Biological Warfare and the Buffy Paradigm.
The characters in Buffy constantly try to create unrealistic plans and models, and live in a world where they never really face the level of uncertainty they must deal with. They do not live in a world of total denial, but they do seek predictability and certainty to a degree that never corresponds to the problems they face. In short, they behave as if they could create and live with the kind of strategy and doctrine that is typically developed by the US joint chiefs, could develop and implement an NSC decision memorandum, or solve their problems with the equivalent of a Quadrennial Defense Review, Now, if this use of a TV series to describe biological threats and biological warfare seems somewhat unusual, I invite you to consider the more conventional alternatives. We can speculate on scenarios, delivery methods, and lethality, we can conduct studies and exercises, and we can write doctrine until hell freezes over, but our chances of really being much better than Buffy are simply not that great – at least until we have a much clear picture of what kind of biological attacks actually materialize, how effective they really are, and how biotechnology evolves over the coming decades.
(Sent in by The Hauser Report)
