Agroterrorism: Threats and Preparedness
The potential of terrorist attacks against agricultural targets (agroterrorism) is increasingly recognized as a national security threat, especially after the events of September 11, 2001. This report focuses primarily on biological weapons (rather than chemical weapons) because biological weapons generally are considered the more potent agroterrorism threat. This report also focuses more on the threat of agroterrorism against agricultural production, rather than on food processing and distribution, although the latter is discussed.
Agrosecurity: The Role of the Agricultural Experiment Stations
In order to protect the pation's agriculture and food processing systems from the new threat of bioterror ism, agricultural and food technology research must be effectively harnessed and applied. The U.S. conducts the majority of its agricultural research through state-based Agricultural Experiment Stations. To respond to the new challenges of biosecurity, and to facilitate communication between the federal research system and the state-based agricultural research system, the Directors of the State Agricultural Experiment Stations (SAES) facilitated the creation of a National Institute for Agricultural Security (NIAS). The mission of NIAS is to help address national homeland security and. biosecurity issues that affect the nationa's ifarus and ranches, food production and distribution system, and rural communities by barnessing coordinating, and targetting agricultural research and food science technology projects. NIAS was created to provide a from door and one-stop shopping for federal agencies and the public, NIAS is currently developing projects to improve site security at SAES field stations and laboratories. The Institute is facilitating is facilitating the development of pronotype-secured information technology networks. NIAS is serving as a Ilaison to federal agency offices to help identify high priority agricultural and food science research needs. The Institute is also exploring the possibility of collaborating in the devleopment of regional pathogen outbreak simulations with the regional university coordinators of the Dept. of Agriculture's National Plant Diagnosites Network (NPDN). NIAS is collaborating with the Institute for Countermessures Against Bioterrorism to host an international workshop on the managing of events when harmful pathogens are introduce into the food supply. And, NIAS is exploring the potential role of university Cooperative Extension Service as part of the first responder network, as first detectors, and as facilitators for helping rural community leaders plan to address homeland security concerns.
The Internet and the Changing Beijing-Taipei Relations: Toward Unification or Fragmentation?
Information and its technologies facilitate the exercise of what has been called “soft power,” a concept that differentiates information from the conventional dimensions of “hard power,” which is mainly associated with military force and economic influence. Soft power, according to Nye, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense of the United States, means that “A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries want to follow it, admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness. In this sense it is just as important to set the agenda in world politics and attract others as it is to force them to change through the threat or use of military or economic weapons.”1