated this sharp divide because security threats have always come from the outside. The rules of engagement in dealing with terrorists change on foreign soil. For example, the national security community uses proactive intelligence—using all means of surveillance—to identify threats and take vigorous preemptive action. In contrast, our criminal justice system has limited powers of surveillance and is supposed to target Americans only after just cause is established or a crime is committed.

Thus, attempts to engage the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency in cooperative efforts aimed at counter-terrorism result in a clash of cultures. The challenge is to find some means by which information collected by the intelligence community, which does not want that information revealed in court, can be provided to law enforcement, which requires that the information that is used as a basis for prosecution be divulged.

Another sensitive issue concerns the role of DOD. Is this national defense? Is this a theater of war? Should DOD be involved? Many find DOD involvement threatening because they do not think of American soil as an appropriate place for military activity. DOD recently designated a commander whose responsibility is to manage its contribution to a domestic terrorism situation.

A third issue is the importance of planning well in advance of an actual incident. Now is the time to try to develop balanced approaches to these difficult problems; the day after an attack is too late. Indeed, we should fear an ill-conceived and panicky response to a catastrophic terrorism incident as much as we fear the incident itself. In addition, we must consider making biological warfare a universal crime. The Biological Weapons Convention makes it a crime under international law for states to conduct biological warfare. We also must make it an individual crime

in all states to engage in biological warfare. Piracy and airline hijacking provide two examples of precedent in this area.

Finally, we must educate our legislators, many of whom are locked into the paradigm of conventional weaponry, about the threat of biological warfare. This will be a critical aspect of prevention because without legislative support the necessary resources will not be available.

Carter, A. B., J. M. Deutch, and P. D. Zelikow. 1998. Catastrophic terrorism: A new national policy. Foreign Affairs, 77(6):80-94.

Carter, A. B., J. M. Deutch, and P. D. Zelikow. 1998. Catastrophic terrorism: Elements of a national policy. Preventive Defense Project Publications, 1(6).

Carter, A. B., and W. J. Perry. 1999. A false alarm: This time. In Preventive Defense: A New Security Strategy for America. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution.