Biosecurity: Next global security challenge

For much of modern history, global security has been understood primarily through the lens of military power, territorial conflict, terrorism, and nuclear weapons.

However, the COVID-19 pandemic showed that biological threats can disrupt societies and economies on a scale comparable to traditional security crises.

The experience also exposed vulnerabilities in health systems, supply chains, governance institutions, and international cooperation.

As biotechnology advances rapidly, biosecurity is emerging as one of the most complex global security challenges of the twenty-first century.

Unlike conventional threats, biological risks can arise naturally, accidentally, or deliberately, making them difficult to predict, contain, and attribute.

Biosecurity broadly concerns preventing biological agents and technologies from harming humans, animals, agriculture, and ecosystems. It overlaps with but is distinct from biosafety.

Biosafety focuses primarily on preventing accidental exposure to or release of biological hazards, whereas biosecurity addresses the prevention of theft, misuse, deliberate release, or malicious exploitation.

This distinction matters more as advances in biotechnology make biological research more powerful and accessible.

Gene editing, synthetic biology, artificial intelligence-assisted biological research, and increasingly sophisticated laboratory technologies offer enormous benefits for medicine and agriculture but may also create new security vulnerabilities.

Despite ongoing debates about the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic, its consequences showed how quickly a biological event can cross national borders and overwhelm existing institutions.

Millions of lives were affected, healthcare systems were severely strained, education was disrupted, and international trade and mobility were restricted.

Governments also faced misinformation, vaccine inequality, shortages of medical supplies, and declining public trust.

The lesson is not simply that pandemics are health emergencies; rather, major biological events can become comprehensive political, economic, social, and national-security crises.

One major challenge is the rapidly changing technological landscape. Biotechnology is becoming cheaper, faster, and more decentralized.

Techniques that once required highly specialized facilities are increasingly accessible to a broader range of researchers and institutions.

Artificial intelligence may further accelerate biological discovery by assisting with biological data analysis, molecular design, and research planning.

These developments could transform healthcare, food production, and environmental management.

Yet this accessibility raises concerns about dual-use research intended for legitimate purposes that could be misused.

The central policy dilemma is therefore how to encourage scientific innovation without creating unacceptable security risks.

Another challenge is the globalization of biological supply chains. Modern societies rely on internationally connected systems for pharmaceuticals, vaccines, laboratory equipment, agricultural inputs, and medical technologies.

A major biological emergency can therefore trigger cascading disruptions. Countries that depend heavily on imported medicines or medical equipment are particularly vulnerable.

The pandemic showed how export restrictions, transportation disruptions, production bottlenecks, and competition for essential supplies can quickly become strategic concerns.

Consequently, biosecurity must increasingly be viewed as part of economic and supply-chain security, not merely the responsibility of health ministries.

Governance poses an equally serious challenge. Biological threats do not respect national borders, while biosecurity institutions remain largely organized around national jurisdictions. International cooperation is therefore indispensable.

The World Health Organization, the World Organisation for Animal Health, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and other institutions contribute to global disease surveillance and preparedness.

Yet international systems continue to face challenges with information sharing, financing, institutional coordination, compliance, and trust.

Weak governance in one country can create risks for many others. Global biosecurity consequently requires stronger surveillance, transparent reporting, laboratory standards, emergency preparedness, and mechanisms for rapid international cooperation.

Developing countries face particularly difficult circumstances. Limited laboratory capacity, shortages of trained personnel, weak surveillance systems, inadequate healthcare infrastructure, and constrained public health budgets can reduce their ability to detect and respond to biological threats.

Bangladesh, for example, faces a combination of high population density, extensive international mobility, climate-related health risks, and pressure on urban health systems.

Strengthening biosecurity should therefore include investment in disease surveillance, diagnostic laboratories, veterinary and agricultural monitoring, trained epidemiologists, emergency communication, and resilient healthcare infrastructure.

A One Health approach, linking human, animal, and environmental health, is particularly important because many emerging infectious diseases originate from interactions among these domains.

Public trust is another strategic pillar of biosecurity. During biological emergencies, scientific information competes with misinformation, political polarization, and social media rumors.

Even technically effective interventions can fail if citizens do not trust governments, scientists, healthcare providers, or international organizations.

Biosecurity policy must therefore incorporate transparent communication, evidence-based public education, ethical decision-making, and accountability.

Trust should be treated not as a secondary communication issue but as a critical component of national resilience.

Ultimately, the greatest biosecurity challenge is balancing security, scientific freedom, public health, and innovation.

Excessive restrictions may suppress legitimate research and technological progress, while inadequate safeguards may permit dangerous accidents or misuse.

Governments should adopt risk-based regulation, strengthen laboratory biosafety and biosecurity standards, improve oversight of dual-use research, develop early-warning systems, and expand international cooperation.

Biotechnology companies and research institutions must also assume greater responsibility for responsible innovation.

Biosecurity is likely to become a defining element of global security. The next major biological crisis may arise from a naturally occurring pathogen, an accidental laboratory incident, or another form of biological disruption.

Its precise origin cannot always be predicted, but its consequences can be mitigated through preparedness.

The strategic priority should be to shift from a reactive model that responds after a crisis begins to a preventive, resilience-oriented model that integrates health security, environmental security, economic security, technology governance, and international cooperation.

In an increasingly interconnected world, protecting societies from biological threats is no longer simply a public health responsibility; it is an essential pillar of global security.

(The author: Former Additional Secretary to the Government, currently Associate Professor of Public Policy, Bangladesh Institute of Governance and Management– Affiliated to the University of Dhaka)