The Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense Doesn't Understand the Military

But that doesn't stop them from promoting really bad ideas

I don’t like the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense. They have shown little to no understanding as to how to address national biopreparedness, despite the title of their group. I’ve gone into more detail in past Substack newsletters as to my distaste to their work, and so I am going to look at them hard every time that they feel the need to put out another silly report that says nothing but sounds serious to the national security establishment. This month, the Commission has released a report on ways to improve the military’s biodefense capabilities. They call the report “Battle Rattle: Fast Movers for Military Biodefense.” For those of you not up on military lingo, “battle rattle” is what the military operators call “full combat gear” — the individual protective equipment and hand-carried weapon systems that make up a soldier’s or Marine’s personal gear. I imagine that the old timers on the Commission thought they’d be reaching the cool kids by referring to military biodefense as “battle rattle.” The actual report has nothing to do with assessing “battle rattle,” but it’s cute that the Commission thinks they are appealing to service members by using this term.

Anyway. This report is pretty bad. From looking at the methodology, such as it is, they have not developed a real argument. There’s no baseline here. The staff reviewed prior research efforts and scientific studies, along with federal strategies and research and development efforts associated with military biodefense and came up with some ideas. It’s unclear as to whom they’ve actually interviewed to come up with these ideas.¹ I doubt that any of them have ever worn “battle rattle” in their professional careers. I do find it ironic that they want to focus on military biodefense capabilities within the broad terms of their charter. I’ve made the case in other writings that the term “biothreat” is too general, that “biodefense” as described by this group and other DoD officials is far too broad. There are at least five different communities that work under the aspects of national biopreparedness — disease prevention, bioterrorism response, military biodefense, laboratory biosurety, and agricultural biosecurity. It’s good that they recognize at the least that there is a special community called military biodefense, but their recommendations do not support improving the military’s preparedness for adversarial use of biological weapons.

I mean, look at that cover. Who are they trying to kid? They put some kind of Destiny 2 game graphic on the cover to show how cool they are.² This isn’t a long report, it’s 16 pages, not including the methodology, acronyms, and endnotes. And we won’t talk about the endnotes, a quarter of which refer to their own past reports. There’s no question that the Commission still doesn’t get the need to define military biodefense as capabilities protecting U.S. forces from biological weapons. Period. Full stop. The medics handle natural disease outbreaks, the CBRN defense professionals prepare for deliberate biological threats. The Commission still prefers the loose term of “biological threats” and sees COVID-19 as an example of future biothreats that the DoD must address, rather than, say, HHS. It’s easy to see that they don’t understand the military when their recommendations do not make any distinction between the defense programs that fund military biodefense to counter biological weapons and military force health protection programs that address natural disease outbreaks.

They’re not entirely alone. It’s a common thing for analysts to suggest that tools designed for pandemic preparedness are just great for responding to bioterrorism threats. In the Sunday WaPo, I read this:

Similarly, though the media ridiculed President Donald Trump’s commentary about UV light during the covid-19 pandemic, recent research suggests that specific wavelengths known as germicidal ultraviolet light or “far-UVC” can deactivate a wide range of pathogens without harming human skin or eyes. Renewed civil defense could include investments in this kind of technology, which could pay big dividends even if no pandemic breaks out again; in line with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s focus on preventive health care, novel far-UVC technology could be part of a wider “clean indoor air” initiative that could help protect children from seasonal illnesses and epidemics.

Not only would such civil defense investments protect Americans from the effects of biological catastrophes, but they also could reduce the incentives for malicious actors to unleash weapons of mass destruction in the first place — a concept military strategists call “deterrence by denial.” This will become increasingly important as Russia’s and China’s continued work on weaponized biology intersects with the growing risk of war. Non-state actors, too, present a serious risk. National security experts have testified there have been multiple instances of bad actors attempting to use bioweapons of a strategic scale, and though they have not yet succeeded, the barriers are going down.

I don’t believe that a “biological civil defense” effort will ever take place in the United States, barring a pandemic that was maybe 10 times worse than COVID-19. This is the usual (poorly constructed) argument that by investing in public health, you get a bonus against potential bioterrorist incidents.³ It’s a general hand-wave over the complex problem of protecting 350 million citizens across the country from Nature’s many, many biological diseases, while lacking any basic understanding as to how the nation addresses terrorist threats, let alone military biodefense. But at least the authors of this op-ed clearly articulate their problem. This Commission report doesn’t take the simple step of explaining what biological threat the military should prepare for other than to harp on how COVID-19 hurt military preparedness.

Let’s look at the ten recommendations, since they do not offer any argument or analysis prior to making recommendations. The first one is to “strengthen biodefense leadership.” The Commission isn’t satisfied that the DoD created a Biodefense Council that intends to tell the services how to suck eggs how to develop their requirements and fund defense programs addressing biological threats. No, they want an Under Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense. Think about that for a moment. They want to create a position that rivals the Under Secretaries of Policy, Acquisition and Sustainment, and Personnel and Readiness to do CBRN defense. Lisa Bronson (former DUSD for counterproliferation) proposed creating an Assistant Secretary of Defense for Countering WMD back in 2005, and they laughed her out of the room. In addition, the report calls for three new ASD positions, one each for biological defense, chemical defense, and nuclear defense. They don’t say why this elevation is necessary other than to consolidate all DoD responsibilities for these functions into one place. It’s so ridiculous. We should take responsibilities away from the ASD for Health Affairs and the DASD for CWMD because that will improve CBRN defense? Unbelievable. Congress would never support it. I can guarantee that SecDef Pete Hegseth, in the middle of a major downsizing effort, is not going to do it.

Recommendation 2 is to “integrate science and technology for national biodefense.” The Commission believes that there ought to be a special transition office that will identify and move research opportunities from service laboratories, DARPA, non-federal agencies, and the private sector and force their collaboration into new biodefense investments. Here’s the funny thing, that process already exists. Talk to anyone in the DTRA CB Technologies Directorate. They have a standard cycle of soliciting early research and development projects, to include from DARPA, academia, and industry, into the DoD research program. The Joint PEO for CBRN Defense has the option to transition those DTRA projects to advanced development or to ignore their efforts. The mechanism is already there. We can argue about how successful it has been, but it exists. It’s just that much of the science and technology projects do not satisfy the services’ (perhaps inflated) requirements for new equipment.⁴ Much if not all of the JPEO’s products come straight from industry at a higher level of development. There’s nothing to fix here.

Recommendation 3 is to “produce biological intelligence” by focusing on medical intelligence and prioritizing its collection and synthesis into intelligence products. The Commission is clearly aware that DoD does in fact have a dedicated agency for producing military medical intelligence, but they don’t think the non-medical analysts appreciate it enough. Given a long career in this field, I do not agree that the intelligence community neglects “medical intelligence” or that it doesn’t follow what nation-states and sub-state groups are doing in the field of biological warfare. Honestly, I don’t understand this recommendation at all. If the Commission doesn’t think that enough money is being spent on sources and information on adversary capabilities related to biowarfare, then I’m going to have to see that justified. It could be that there isn’t a lot of bio-related intelligence because (and I know this will be shocking) there isn’t much going on in adversary biowarfare programs.

Recommendation 4 is to continue to develop a Biodefense Posture Review every four years, because everyone needs another dull, lifeless report to read. I cannot say strongly enough what a piece of shit the 2022 Biodefense Posture Review report was. The people who directed the BPR came in with pre-conceived notions of how the report should turn out and about the only thing it added, other than a confusing litany of rhetorical statements about “biothreats,” was an OSD-directed hierarchy that took over the services’ responsibilities to train, organize, and equip its forces. I’m not going to dignify this recommendation with any more comment other than to say, if you liked the Quadrennial Defense Review and Missile Defense Review reports, despite their lack of detail and any applicability to resources and execution responsibilities, then of course you’d want to see a quadrennial BPR report.

Recommendation 5 is a reoccurring one from this Commission, to consolidate all biodefense funds into a single budget, which is not how the DoD or Congress works at all. Now it’s bad enough that they referenced an OMB budget analysis that identified the entire budget for the DoD Chemical-Biological Defense Program’s budget as “biodefense funding” — hint, it’s in the title, chemical AND biological defense — but they have the idiotic idea that future biodefense funding needs are not being identified by the Department. Look at any OSD Comptroller’s defense budget materials —they all have funding for defense efforts that projects five years out. Interestingly enough, the Commission missed identifying “biodefense” funding that falls under the Defense Health Agency for medical treatment of natural biological disease outbreaks and other biological threats.

I’m sorry, one facepalm isn’t enough. If you’re analyzing defense projects and you don’t understand the basic process by which the Department manages its funds, then you need to get out of this business area. Just ridiculous. Amateur hour.

Recommendation 6 is to reduce the risk of a pandemic disrupting the defense industrial base by identifying defense critical infrastructure that may be imperiled by supply chain disruptions and challenges associated with social distancing. Since the COVID-19 pandemic had such an impact on this sector (as well as the commercial business sectors), the Commission would like to see someone assess these assets and determine how to harden defense infrastructure from disease outbreaks. I honestly don’t know what to do with this one. I don’t think the people running the defense critical infrastructure programs ever worried about hardening their buildings and facilities against chemical and biological weapons, let alone the wide number of natural biological diseases. We’ve recommended it in the past, and they ignore it because it costs too much money. No one is going to do this, it’s just impractical and not a priority. If there’s another pandemic, they’ll just throw tons of money at the problem just like they did in 2020-2021.

Recommendation 7 is a little convoluted. The Commission believes that the armed services’ public health agencies aren’t doing enough to monitor and advise the commanders at the various installations, facilities, and other defense sites about the dangers of indoor pathogen transmissions. I mean, I saw lots of signs about how long we ought to wash our hands in the bathrooms of military installations. You mean that’s not enough? No, the Commission wants airborne sensors in all of the buildings and metrics that identify harmful levels of biological contaminants, as well as an annual report to Congress on how they’re doing. Again, just an unbelievably naive suggestion. Which pathogens are we going to monitor for? Influenza? Tularemia? High levels of allergens? What’s the cost of installing and operating all of these monitors? I do support the military’s public health agencies; they have an important role to play in protecting service members and civilians from harmful exposures. But it would require a massive financial investment that would not be justified by the perceived threat. There has to be a priority on high probability, high consequence threats, not the routine challenge of “biological contaminants” in the air.

Recommendation 8 says the DoD needs to do more biological threat reduction programs in other countries, because Russia and China need more propaganda talking points with which to hit the United States. I jest, but this is just a worthless nod to giving DTRA more money to do global health security work that HHS and USAID ought to be doing. The BTRP was a good program when it focused on getting rid of real, honest-to-goodness biological weapons research and production facilities in the former Soviet Union. As soon as that mission was done, BTRP should have been cancelled. Instead, it’s been transformed into a supplementary budget to fix other nations’ health care programs. This isn’t a defense mission. The Commission fails to understand that just pumping more money into a program that already finished its mission is not justifiable.

Recommendation 9 is calling for a next-generation personal protective equipment (PPE) program for military personnel. There’s just too much nonsense here to parse through. First of all, I’d tell the Commission staffers that no one in the military has PPE, we have IPE, individual protective equipment. There’s a difference. HAZMAT crews get PPE, laboratory workers get PPE, military gets IPE. There are different standards between PPE and IPE. That’s the essence of our “battle rattle.” Second, the military doesn’t have “bio only” IPE, because it would be stupid to have chem suits/masks and bio suits/masks in the inventory instead of just one set of CBR suits and masks. The report acknowledges that the JPEO has an ongoing R&D effort into next-gen protective gear that includes the investigation of novel technologies. So what’s the problem here? Well, the Commission thinks that the DoD should make a list of all its “PPE” and share it with other government agencies in the event that those agencies want to get some. As if HHS, DHS, EPA, and other agencies don’t already have IPE stocks and vendors…

Finally, recommendation 10. Thank the gods that there’s only 10 recommendations, I don’t know if I have much more energy. The last recommendation is to ensure that military medics with biodefense expertise can easily join civilian medical service organizations. Now I’m not a medic. But I cannot believe that there are any military medical personnel who lack the skill set or ability to transition into the civilian EMS community, if that’s what they want to do. In fact, many hospitals already have medical personnel from the Reserves and National Guard on staff. We’ve all heard about the shortfalls of EMTs and nurses as well as doctors across the country. It’s not as if these military medical personnel are unaware of the licensure and practice of medicine in the civilian sector. I refuse to believe that this is an issue.

This is the Commission’s bottom line conclusion.

The COVID-19 pandemic and other biological events demonstrate that significant biological events have the potential to severely compromise DOD assets and military readiness domestically and overseas. The Department, however, has not sufficiently ensured that warfighters are able to operate in environments contaminated by biological agents or infectious diseases. Issuing the Biodefense Posture Review was a good first step toward addressing these concerns. However, fortifying DOD biodefense posture requires (1) developing in-depth understanding of the biological threats that warfighters may be forced to confront; (2) clarifying and coordinating biodefense roles and responsibilities; (3) developing needed biodefense capabilities in relatively short order; and (4) ensuring that the Department’s efforts to defend against biological threats align with the National Defense Strategy and other national strategies.

They still don’t get it. None of this is necessary, it’s already in place. It just isn’t in the form that they prefer. They still don’t understand that protecting U.S. service members from adversarial nations armed with biological weapons is a special and separate function from protecting U.S. service members from the military’s force health protection efforts that address natural disease outbreaks. This report has no argument to make as to why improvements to the military’s biodefense capabilities are necessary, other than, and I’m going to get cynical here, to enrich Big Pharma by growing its customer base. This report has no evaluation of the military medical program, no identification of the most probable biological threats, no wargaming to show the impact of a biological event, and no understanding of the leadership positions and budget practices within the Department of Defense. There is only one answer to this report.

I have only one recommendation to the financial sponsors of the Bipartisan Biodefense Commission. You are getting absolutely no bang for your buck. The Commissioners have for the most part a solid past history of national service, but I don’t see that ethos continuing here. This is a losing horse, and you need to get a more capable group of people to make your argument for more pharmaceutical research and development. DoD has a limited investment for chemical or biological defense, they have a system and a concept in place, and this report really isn’t going to change their minds. I’ve said what I said.

1. Interestingly, their acknowledgments talk about recognizing “the leadership and contributions” of nearly thirty individuals associated with biodefense studies and biodefense research and development, but the commission doesn’t say whether they actually talked to these individuals. I don’t see any actual military operators here. I see Bill Patrick’s name on the list; he’s been dead since 2010. He was certainly a leader in this field, but he didn’t publish (he testified to Congress on occasion), and my personal feeling is that he’d view this commission as a joke.

2. Destiny 2 is a PvPvE FPS game, https://www.bungie.net/7/en/Destiny. Tell me I’m wrong.

3. As I’ve explained in past posts, “deterrence by denial” for biological threats only works if an adversary understands that you have the ability to block all existing and potential biological diseases that could significantly impact the public. No one looking at the U.S. public health system is going to believe that. Also, Nature is not impressed by a “deterrence by denial” strategy and will come up with some mutation that you didn’t expect.

4. While the science and technology efforts do not often transition to an advanced development project, they do advance the general state of understanding of what technology allows and what remains an unobtainable objective.