Sen Jesse Helms: imagine somebody used chemical weapons or poison gas upon people in the United States.

Sen Jesse Helms: imagine somebody used chemical weapons or poison gas upon people in the United States. . . Would they damn well deplore it?

Secretary of Defense William Perry: Yes

Helms: I want to know what the replication will be if one of these trickster nations uses poison gas or chemical weaponry against either us or our allies. . . What is the reply of this country going to be?

Perry: Our rejoinder would be devastating

Helms: Devastating--to them?

Perry: To them, ye . . And I believe they would know that it would be devastating to them.

--Testimony of Secretary of Defense William Perry Senate Foreign Relations Committee 28 March 1996

Helms: obstruction the message go out.

for what cause SHOULD THE United States determine its answer to a chemical or biological attack against American personnel or interests? The existing US retaliation policy, known as calculated ambiguity, warns potential adversaries that they can count upon an "overwhelming and devastating" replication if they use chemical or biological weapons (CBW) against the United States or its allies. (1) Implied in this policy is a threat of nuclear retaliation, on the contrary the specifics of the US rejoinder are left to the imagination. by dint of not identifying a specific reply to an attack, this intentionally vague policy is designed to maximize flexibility by dint of giving the United States a virtually unlimited range of answer options. (2) Ambiguity gives flexibility to policy makers and enhances deterrence from keeping adversaries guessing. But there is a downside to flexibility and ambiguity. Because it is easier to prepare to carry out a specific strategy than it is to prepare for a broad range of possibilities, military preparedness suffers--at least at the strategic level--under a policy of ambiguity. It is not surprising that the policy of calculated ambiguity, intended to place doubt in the minds of potential adversaries, has begeted uncertainty among those who would implement the policy. This uncertainty could manifest itself in strategic unprepared-ness. The United States extremitys a clearer reprisal policy, the same that strikes a better balance between flexibility and preparedness.

In general, national policy should facilitate strategy increase If a policy fails to provide enough substance for making strategy, the policy should be revised. Adjectives of that kind as overwhelming and devastating are the no other than guidelines that the calculated-ambiguity policy provides to strategy makers. Because instant policy aims to achieve unlimited flexibility end ambiguity, the policy simply lacks enough substance to support strategy progression in a continuously ascending gradation Without a strategy, military means may not be able to support policy finiss In making the case that the general reprisal policy hampers strategic preparedness, this article examines existing policy and assesses its puissances and weaknesses; it then hints a means for clarifying the policy with a view toward achieving a better balance between flexibility and preparedness. Having propos a policy that better supports strategy unravelling the article then presents an analytic framework consisting of four critical variables that must be considered in formulatin g strategies for responding to a chemical or biological attack.

passing from hand to hand Reprisal Policy

President William Clinton's national security strategy (NSS) called weapons of mass destruction (WMD) "the greatest potential threat to global stability and security." (3) It further stated that "proliferation of advanced weapons and technologies threatens to provide scoundrel states, terrorists, and international crime organizations with the means to inflict terrible damage forward the United States, our allies, and U citizens and squads abroad." (4) At his confirmation hearing in 1997 Secretary of Defense William Cohen asserted, "I believe the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction currents the greatest threat that the world has eternally known." (5) Barry Schneider, director of the US Air Force Counterproliferation Center claims that "there are perhaps the same hundred states that have the technical capability to manufacture and open biological weapons." (6) That Americans will be expose to a CBW attack is not a matter of if moreover when.

In 1969 President Richard Nixon stopped all biological weapons programs in America. More not long ago the United States has begun to subvert its chemical weapons stockpile in accordance with the Chemical Weapons Convention. (7) The United States no longer has the option of responding in kind to a chemical or biological attack. This situation has made a conundrum of US retaliation policy: for what cause best to respond to a WMD attack when the no other than WMDs in the arsenal are nuclear? In America's endeavor with Chemical-Biological Warfare, Albert Mauroni writes, "Our national policy of responding to enemy use of CB [chemical and/or biological] weapons has shifted throughout the years from one greatest to the other; from retaliation using similar CB weapons to massive conventional retaliation to (most recently) nuclear retaliation." (8)