Improving ‘Five Eyes’ Health Security Intelligence capabilities: leadership and governance challenges

ABSTRACT

This article explores common organizational pressure points for ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence communities in their ability to understand, prevent and disrupt potential emerging bio-threats and risks. The acceleration in the development of synthetic biology and biotechnology for legitimate markets (e.g. pharmaceuticals, food production and energy) is moving faster than current intelligence communities’ ability to identify and understand potential bio-threats and risks.

The article surveys several political leadership and intelligence governance challenges responsible for the current sub-optimal development of health security intelligence capabilities and identifies possible policy suggestions to ameliorate challenges.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Aldis, “Health Security as a Public Health Concept,” 370.

2. Bernard, “Health and National Security,” 157.

3. Walsh, Intelligence Biosecurity and Bioterrorism.

4. The Human Security Centre, The Human Security Centre.

5. See for example, Elbe, “Pandemic Security,” 163–173.

6. Heymann, “Global Health Security: the Wider Lessons from the West WHO.” “Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa – The First Nine Months of the Epidemic and Forward Projections,” 1481–1495; “Global Health Security: the Wider Lessons from the West African Ebola Virus Disease Epidemic,” 1884–1901; Marston, “Ebola Response Impact on Public Health Programs, West Africa 2014–2017”; WHO, “Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa – The First Nine Months of the Epidemic and Forward Projections,” 1481–1495.

7. Soucheray, “With New Cases, Katwa Remains Epicenter of Ebola Outbreak.”

8. Walsh, Intelligence and Intelligence Analysis, 29–32.

9. Alibek, Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World; Balmer, Britain and Biological Warfare. Expert Advice and Science Policy; Christopher, et al., “Biological Warfare: A Historical Perspective,” 412–417; Geissler, & Ellis van Courtland Moon, (Eds.). Biological and Toxin Weapons: Research, Development and Use from the Middle Ages to 1945; Koblentz, Living Weapons; and Walsh, Intelligence, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism.

10. Walsh, Intelligence, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, 30–31.

11. Broad and Shane, “Scientist’s Analysis Disputes FBI Closing of Anthrax Case.”

12. In BSL-3 to 4 rated labs, scientists work on pathogens that can cause serious or potentially lethal disease. Generally, the most lethal agents, where there is no vaccine or an unknown risk of transmission are worked on in BSL-4 labs.

13. Lizotte, “Research Halted at USAMRID Over Biosecurity Issues,” CDC, Report on the Potential Exposure to Anthrax; CDC, 90 Day Internal Review of the Division of Select Agents and Toxins; Dennis Brady and Lena Sun, ‘FDA Found More than Smallpox Vials in Storage Room.’ Washington Post. 16 July 2014, https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/fda-found-more-than-smallpox-vials-in-storage-room/2014/07/16/850d4b12-0d22-11e4-8341-b8072b1e7348_story.html?utm_term=.978241b9d1f8.

14. Walsh, “Managing Intelligence and Responding to Emerging Threats,” 837–57; Walsh, “Managing Emerging Health Security Threats Since 9/11: The Role of Intelligence,” 341–67.

15. Koblentz and Mazanec, “Viral Warfare: The Security Implications of Cyber and Biological Weapons,” 418–34; and Murch, “Emerging New Discipline to Help Safeguard the Bioeconomy.”

16. For a brief discussion on some of the bilateral and multi-lateral biosafety programs that ‘Five Eyes’ countries have been active in see, Walsh, Intelligence, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, 179–231.

17. Ibid., 179–231.

18. Tucker, Innovation, Dual Use and Security; Suk et al., “Dual Use Research and Technological Diffusion. Reconsidering the Bioterrorism Threat Spectrum,” 1–3; Gerstein, Bioterror in the 21st Century: Emerging Threats in a New Global Environment; National Academy of Sciences, Human Genome Editing. Science Ethics and Governance; Arnason, “Synthetic Biology between Self-Regulation and Public Discourse,” 246–56.

19. Chyba, “Biotechnology and the Challenge to Arms Control,” 11–17; Carlson, “The Pace and Proliferation of Biological Technologies,” 203–14; Petro and Carus, “Biological Threat Characterisation Research,” 295–308.

20. Walsh, Intelligence, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, 44.

21. Kathleen Vogel’s work on the non-technical aspects of bio-threats provide a good background to all the non-technical variables that should be considered in assessing bio-threats and risks. See, Vogel, “Biodefense,” 227–55; “Intelligent Assessment: Putting Emerging Biotechnology Threats in Context,” 45–54; “Necessary Interventions. Expertise and Experiments in Bioweapons Intelligence Assessments,” 61–88; and, Phantom Menace or Looming Danger?.

22. Walsh, Intelligence, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, 41–51.

23. Kolata, “Chinese Scientist Claims to Use Crispr to Make First Edited Babies”.

24. In the US, easily over 2 million people are employed with over 73,000 businesses working across range of biosciences (medicine, agriculture, pharmaceuticals, research). Similarly in Australia, around 48,000 Australians are employed in the biotechnology sector with the sector estimated to obtain a 4.4% annual growth reaching 8.67 billion AUD in revenues by 2021. See, Battelle. Battelle/Bio State Bioscience, Jobs, Investments and Innovation; Ausbiotech, Australia’s Biotechnology Organisation (website), 2018. https://www.ausbiotech.org/biotechnology-industry/fast-facts.

25. Walsh, Intelligence, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, 51.

26. Ibid., 41.

27. Willingham, “A Fresh Threat: Will CAS9 Lead to CRISPR Bioweapons?”; National Academy of Sciences. Human Genome Editing. Science Ethics and Governance; Revill, “Could Gene Editing Tools Such as CRISPR be Used as a Biological Weapon.”

28. Willingham, “A Fresh Threat”; Clapper, Statement for the Record. Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community.

29. A more detailed discussion of these factors and how they relate to theorising about effective intelligence frameworks can be found in Walsh, Intelligence and Intelligence Analysis, 131–147; Walsh, “Building Better Intelligence Frameworks Through Effective Governance,” 123–42.

30. Ibid.

31. Walsh, Intelligence, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, 59–89.

32. Ibid., 89–121.

33. Ibid.

34. Walsh and “Rethinking “Five Eyes” Security Intelligence Collection Policies and Practice Post Snowden,” 345–68; Chertoff, “A public policy perspective of the Dark Web,” 26–38; and Chen, Bioterrorism and Knowledge Mapping Dark Web Exploring and Data Mining the Dark Side of the Web, 335–67.

35. Walsh, & Ratcliffe, “Strategic Criminal Intelligence Education: A Collaborative Approach,” 152–66. Walsh, “Teaching intelligence in the twenty-first century: towards an evidence-based approach for curriculum design,” 1005–1021; Harrison, & Et al., “Tradecraft to Standards – Moving Criminal Intelligence Practice to a Profession through the Development of Criminal Intelligence Training and Development Continuum,” 1–13.

36. Walsh, Intelligence, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, 127–128.

37. Gentry and Gordon, Strategic Warning Intelligence, 223.

38. Ibid., 218.

39. Walsh, Intelligence, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism.

40. Walsh, Intelligence and Intelligence Analysis, 31–152.

41. Ibid., 149.

42. Blue Ribbon Study Panel, Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense. A National Blueprint for Biodefense: Leadership and Major Reform Needed to Optimise Efforts; Blue Ribbon Study Panel, Biodefense Indicators One Year Later. Events Outpacing Federal Efforts to Defend the Nation.

43. White House, National Biodefense Strategy; HMG. UK Biological Security Strategy.

44. For a discussion of the main aspects of the reform agenda currently underway in the AIC, see my ISA Paper: “Transforming the Australian Intelligence Community: Mapping Change, Impact and Governance Challenges,” paper given at the 60^th International Studies Association Conference, 27 August 2019.

45. For a detailed discussion of what non-security stakeholders can bring to the IC see: Walsh, Intelligence, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, 179–231.

46. Ibid., 192–3.

47. Ibid., 183.

48. Walsh, “Teaching intelligence in the twenty-first century,” 1005–21.

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Patrick F. Walsh

Patrick F. Walsh, PhD, is a former intelligence analyst, and has worked in Australia’s national security and law enforcement environments. He is an associate professor in Intelligence and Security Studies, Charles Sturt University, Australia. He is also a consultant to government agencies on intelligence reform and capability issues. His research grants and publications focus on a range of areas related to intelligence capability; including but not limited to: governance, leadership, intelligence and ethics, biosecurity and cyber. His last book, Intelligence, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism (UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), examined the challenges for ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence communities in understanding and managing emerging bio-threats and risks.