Possible Is Not Plausible: How Nightmare Scenarios Hijack Unconventional Weapons Policy

Current conversations surrounding unconventional weapons — chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear — have become so fantastical as to be unserious. As the Chinese military fundamentally rethinks biological warfare and Russia continues to use chloropicrin in Ukraine, hypothetical scenarios of AI-enabled bioweapons dominate the headlines. If national security leaders and unconventional weapons experts continue to prioritize latent potentialities of emerging technology over current trends, U.S. national security will once again run the risk of being unprepared for an actual ch