Biology as an Operational Domain
We must make biology the sixth domain of military operations — and demand it’s the first domain where only defensive technologies are accepted.
Over the past decade we have rapidly entered a new era of technological change driven by the “industrial bio complex.” Technological advances of this magnitude have historically opened dramatic new frontiers of competition (usually economic), which have in turn driven the addition of new areas of focus for national defense activity. Just as the computer age disrupted information-based industries and triggered a revolution in how we organize, exchange, and protect the world’s data, the “Age of Biology” is opening up vast new economic opportunities for the future of biobased goods and biological data. Yet, as always with new technological frontiers, there is significant new risk and the same trends in biological engineering are generating a new and critical national security imperative.
In the US military, a “domain of operations” is one of the frameworks through which military forces plan, resource, and prioritize operations. In order to create and sustain the biodefense and biointelligence infrastructure that the biological age demands our priorities must be stated in a clear, concise, and widely understood manner. There is one way to accomplish this alignment at large scale, quickly: Biology must be elevated as the sixth operational domain of the United States military. We must also continue to lead by example and demand that only defensive technologies are built in this operational environment. This cannot even be a question, biology is too powerful and too intrinsic to humanity. Defense must carry the day no matter what adversaries choose to do.
For those less versed in this lexicon, a “domain of operations’’ refers to the physical and operational environment in which military activities take place. The US Department of Defense (DOD) recognizes five main domains of operations: land (by default), air, sea, space, and cyber. Importantly, the creation of the existing domains were each catalyzed by a reaction to advanced technological development and thus new activity within these areas.
The biological terrain of the planet is a “critical macro manoeuvre space whose access or control is vital to the freedom of action and superiority required by the mission [of national security].” Like coal-fired ships, airplanes, satellites, and the internet before it, synthetic biology — the industry built around programming cells similar to how we program computers — is now changing the way humans interact with this foundational terrain of the planet. Life runs on digital code in the form of DNA and RNA and, over time, the tools that enable synthetic biology will give us the ability to program the core instructions of all living things. Synthetic biology is beginning to define a massive component of the future global economy, driving economic competition and a security trend that will accelerate exponentially.
The scale of the opportunity and challenge is humbling and America’s traditional defense systems and organizational priorities are simply not prepared for the emerging threat environment that the era of engineered biology brings with it. To address this foundational shift, our national security enterprise needs a fundamental reset of our investment activities and organizational structure in biotechnology and biosecurity. China, for one, has already made this pivot and senior military leadership has argued for years that biotechnology will become the new “strategic commanding heights” of national defense.
Just as we no longer treat cybersecurity as the sole responsibility of our IT departments, the solution here lies in elevating biology from the silos, medical departments, and early R&D offices of the DoD to a top strategic priority. In an interview about military approaches to establishing cyberspace as a domain, former Comptroller and Deputy Secretary of Defense Bill Lynn explained, “We hadn’t thought about how to organize our force to deal with both the vulnerabilities and the capabilities.” The same is now true of biology, but by designating biology as an operational domain, we can achieve the needed strategic prioritization and organization quickly.
From the establishment of DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office nearly a decade ago to the publication of the National Biodefense Strategy and Implementation Plan last fall (and the other major recognition of the importance of biology by the past two White House teams), there has been positive recognition of the importance of biodefense to our national security. We should be even more bold. Of the (+/-) $715 billion dollars that the US DoD spent in 2022, only a minuscule fraction was allocated to preparing ourselves for threats from the biological domain. Despite a long tradition of spending tens of billions of dollars annually preparing for other known threats, including cyber attacks, war in space, counterterrorism, and conventional military threats by state actors, the DoD has not meaningfully increased its planned investment to monitor and respond to biological threats.
COVID-19 was the starting gun of the biological century, demonstrating the enormous risk that biology poses (and has always posed) to humanity. The pandemic cost the United States up to $22 trillion of economic loss. Threat actors have observed how fragile or interconnected societies and markets are to the threat of dangerous biology. Short of nuclear war or massive cyber attacks on infrastructure, there is no threat capable of generating this type of economic damage or creating structural risk to the United States Government or people. But, biology does this — today.
This existential risk does not need to be a foregone conclusion. We need to begin thinking about a scale of aspiration and sustained investment in biosecurity like we think about missile defense or our nuclear deterrence force. To do this, we need to orient the entire enterprise around biology.
The fastest and most effective way to accomplish this end is by declaring biology an operational domain.
Here’s the TLDR of why:
- Immediately upon biology becoming a domain, the operational components of the military begin thinking about their role within the operating environment. The services begin prioritizing training, the Combatant Commands integrate biology into planning for multi-domain defense operations, and the intelligence community becomes responsible for coordinating global surveillance of biological threats and infectious disease, whether naturally occurring or engineered. Essentially, the machine kicks into high gear.
- Making biology a domain makes it crystal clear that this is a national strategic priority. Biology is our health and medicine, our food supply, and — with the acceleration of synthetic biology tools — it will soon be a critical piece of manufacturing and the global economy. The countries and economies who cultivate the growing biology sector, and build the security infrastructure to protect it, will host the predominant economic engines on the planet. Those countries will be resilient and best positioned to protect their societies from biological threats.
- Biology is a cross-cutting technology from which military and civilian goals cannot be separated. With technological advancement as the fundamental driver of change, the biological domain will host both economic competition and human conflict in this century. We must ensure we are prepared.
If the national security and policy communities are not unified and prepared in our approach to this challenge, we will be exposed to unacceptable risk. Declaring biology as an operational domain will signal our commitment and bring this focus and strategic vision to our national security infrastructure. This is the only way forward in the century of biology.
As the General Manager, Biosecurity at Ginkgo Bioworks, I reflect on the broader world of biosecurity / intelligence / national security more than anything else. These are my personal opinions as someone who is thinking about this topic 24 hours a day.
