Collaborating with local health authorities not only aids in preventing future epidemics but also ensures that virological samples are securely stored—“so they don’t accidentally leak from public health facilities or get stolen by terrorists,” Robert Pope, director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at DTRA, elaborated in a 2022 interview.
The staff at DTRA function as an “early warning system,” a congressional aide told WIRED, prior to any activation of US military forces, they note. While this may not be a conventional form of military might, they emphasize, it remains aligned with the current administration’s objectives. “It protects our borders from pathogens.”
A 2022 independent assessment commissioned by the Pentagon concluded that these threat reduction initiatives are “well-prepared to swiftly address emerging [weapons of mass destruction] threats; its authorities are distinct and fill an existing void.”
Experts like Gigi Gronvall, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, argue that programs such as DTRA should be expanded rather than diminished. These initiatives primarily serve national security purposes, she explains, designed to “provide us with the surveillance necessary worldwide to extinguish those threats or prevent them altogether.”
If fires are not extinguished—be it a new infectious disease or a chemical weapons program in a rogue nation—it will only escalate, Gronvall points out. “We have regions lacking fire services,” she notes. “By enabling them to help themselves, we are assisting them in becoming more self-reliant.”
‘A Fire Sale on Expertise’
The Pentagon’s threat reduction initiatives, including DTRA, originated from the efforts of former U.S. senators Sam Nunn, a Democrat, and Richard Lugar, a Republican, aimed at securing weapons of mass destruction following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Through their efforts, the U.S. dismantled thousands of ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads, disposed of tens of thousands of pounds of chemical weapons, and closed down Soviet bioweapon facilities. In 1998, DTRA was formally established with a more comprehensive mandate to track and eliminate chemical and biological threats while assisting other nations to do the same.
In its operations, DTRA has become a target of disinformation campaigns by Russia, which has accused the U.S. of developing biological weapons in laboratories funded by DTRA. Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022, conspiracy theorists in the U.S. picked up on this narrative, arguing that the invasion was a pretext to destroy these bioweapons labs.
Concerns regarding DTRA’s activities have also been raised by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and Russian officials. Republican Senator Rand Paul has repeatedly issued subpoenas to DTRA, seeking evidence that it has engaged in hazardous virological research and implying that it may have played a role in the emergence of Covid-19.
“When Russia attacked that program, it aimed to undermine our national security,” Gronvall states. Russia might not believe these falsehoods, she adds, but “they have been remarkably successful in convincing influential individuals of these notions.”
