September 14-15, 2000
Honolulu, Hawaii
The Institute convened this trilateral workshop for U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), with the support and cooperation of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). The meeting was designed to support the efforts of PACOM and, more specifically, the commander-in-chief (CINC), Admiral Dennis C. Blair, USN, to promote enhanced collaboration among the United States and its principal strategic partners in Northeast Asia on crisis and consequence management. The focus was cooperative planning, training, and exercises for natural and man-made disasters involving nuclear, chemical, biological, and radiological (NBCR) agents or materials.
To consider opportunities for such cooperation, and to explore more fully the potential uses of military forces to support civilian authorities in consequence management operations, workshop discussion centered on three hypothetical but nonetheless realistic scenarios designed to illuminate each nation's decision procedures and capabilities for responding to an NBCR event. The three scenarios included an oil/chemical spill in the waters between Japan and the Republic of Korea; a North Korean nuclear power plant accident; and a WMD terrorist incident against a military facility in Japan, with a follow-on threat to use a biological agent against a larger target set in Japan or possibly South Korea. Each national delegation took the lead for presenting one of the scenarios and for initiating a discussion of potential responses,. while the other two delegations prepared follow-on commentaries based on their county's existing plans for, and past experiences in, responding to the type of scenario under discussion.
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