Those are small, though important, changes in how they can better combat a\u00a0growing list of nasty threats\u00a0<\/a>that do not always involve bullets and missiles.<\/p>\n But what will really change their work is a combined threat review, new strategy and increased funding to push CBRN to the forefront of defense thinking.<\/p>\n The larger \u201cpivot\u201d and \u201ctransformation\u201d that one senior defense official signaled at a conference devoted to the trade of defeating such threats, is a comprehensive posture review, increased funding across multiple years and a new way to integrate CBRN defense into everything troops do.<\/p>\n With that new prioritization and funding, officials hope CBRN gear and strategy seep into the total force.<\/p>\n Adding another layer of data mining and machine learning will help frontline CBRN better\u00a0face currently unknown dangers\u00a0<\/a>that threaten to overwhelm defense, civilian and emergency response in ways that could exceed the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense programs Deborah Rosenblum laid out the big picture in her remarks on July 28, the second day of the annual National Defense Industrial Association\u2019s CBRN conference here in Baltimore, Maryland.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are not going to figure it out as we go,\u201d Rosenblum said. \u201cWe need a radical transformation.\u201d<\/p>\n Rosenblum characterized the growing chemical and biological threat as \u201cvastly more difficult\u201d and \u201crapidly changing.\u201d<\/p>\n Multiple speakers throughout the two-day event hammered away that the old days of \u201cone bug, one drug\u201d are gone. That is the methodology that existed for decades with threats such as smallpox or anthrax, both deadly viruses that do have existing vaccinations.<\/p>\n While COVID-19 came from human-animal contact, current and future threats may be designed by adversaries such as Russia, China, North Korea, Iran or non-state actors specifically to confound existing identification tools. That masks who made it, what it is and how to treat it.<\/p>\n And those are not casual references. The 2022\u00a0State Department Report on Adherence and Compliance<\/a>\u00a0for arms control, including chemical and bioweapons programs, made specific notes as to these adversaries.<\/p>\n \u201cThe People\u2019s Republic of China (PRC) continued to engage in activities with dual-use applications, which raise concerns regarding its compliance with Article I of the BWC,\u201d the report read.<\/p>\n The bulk of the State Department report regarding alleged weapons programs, specifically dual-use ones, includes estimated activity and fears of malign uses of biological and chemical technology due to incomplete, inaccurate, or sometimes misleading information.<\/p>\n The United States also has its own biodefense and biological technology programs, which could themselves be switched to \u201cdual-use.\u201d The United States also pursued and created vast stores of chemical weapons and biological agents before committing to end offensive bioweapons programs and joining the Chemical Weapons Convention, along with most other states in the world.<\/p>\n Russia maintained a robust biological and chemical weapons infrastructure while part of the Soviet Union. Despite public denial of such programs, Russian officials\u00a0admitted in the early 1990s<\/a>\u00a0that its bioweapons program continued into the late days of the Cold War.<\/p>\n Media reports have also pointed to multiple political assassinations that the Kremlin, at the behest of Russian President Vladmir Putin, conducted using radiological elements and the fourth-generation nerve agent Novichok.<\/p>\n Then there\u2019s North Korea, which has had a bioweapons capability since the 1960s, according to the State Department report.<\/p>\n \u201cNorth Korea probably has the capability to produce sufficient quantities of biological agents for military purposes upon leadership demand,\u201d the report stated.<\/p>\n However, outside experts, such as those with the Bulletin for Atomic Scientists, note that depictions of North Korean military capabilities want for tangible evidence. The closed-border country\u2019s leadership could be touting strong bioweapons programs simply as a strategic bluff.<\/p>\n \u201cOne must be prudent when discussing North Korea, and not jump to conclusions or ascribe a threatening meaning to any sliver of information that manages to emerge, particularly when it emerges in a time of crisis,\u201d wrote Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley, then an associate professor studying biodefense at George Mason University, in a 2017 article on the\u00a0Bulletin<\/a>.<\/p>\n A\u00a02020 report by the thinktank<\/a>\u00a0Stimson drew a similar conclusion. The Stimson report noted that the U.S. government has made these claims for years without a clear definition of a bioweapons program.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever, based on a definition by United Nations (UN) inspectors investigating Iraq\u2019s BW activities, probably the most that can be said in the case of North Korea is that it may have or have had a BW program,\u201d the Stimson report stated.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/EAIA36XPLJAQBA4B6A7RMNSBB4.jpg\")