Richard K. Betts

About the author: Richard K. Betts is the Director of National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, and he is a professor of political science and Director of the Institute for War and Peace Studies at Columbia University.

Although the potential for nuclear annihilation has been reduced with the end of the Cold War, America still faces attacks by weapons of mass destruction. Since the United States now has a military edge over its old enemies, the concern for nuclear deterrence should take a back seat to providing protection against small terrorist attacks involving biological weapons. Biological weapons have a catastrophic killing potential and they are easy to make and conceal. American defensive measures, however, still labor under the assumed threats of the Cold War era and are inadequate in dealing...