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U.S. Response II: DTRA Seeks a Few Good Universities By Bryan Bender The Defense Threat Reduction Agency “intends to establish long-term strategic partnerships with several colleges and universities,” according to a July 11 announcement. “The purpose of these partnerships will be to provide DTRA additional research and development capabilities, and to maintain critical skills needed by the Department of Defense in the science and engineering communities,” the announcement says. DTRA, established in 1998 when the Pentagon combined several offices to better address the growing threat from weapons of mass destruction, said it is turning to the academic community to “obtain new ideas, perspectives and independent views related to the DTRA mission-essential functions that are unencumbered by how we have done things in the past. Such independent and new perspectives could address technology, policy, strategy, or related infrastructure considerations.” For example, DTRA said it is seeking academic partners to help identify technical solutions for a variety of WMD-related challenges, including defenses against electro-magnetic pulse weapons, improved detection equipment for nuclear, radiological, biological or chemical agents and “super networks” to connect multiple computer databases and analyze large amounts of data, including artificial intelligence. Other technology areas include computer modeling of weather patterns to determine the likely collateral damage resulting from the dispersal of a weapon of mass destruction and developing tools for the “positive control” and accountability of “high value” items, such as weapons stocks in the former Soviet Union. According to a project description, academicians might also provide innovative approaches to policy and strategy questions as well, DTRA said, including assessing the future value of deterrence, helping to determine the political ramifications of a potential nuclear release in a friendly country and identifying “theoretical limits” to using conventional weapons to destroy deeply buried targets such as underground weapons facilities. Academic partners might also be able to analyze threats, assessing the threat from improvised nuclear and radiation dispersal devices and the potential to deter such attacks, DTRA plans say.
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