CBRN largely is still locked in the thought process of Cold War scenarios. By and large our available sensors where designed when we felt we would face the Soviets in traditional CBRM attacks. Namely their Brigades would fire shells full of toxic material at our massed brigades or their camps or they would launch a toxic cloud and it would float towards us. It would all be done “gentlemanly” or as “gentlemanly” as one can be in CBRN warfare. Our counter would be sensors designed to detect the presence or launch of these materials. The logistics train and the need to take samples back to the lab were ever present. The bottom line is this approach is behind the curve as was the entire FCS thinking. That process evolved around our feeling that pre 9/11 we would simply fight an extension of WW-2 only instead of the Germans we would face Soviet formations in European scenarios. The advent of jihad and 9-11 has profoundly changed that thinking. The new Muslim threat has no organized unit structure with a process of operation on a classical scale. The threat for chemical or biological attack is still there. It would come from a clandestine plan though and not the process of ordered doctrine. In order to detect these new threat scenarios new approaches and new enabling technologies will be required. The new enabling technology will be based on next generation sensors that are small and allow for the fusion of data from various modalities not bulky cold war designs that required data be taken to a lab for analysis. Even the thought process for cold war hand held sensor technology that allowed for sample collection to occur won’t be valuable in terror driven asymmetrical CBRN based attacks. I have found that the traditional CBRN publications have largely stayed clear of picking up on these themes. While it is an obvious trend at the conference sessions at the CBRN events it isn’t one the publications or media that covers the CBRN space wants to explore. The answer as to why can probably be best stated as economic. At present the CBRN space in terms of products has been and continues to be dominated by the same players providing bulky equipment as has always been the case. These players don’t really want to change as their world revolves around the economy of today for them. The longer they can maintain status quos the longer they can generate predictable revenue. Unfortunately Mr. Nasty isn’t bound by this process and only cares about creating an event that will cause maximum damage.
Fortunately several things might assist hitting the big currant contractors and the traditional program offices that have been running the programs along with an overall rethinking of military force posture. The beginning of this trend was hastened by the cancellation of the out of date FCS Program and its potential lighter weight BCTM follow on.
Another potential assist in right minded thinking can be found in the packaging of data from the CBRN arena by the publication http://www.cbrneworld.com/ Out of all the publications covering the CBRN area I believe this publication and its associated ecosystem seem to have an excellent grasp of the new asymmetrical paradigm. Let’s hope moving forward they will continue to look to how to craft and shape the message that unless we change our thinking we will be eroded by multiple CBRN 9/11’s on a regional basis
