Making the World Safer, One Border at a Time

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency
Published in Agora Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2009
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The scenario seems like it could easily be lifted right out of an episode of the television show 24, or perhaps the plot of a James Bond movie. A villain seeking to kill a large number of people or strike terror into the hearts of millions, has acquired a weapon of mass destruction and needs to smuggle it into another country, either to use it there or transport it overseas.

Not knowing any better, the border guards do their cursory inspection and are ready to lift the gates when Jack Bauer or Agent 007 arrives on the scene. The villain’s henchmen attempt to escape with their prized possession, but a firefight ensues. Something inevitably blows up in spectacular fashion. And when the smoke clears, the hero is out of ammo, the bad guys are dead and the world has been saved once again.

The real world, of course, is much more complicated. Bauer and Bond are neither bulletproof nor omnipotent, and with approximately 150,000 miles of international borders, the two of them would tire quickly. The reality might not be full of exciting special effects. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency, or DTRA, has a program much bigger than any Hollywood script and it’s stopping the bad guys with fewer explosions, but more success.

During the Cold War, combating weapons of mass destruction generally revolved around the concept of mutually assured destruction. The Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear warheads in submarines, airplanes and ground-based missiles. So did the United States and its allies. If one side decided to use a weapon, the other could respond by firing everything it had. Everyone would be dead by the time warheads vaporized the enemy’s country. But at least the thought was one could take the enemy down with them.

Other countries had WMD at the time. Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran. But the Soviet Union was the U.S.’ biggest concern. With the fall of the Soviet Union, though, the threat of WMD didn’t disappear — it simply stopped being focused on one large, known, immovable target and became thousands of little, mobile, unknown ones. Problem A was simply replaced by Problems B to Z. But the Department of Defense had a few solutions. One of them was the International Counter Proliferation, or ICP Program.

The ICP Program

The National Defense Authorization Acts of 1995 and 1997 authorizes the DOD to conduct a joint training program in cooperation with the FBI and the U.S. Customs Service to prevent the acquisition and proliferation of WMD by organized crime and other organizations in Eastern Europe, the Baltic countries and the states of the former Soviet Union. The program has since expanded to include countries across the globe, from Cyprus to Singapore to Mexico. But the mission is the same: counter the threat of WMD proliferation.

Trying to sneak a tank or an old MiG fighter jet across the border almost guarantees detection. But smuggling a single canister of nerve agent or a small container of nuclear material is easy by comparison. And regardless of whether or not the bad guys plan on using WMD in a particular country becomes irrelevant the moment there is an accident. These weapons don’t care if they are unleashed on time and on target, or accidentally because an icy road caused a car to slam into a truck in the middle of a city. No matter how they detonate, these weapons can kill hundreds or thousands, scare millions, destroy an economy and paralyze a country.

The ICP Program helps partner countries counter this threat by providing training and equipment to detect and prevent proliferation, as well as training and equipment to respond to and investigate incidents involving WMD.

Countering the threat

The first step is a policy visit between U.S. and host country officials to lay out a plan and discuss the potential for future cooperation. Once a country decides to partner with the U.S., an executive seminar focuses on the threat of WMD proliferation specific to that country and the region as a whole, the current level of experience and expertise, and the type of training and equipment needed to achieve the desired level of success. Some countries have a fair amount of experience working with WMD and understand what they are dealing with. Other countries are starting from square one.

The ICP Program does not aim to “fix” a partner country’s counter proliferation program in a few weeks of training, but rather to build a long-term relationship that is mutually beneficial. Partners get top notch training and resources from the world’s only remaining superpower. The U.S. gets a partner in the ongoing struggle to prevent WMD from falling into the wrong hands. As the executive agent for the ICP Program, the threat reduction agency oversees the program and provides some of the instructors. But it is not a military-to-military program. The DTRA partners with a variety of experts on the training teams, including current and retired trainers from the FBI; the Department of Energy; Customs and Border Protection; Immigration and Customs Enforcement of the Department of Homeland Security; hazardous materials specialists; first responders (firefighters and emergency service professionals); and WMD policy and planning experts.

The variety of host country experts participating in the training and exercises is just as diverse. A typical WMD exercise could include border guards and police, customs, local fire, rescue and police departments, counter proliferation units, radiation safety centers, immigration, public health, foreign affairs and military units. Just as the U.S. trains for disasters with everyone from local police and fire departments to National Guard units and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the ICP Program and works to include several levels of response and responsibility in the training and exercises.

The training ranges from small, tabletop exercises that can be held in a conference room to multinational exercises that use a combination of notional events and actual training incidents. Smaller practical exercises generally focus on tactics, from techniques used to search vehicles to using protective gear for decontamination. Tabletop exercises often focus on crisis management, controlling the flow of information and getting Organization A to communicate and work with Department B — a task that doesn’t come naturally in some countries that are used to central government control or have had political barriers in the past. Sometimes one of the biggest achievements is simply getting different agencies within the same government to talk, trust and share vital information with each other.

Since its inception, the ICP Program has held approximately 500 events and trained more than 8,000 officials from more than 32 countries. And more than a dozen countries have received equipment to detect WMDs or evidence collection gear to deal with incidents involving WMDs. The ICP Program has dozens of programs and exercises scheduled for the next year, from Basic WMD Investigative Analysis classes to WMD Crime Scene Operations, and from Combating Proliferation at Maritime Ports to Crisis Command Center exercises. Visit www.dtra.mil