Bureaucracy vs. Bioterrorism: Countering a Globalized Threat.

摘要

Two things are certain: death and taxes. Or maybe just taxes. Scientists are attempting to cheat death with rapidly progressing technologies capable of constructing and manipulating life synthetically from basic chemical elements. While the advancing rates of capability in computing speed, genomics, synthetic biology and nanotechnology have the potential to improve and lengthen life for all humans, they also enable biological weapons that can destroy wide swaths of humanity or attack specific groups of individuals. This confluence of technology is advancing at exponential rates and seems have the advantage over the limited detection, protection and treatment capabilities offered by a lumbering bureaucracy. While human nature has not changed, rapidly advancing technology is providing new and novel biothreats to our adversaries. Globalization and the increasing availability of knowledge required to develop biothreats coupled with declining computing costs work together to dramatically increase the likelihood of biological weapon proliferation over the next 25 years. Given a future proliferation of biological weapons to terrorist groups facilitated by globalization and rapidly increasing technological advancements, can a bureaucracy develop an effective network of countermeasures to bioterrorism.