Forum – Fall 2018
Limits of dual use
In “The Limits of Dual Use” (Issues, Summer 2018), Tara Mahfoud, Christine Aicardi, Saheli Datta, and Nikolas Rose argue that a “more nuanced” framework than dual use is needed to govern emerging scientific trends. Their concern is valid; their argument, however, obscures the nuances in the debate so far.
An important distinction arises between what people meant when they talked about dual use before 2001, and after. Prior to 2001, the term was used regarding technologies that crossed the civil/military divide, commonly in the context of export control agreements. After 2001, the benign/malign sense of dual use arose, when researchers in Australia inadvertently created an orthopox virus that possessed 100% lethality.
These two senses do not overlap in obvious ways. National Academies reports in 2004 and 2017 rejected export controls as a way to control dual-use research in the life sciences, such as the now-famous Australian study that gave rise to a lethal virus that causes mousepox. Whereas the malign uses of a 100% lethal poxvirus—such as smallpox, which killed half a billion people in the twentieth century—are clear, the military uses are less so. Biological weapons, especially highly lethal ones, are very difficult to control once released, and make for an unpredictable weapon. To an apocalyptic cult, such as the Aum Shinrikyo cult that committed the sarin attacks in 1995 on the Tokyo subway (and two attempted anthrax attacks besides), that might be acceptable.
In the same way, civilian uses do not clearly overlap with benign uses. Arguably, some kinds of weapons are permissible in national defense: only the most ardent pacifist would reject weapons altogether. Moreover, military uses of, say, psychoactive drugs to treat post-traumatic stress disorder—whether caused by combat, sexual assault, or something else—are surely beneficial if they are therapeutic, whether or not they are used in a military theater or context.
The old sense of dual use is less moral, and more strategic. The newer sense is the reverse. Taking care to distinguish between these uses allows us to better navigate the problem.
Strong institutions are an important component of regulating dual-use research, in any sense of the term. In neuroscience, in particular, institutions for regulating its potential applications are weak. Facebook struggled to decide whether or not to shut down InfoWars, a site so egregiously harmful that it perpetuates conspiracy theories such as the one claiming that the young victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting were actors, and that the entire shooting was a hoax. Without a strong set of institutions regulating propaganda, it doesn’t matter if new forms of neuropolitics or neuromarketing or neuropropaganda are used. As the philosopher Neil Levy has noted, manipulation is manipulation whether it is “neuro” or not.
In the military and intelligence spheres, a similar argument can be made. Neuroscience is less likely to lead to a resurgence of torture if the United States would enact strong legislation to reaffirm its commitment to the provisions of the Geneva Convention, famously limited by President George W. Bush through Executive Order 13440. The abuses committed under this order were made possible by weakening the nation’s institutions. Affirming the values that lead us to reject torture requires us to repair those institutions.
Finally, military research in neuroscience should be made as open as possible. In this case, a lot of the fear of future misuse arises in the context of a lack of information about what the military has developed, or hopes to develop. Sunlight can help fix this problem.
Jonathan Moreno
David And Lyn Silfen University Professor Of Ethics
University of Pennsylvania
I agree with Tara Mahfoud and her coauthors that there are multiple ways in which benignly intended life science research could be misused, and that there are problems with the way in which the concentration on dual use of concern has distorted debate so that other less immediate possibilities of dual-use applications have tended to be neglected. So I do not see any problem in trying to be more precise about misuse in the political, security, and intelligence domains as the authors suggest. But in the military domain, particularly in regard to chemical and biological weapons, I suspect that dual use will remain as the best terminology for talking about the problem, as it has been regularly used for so long that to try to change the term would only cause unnecessary confusion.
I also disagree with the authors’ statement that the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention five-year review conferences “fail to capture the rapidly evolving advances in the neurosciences.” In regard to the Chemical Weapons Convention, and its Article II.9(d) discussed by the authors, the scientific advisory board of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has had a settled view on the problem of so-called incapacitating chemical weapons for many years. As its report for the fourth review conference set for late 2018 noted, the board “maintains the view that the technical discussion on the potential use of toxic chemicals for law enforcement purposes has been exhaustive: the term ‘non-lethal’ is inappropriate when referring to chemicals intended for use as incapacitants … and that the Secretariat should commence preparations for verification activities that could be required during an investigation of alleged use….”
Even in regard to the Biological Weapons Convention, it should be noted that the intersessional process that occurs between the review conferences will in 2018 be concentrating on the dual-use issues caused by the recent advances in genome editing.
However, I do think the authors are correct in their view that we should take a broad perspective on the problem of the potential misuse of advances in the life sciences. In our own work on arms control, we have therefore adopted a holistic strategy that involves three phases. The first involves an examination of the nature of the weapons and weapons-related technology under review. Then there is an exploration of the full range of potentially applicable control mechanisms. And finally comes the development of a comprehensive strategy to improve existing mechanisms, or introduce additional mechanisms, for the effective regulation of the weapon or weapons-related technology of concern.
Malcolm Dando
Leverhulme Emeritus Fellow
Section of Peace Studies and International Development
University of Bradford, United Kingdom
Adapting to climate change
Adaptation to climate change falls into three categories with respect to information: 1) actions for which we do not need information that we do not already have; 2) actions that will become much more effective only with additional information that we could obtain; and 3) actions that will be insufficient for managing risks irrespective of additional information that we might gain.
The article by Bruce R. Guile and Rajul E. Pandya, “Adapting to Global Warming: Four National Priorities” (Issues, Summer 2018), is terrific. Their insight will be particularly valuable for addressing the second category of climate change adaptations: those that will become possible if we are effective in developing actionable information.
The authors illustrate the great opportunity we have to reduce climate damages through adaptation if we better understand the nature of the risks we face and the corrective actions that are available to us. Society would do well to pay close attention to the four priorities as we work on comprehensive climate change risk management. That would help in generating options to reduce or avoid climate damages that would be otherwise unavailable or less effective.
As we work on adapting to climate change, it will also be important to remember that some actions make sense with what we already know and some responses will be insufficient no matter what we know.
Accounting for these categories of response is critical to climate change risk management. We can already see ways to become more resilient to a range of plausible futures and to address existing vulnerabilities. Climate has been remarkably stable throughout the history of human civilization. But—this is key—we cannot say how much of greenhouse gases we can safely emit because we cannot know at what point we will trigger unacceptable climate damages. Adaptation will be critical, but also has its limits. Failure to avoid the societal consequences for which adaptation is insufficient would be a potentially catastrophic mistake.
There is a seeming paradox at the center of climate change risk management. We know a great deal about the climate system, the impact that human greenhouse gas emissions are having on climate, and the ways that people depend on climate. This knowledge and understanding comes from decades of intensive observations and research in multiple disciplines spanning the physical, natural, and social sciences. Nevertheless, there is a great deal we still do not know. Some of what we do not know about the societal consequences of climate change impacts cannot become known in advance.
This apparent paradox is a central challenge of climate change risk management. It makes it particularly difficult for society to agree about what actions make sense and to take them proactively.
Some actions don’t require additional information because they make sense already. Some climate change impacts are too severe for adaptation. If we keep those two facts in mind as we implement Guile and Pandya’s four national priorities, the nation will have the greatest chance to both build its capacity to cope with climate impacts and to comprehensively manage the risks of climate change.
Paul Higgins
Policy Program Director
American Meteorological society
Nuclear energy and the military
“Nuclear Power Needs Leadership, but Not from the Military,” by Michael J. Ford, Ahmed Abdulla, and M. Granger Morgan (Issues, Summer 2018), describes many negative aspects of having the military lead the nation into a new nuclear power era. Based on history, many of these adversities would likely occur. So, they propose only a modest role for the military that might help the industry, but these would not likely make the changes needed to revitalize this industry in the United States. They haven’t given us a better idea. They have mostly just complained about the military idea.
The world faces an enormous challenge in providing sufficient, reliable electricity without simultaneously emitting greenhouse gases. Numerous recent assessments cast severe doubt on the ability to decarbonize the power sector using only renewables. Getting emissions to near zero while meeting energy demand at a reasonable price will require flexible, nonemitting power with high capacity factors. Nuclear power represents one of the most potentially feasible technologies to meet this need. We should not throw this technology under the bus.
Ford and his coauthors make a strong case that today’s normative world might not provide the nuclear option in the United States. We live in a complicated world with a lot of history and reasons why things are structured and done the way they are. But these structures and processes got us where we are today, and climate change demands that we reexamine how we do things. If the military can’t be changed successfully to solve this problem, what can? What changes to the nation’s policies and economic structures would? The imperative for change exists. So many of the arguments raised by the authors relate to the norms of the last century. We face different circumstances. What should the new norms be? The old saw, “where there is a will, there is a way,” comes to mind. Primarily we need a change in societal will and leadership. Until then we are stuck with mere tweaks such as those recommended by Ford et al.
Once we get serious about this issue, we will have to make significant changes. For one, I would argue that the US government created a “department of energy” that is not really much about energy at all. It is the place to keep weapons work in civilian hands. Traditionally, the spillover funding from the Department of Energy’s work on nuclear weapons did benefit civilian energy research, but the agency’s focus is not primarily on the key issues we face in energy today. The United States, which uses 25% of the world’s energy, does not have an agency focused entirely on having carbon-free, reliable energy. Why is that still in the public interest?
Does the nation need a Public Works Administration for carbon-free energy? Is there an energy version of Harold Ickes who can provide goal-oriented leadership? Should we have the equivalent of the agricultural extension service to help local and regional governments find low-carbon pathways? Let us not stay stuck in the modes of the past that cannot solve the problems of today. Let’s try some new ideas.
There is an old story about US soldiers lost in the Alps during World War II. One found a map in his pocket, and the group used the map to get to safety. But the map turned out to be for a different part of the Alps. The point was that they moved forward responding to their situation. Had they stayed in the same place, they surely would have stayed lost. We don’t have the right map either, but we have the obligation to strive for solutions, not tweaks.
Jane C. S. Long
Oakland, California