Review – Chemical Facilities and Sabotage Operations

A new reader at CFSN Detailed Analysis pointed me at their article on Audacy.com “Strategic sabotage is coming to a global conflict near you”. He looks at several recent sabotage operations carried out by CIA and Special Operations forces in recent history. One story-of-note here was the development of a technique to attack glass lined chemical reaction vessels:

“At the Nevada Test Site, a demolitions expert from Delta Force began experimenting. Working with different configurations of explosives, he came across a method in which they could be arranged on the outside of the vat and detonated in a sequence, which shattered the glass lining inside the chemical weapons vat, without breaching the metal exterior.”

Such an attack would take the vessel out of production for an extended period of time since glass lined vessels are custom made.

Current federal chemical security programs (the now defunct CFATS program, chemical facilities covered under the Coast Guard’s MTSA program, and to a lesser extent the ATF’s explosive facility programs) are more targeted at preventing terrorist attacks. While security measures required under those programs would have some effect against military style attacks like those outlined in the article, the operators executing those attacks would be expected to have higher levels of training and more effective equipment than the standard terrorist cell. This means that more effective security measures would be required to prevent such attacks.

Protecting selected chemical facilities from military-sabotage type attacks is going to require more extensive protective measures, but less emphasis will probably be required for emergency response activities as the attackers will not be trying to optimize their attacks for chemical releases. And fewer facilities will need to be expected to meet these higher protection requirements.

For a more detailed discussion about the differences between potential terrorist attacks and military sabotage attacks, see my article at CFSN Detailed Analysis - https://patrickcoyle.substack.com/p/chemical-facilities-and-sabotage - subscription required.