The taxonomy of a grand strategy against weapons of mass casualties: Aligning chemical and biological defense at the national, state and local levels to maximize effectiveness and efficiency.

摘要

This dissertation examines the current Chemical and Biological threat to the United States; how the nation is currently aligned to deter, detect, defeat and respond to the threat; and whether a Grand Strategy would drastically improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the United States in an attempt to keep American's as safe as possible while simultaneously assessing cost/benefit analysis in the form of critical risk assessments. These cost/benefit analyses exceed the simple, financial implications of such an endeavor by also addressing the issue of "Just War" and fundamental expected freedoms of United States' citizens through legislation such as the PATRIOT ACT, 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, PDD-62 (counter-terrorism) and PDD-63 (infrastructure protection). The lofty, overarching, but achievable goal of this work is to produce a grand strategy by which the United States could realign the form and execution of our government to counter the threat of chemical and biological weapons, whether they are disseminated by terrorists, rogue states or other nations with significant chemical and biological capability.; The taxonomy of a Grand Strategy against Weapons of Mass Casualties: Aligning Chemical and Biological Defense at the National, State and Local levels to maximize effectiveness and efficiency, makes the assumption that chemical or biological agents will most likely be used against American citizens in the near future if specific national-level policy changes are not made. This assumption of use is based on the ease of attainment, production, and dispersal of some biological agents and the corresponding casualty rate for a relatively inexpensive and easily obtained weapon.; The formulation of a new Intelligence Directorate is a good first step towards successfully detecting biological and chemical threats before they reach the borders of the United States. However, if the threat does arrive in the Continental United States (CONUS), the United States Government is currently misaligned and potentially incapable of properly responding to a threat. In addition to resolving the question of whether or not we are capable of defending our borders, we must ask where the fiscal trade-offs exist when comparing physical security to resource allocation. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)