Unfortunately, that is not the case. The Pentagon's strong bureaucratic inclination for focusing on symmetric adversaries with large, advanced air forces and navies (e.g., China) is crowding out needed investment in these more uncomfortable, yet more likely, scenarios. Just as terrorism was discounted before the 9/11 attacks, counter-WMD contingencies now do not get the attention that they merit, especially in an age when the technologies for developing such threatening capabilities are proliferating rapidly. The political sensitivity of the Pakistan scenario also ensures that such efforts are addressed in small rooms that garner few resources. This is a case of bureaucracy and organizational culture overwhelming imagination and appropriate hedging of the defense portfolio. Secretary of Defense Hagel should make dealing with WMD in failing states a central, driving factor in the Quadrennial Defense Review, and the development of WMD-related diplomatic strategies, interagency planning, and resources should be greatly accelerated and heightened.
In Syria, the U.S. position up until now has been to provide non-lethal aid to vetted rebel groups and, essentially, to look the other way as other nations (e.g., Saudi Arabia and Qatar) provide more lethal forms of assistance, such as infantry arms and other military equipment. Calls for U.S. leadership to establish a no-fly zone to remove Assad's use of air forces against rebel groups and civilians have gone unheeded.
Now, with growing evidence that Assad has crossed the U.S.-declared red line by using chemical weapons, what options does the United States have? Unfortunately, not many. First, ensuring that we know the precise locations of Syria's massive chemical weapons inventories amidst an ongoing and dynamic civil war is an uncertain enterprise. While we likely know the locations of the larger stocks of chemical weapons in Syria, it is unlikely that we can know where all such stocks are. Second, trying to destroy the weapons from the air could cause many more casualties because the chemical agents could spread after air-delivered munitions are dropped. Finally, there is the ground option -- i.e., inserting U.S. and coalition ground forces into Syria to secure the chemical weapons sites. No serious analyst would recommend such an option, because once ground forces are deployed, the United States would "own" the Syrian conflict and find itself mired in an extraordinarily complex sectarian war of uncertain duration and outcome. Any suggestion that specialized force teams can rapidly and pristinely secure all chemical weapons sites should be discounted, as the on-the-ground realities in Syria are messy, shifting, foggy, and uncertain.
So what should the United States do? Since dealing specifically with the chemical weapons threat is so difficult absent a change in the conditions on the ground, the United States should significantly expand efforts to topple Assad and encourage and enable the mainstream opposition to establish a government more beholden to Syrian civil society. The United States should lead a coalition that uses limited airpower in combination with local and regional military forces to help turn the tide in favor of the rebels. Establishing and enforcing a no-fly zone would take away Assad's use of the air and essentially eliminate the functional capabilities of the Syrian Air Force. In combination with the provision of military equipment to vetted rebel groups, such measures could tip the balance in favor of the rebels. A quid pro quo for such assistance could be rebel assurances regarding the security of chemical weapons sites as well as, potentially, rapid turnover of such sites to military forces from other states in the region. The reasons for the Obama administration's caution about Syria have long since gone by the wayside; it is now time to lead and to act.
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