Military Review English Edition November-December 2014 | Page 50

at risk through WMD programs. Possible scenarios
involving WMD span from the relatively benign, where
a nation requests U.S. assistance in dismantling its own
WMD program, to cases where adversary states willingly provide WMD to nonstate actors and encourage
their use against American interests. The U.S. Army—
specifically, the conventional force—should take steps
to prepare for countering WMD (CWMD) operations.
This article discusses the way in which the 2nd
Infantry Division prepares for CWMD operations on
the Korean Peninsula. First, it is necessary to understand the strategic background driving the requirement
for developing a CWMD capability on the Korean
Peninsula.

Weapons of Mass Destruction
Elimination Operations Background

Joint Publication 1-02, Department of Defense
Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms (8
November 2010, as amended through 16 July 2014),
defines WMD as “chemical, biological, radiological,
or nuclear weapons capable of a high order of destruction or causing mass casualties, excluding the
means of transporting or propelling the weapon where
such means is a separable and divisible part from the
weapon.” CWMD was formerly referred to as WMD
elimination, or WMD-E. As described in the 2014
Department of Defense Strategy for Countering Weapons
of Mass Destruction, CWMD is a broad term used
strategically to describe the full range of Department of
Defense (DOD) and greater United States government
efforts undertaken to ensure “the United States and
its allies and partners are neither attacked nor coerced
by actors with WMD.”1 Since CWMD is such a broad
and inclusive term in the recently published CWMD
strategy document, it is necessary to further define
its use here. In this article, CWMD is used specifically to describe the collective tasks identified in FM
7-15, The Army Universal Task List, Article 6.9.2.3,
“Conduct Weapons of Mass Destruction Elimination
Operations,” as “actions undertaken in a hostile or uncertain environment to systematically locate, char