{"id":11667,"date":"2023-01-31T09:02:45","date_gmt":"2023-01-31T12:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/?p=11667"},"modified":"2023-01-31T09:02:45","modified_gmt":"2023-01-31T12:02:45","slug":"nuevas-amenazas-globales-llevan-al-pentagono-usa-a-revisar-sus-sistemas-de-defensa-contra-armas-quimicas-y-biologicas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/?p=11667","title":{"rendered":"Nuevas amenazas globales llevan al Pent\u00e1gono (USA) a revisar sus sistemas de defensa contra armas qu\u00edmicas y biol\u00f3gicas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>El Departamento de Defensa de los EEUU (DoD) est\u00e1 revisando su enfoque para contrarrestar las armas biol\u00f3gicas y qu\u00edmicas, ya que algunos adversarios potenciales est\u00e1n desarrollando amenazas m\u00e1s f\u00e1ciles de usar y que pueden evadir las defensas tradicionales. Y en algunos casos han demostrado su disposici\u00f3n a emplearlas. Un llamado de atenci\u00f3n para el DoD fue el brote de COVID en el portaaviones Roosevelt en marzo de 2020, que afect\u00f3 a cientos de miembros de la tripulaci\u00f3n y lo puso fuera de servicio durante semanas. El incidente tuvo ramificaciones m\u00e1s all\u00e1 del navio: el capit\u00e1n fue despedido, el secretario interino de la Marina renunci\u00f3 y el servicio se sumi\u00f3 en el caos. El brote en el portaaviones Roosevelt mostr\u00f3 la importancia de identificar una amenaza qu\u00edmica o biol\u00f3gica, antes de que golpee a las tripulaciones y afecte los activos militares. El subsecretario adjunto del DoD para defensa qu\u00edmica y biol\u00f3gica ha declarado: \u201cPi\u00e9nsenlo como una defensa antimisiles integrada: el uso de m\u00faltiples sensores, una alerta temprana para identificar la amenaza; es como un radar de vigilancia o algo as\u00ed, se fija con su control de fuego e identifica qu\u00e9 es\u201d, \u201cHacemos una defensa integrada y en capas no solo con nuestras contramedidas m\u00e9dicas, sino tambi\u00e9n con la detecci\u00f3n de alerta temprana\u201d.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph \">The Defense Department is overhauling its approach to countering biological and chemical weapons, as potential adversaries such as Russia and China rush to create threats that are easier to use and can evade traditional defenses.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph \">Officials are launching a new plan to develop medical treatments, vaccines and personal protective equipment that can adapt to a range of evolving biological and chemical threats, said Ian Watson, DoD\u2019s deputy assistant secretary for chemical and biological defense.<\/p>\n<section class=\"page-content__row page-content__row--story\">\n<div class=\"container container--story story-layout--fluid-fixed\">\n<div class=\"container__column container__column--story summary-middle\">\n<div class=\"container__row container__row--story story-layout--fixed-fluid\">\n<div class=\"container__column container__column--story center-horizontally\">\n<div class=\"story-text\">\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph \">That\u2019s a change for DoD, which traditionally has developed tools to counter a specific list of biological and chemical threats. Recent advances in technology allow potential adversaries to manipulate existing pathogens and toxins and create new ones, leading to an almost infinite number of new hazards for troops. Adding to the complexity of the problem, those dangers can be naturally occurring, accidental or deliberate, Watson said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<section class=\"page-content__row page-content__row--story main-section\" data-content-section=\"3\">\n<div class=\"container container--story story-layout--fixed-fluid\">\n<div class=\"container__column container__column--story\">\n<div class=\"container__row container__row--story story-layout--fluid-fixed\">\n<div class=\"container__column container__column--story center-horizontally\">\n<div class=\"story-text\">\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph \" data-content-child-index=\"0-0\">He previewed the new framework, officially called the Chemical and Biological Defense Program\u2019s Enhanced Medical Countermeasures Approach, in an exclusive interview.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph \" data-content-child-index=\"0-1\">It\u2019s no longer just the special operations forces fighting terrorists who might be exposed to chemical or biological weapons deployed by regional actors such as Iran or Syria, Watson said. Now, the problem has evolved to threaten the entire force.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph \" data-content-child-index=\"0-2\">U.S. officials are particularly concerned about adversaries that already have advanced chemical and biological capabilities and have proven themselves willing to use them. Russia and China now have the technology necessary both to tweak current threats \u2014 from toxins to naturally occurring pathogens \u2014 to make them more deadly and to create new weapons, Watson said.<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"\/\/players.brightcove.net\/1155968404\/r1WF6V0Pl_default\/index.html?videoId=6318471458112\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe see what we have to prepare for, for the National Defense Strategy, for the pacing threat of China and Russia,\u201d Watson said. \u201cWe see not only the technology, the intel, the intent, and also the potential impact it would have to our forces if we don\u2019t prepare.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph \" data-content-child-index=\"0-0\">\u201cIt\u2019s a different scale,\u201d he added, \u201cand it\u2019s a different environment in which our soldiers are going to be asked to potentially find it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph \" data-content-child-index=\"0-1\">The move to develop tests, treatments and vaccines for a range of threats marks a shift in strategy for the department. For years, DoD responded to potential chemical and biological attacks in the field by developing tools to combat a specific list of hazards. But the list continued to grow. Now, the U.S. is adapting, Watson said, adding that it will likely become more difficult over time to determine nature and origin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph \" data-content-child-index=\"0-2\">\u201cThe technology is accelerating at such a pace that the threat profile and the diversity of the threat and the attributes of the threat have increased and will continue to do so at a quick clip,\u201d Watson said. \u201cWe can\u2019t develop a countermeasure for every single one of those, every single toxin, every single biological potentiality, every single chemical potentiality.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph \" data-content-child-index=\"0-3\">\u201cOur ability to simply sink endless amounts of defense dollars into a single countermeasure for every single threat that can easily be modified by our adversaries is no longer a solution,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph \" data-content-child-index=\"0-4\">DoD is releasing the new approach ahead of its first-ever Biodefense Posture Review, which Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called for in November 2021. The strategy was slated to come out last fall; Watson said it is expected \u201csoon.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph \" data-content-child-index=\"0-5\">Gregory Koblentz, the director of the Biodefense Graduate Program at George Mason University, said the decision by the administration to look more holistically at chemical and biological threats is a strategic national security decision \u2014 one that could help the U.S. keep pace with countries such as China, Russia and Iran.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph \" data-content-child-index=\"0-6\">\u201cThere\u2019s definitely a much higher kind of salience and appreciation of how nation-states are using these technologies,\u201d Koblentz said. \u201cUntil fairly recently, the focus has mostly been on ISIS and Al Qaeda using chemical and biological terrorism. This [strategy] might be another kind of paradigm shift.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph \" data-content-child-index=\"0-7\">The change in approach has been shaped in large part by the Covid-19 pandemic, Watson said. It can be impossible to tell whether a new threat is naturally occurring or intentionally manipulated by adversaries, but either way, the countermeasures are often the same, he stressed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph \" data-content-child-index=\"0-0\">DoD learned lessons from the\u00a0<a class=\" js-tealium-tracking \" href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2020\/04\/18\/carrier-crew-stuck-on-guam-coronavirus-193122\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-tracking=\"mpos=&amp;mid=&amp;lindex=&amp;lcol=\" aria-label=\"outbreak on the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (opens in a new window)\">outbreak on the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt<\/a>\u00a0in March 2020, which sickened hundreds of crew members \u2014 one sailor died \u2014 and sidelined the ship in Guam for weeks. The incident had ramifications beyond the carrier: The captain was fired, the acting Navy secretary resigned, and the service was\u00a0<a class=\" js-tealium-tracking \" href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2020\/04\/07\/thomas-modly-coronavirus-speech-resign-navy-172625\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-tracking=\"mpos=&amp;mid=&amp;lindex=&amp;lcol=\" aria-label=\"plunged into chaos (opens in a new window)\">plunged into chaos<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph \" data-content-child-index=\"0-1\">The Roosevelt outbreak showed the importance of identifying a chemical or biological threat early to before it hits crews and affects military assets, Watson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph \" data-content-child-index=\"0-2\">\u201cWe took combat power off station because of a disease that took down the crew,\u201d Watson said. \u201cAnd so the early indications and warnings where we can actually separate and identify those things preclude us from having to go down below readiness and keep our forces not only on station, but how they\u2019re supposed to operate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph \" data-content-child-index=\"0-3\">DoD received an additional $200 million for fiscal 2023 to develop the new strategy and is planning to spend $1.2 billion over the next five years, Watson said, but more money is needed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph \" data-content-child-index=\"0-4\">Watson said it is impossible for the U.S. to continue to pour millions of dollars into preparing for every known and future chemical and biological threat \u2014 it has to change course and develop a broad range of tools that will help protect troops in the field for whatever they may encounter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph \" data-content-child-index=\"0-5\">\u201cWe can never ever protect the warfighter in entirety the way we\u2019ve been doing if we don\u2019t start switching to this in the future,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph \" data-content-child-index=\"0-6\">One problem is the evolving threat posed by pharmaceutical-based agents that are easy to stockpile and hide from traditional intelligence-gathering methods.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph \" data-content-child-index=\"0-7\">Over the past several years, China has ramped up its production of fentanyl, contributing to a global opioid crisis. And Russia has used nerve agents, namely Novichok, in assassination attempts. Experts warn that U.S. adversaries could use such pharmaceutical-based agents in large-scale attacks.<\/p>\n<p data-content-child-index=\"0-7\">\u201cRussia\u2019s use of Novichok on multiple occasions has definitely highlighted the threat that so-called fourth-generation agents pose,\u201d Koblentz said. \u201cThese are agents that we know existed, but people were not really focused on them because they were secret until recently.\u201d<\/p>\n<p data-content-child-index=\"0-7\"><iframe src=\"\/\/players.brightcove.net\/1155968404\/r1WF6V0Pl_default\/index.html?videoId=6236773934001\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph  \" data-content-child-index=\"0-2\">DoD has concluded that a good offense is the best defense for many pharmaceutical-based threats. Instead of developing medical countermeasures against each toxin \u2014 such as Naloxone, an auto-injector designed to treat fentanyl intoxication \u2014 officials are looking at \u201cmodulating the immune system\u201d through six metabolic routes to improve troops\u2019 defenses, Watson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph  \" data-content-child-index=\"0-3\">The Pentagon is also targeting naturally occurring viruses, which adversaries may now be able to manipulate. For example, officials are developing monoclonal antibodies \u2014 also used to treat Covid-19 \u2014 as treatment for three viral families: Nipah\/Hendra, Rift Valley Fever and Pan-Orthopox.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph  \" data-content-child-index=\"0-4\">Officials are using advances in computing to rapidly develop new treatments. DoD has an agreement with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to use its El Capitan supercomputer to model new threats and generate vast numbers of potential treatments, similar to the way the U.S. responded to the Omicron variant of Covid, Watson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph  \" data-content-child-index=\"0-5\">Out of those treatments, officials choose not only the most effective candidate, but also the one that can most easily be manufactured in large quantities. Once these treatments are on the shelves, they can be sent out rapidly to troops in the field in an emergency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph  \">\u201cYou\u2019re modeling out very much like Formula One racing. They\u2019ll do thousands of designs in the computer,\u201d Watson said. \u201cWhat that does for us is it allows us to be cost-effective.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph  \">As part of the new strategy, DoD is developing, standardizing and deploying biological sensors that troops can wear in the field, called \u201cwearables,\u201d that can detect and identify the characteristics of a threat early on, for instance, if it\u2019s viral or bacterial. The devices use biological data such as the troops\u2019 blood oxygen levels and heart rate to come to a diagnosis.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph  \">These devices already exist across the department; Watson\u2019s shop is focused on standardizing them, he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph  \">\u201cYou can start indicating that you\u2019re ill four or five days before, like when [you catch Covid], you can see it spike three or four days before you ever saw symptoms,\u201d Watson said. \u201cThe more we\u2019re using those to do the tests, the algorithms are improving, so those biomarkers are giving us better indicators.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph  \">Another effort is wastewater surveillance, which local officials also used during the pandemic to identify Covid outbreaks quickly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph  \">All of these pieces of the puzzle come together to help DoD better protect its forces, Watson said, likening the biodefense effort to integrated missile defense.<\/p>\n<p class=\"story-text__paragraph  \">\u201cThink about it like integrated missile defense, the handoff of multiple sensors, early warning to identify, you have a surveillance radar or something up there, you lock on with your fire control and you identify what it is,\u201d Watson said. \u201cWe do integrated, layered defense not only with our medical countermeasures but also the early warning detection.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>CORRECTION:<\/strong> <em>An earlier version of this report misstated the name of the upcoming review. It is called the Biodefense Posture Review. The story also mischaracterized the spending plan for the new strategy.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p><strong>Fuente:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2023\/01\/09\/russia-china-chemical-biological-weapons-pentagon-00077035\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>https:\/\/www.politico.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>El Departamento de Defensa de los EEUU (DoD) est\u00e1 revisando su enfoque para contrarrestar las armas biol\u00f3gicas y qu\u00edmicas, ya que algunos adversarios potenciales est\u00e1n&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11668,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36,28,24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11667"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11667"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11667\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11669,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11667\/revisions\/11669"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}