While nuclear weapons are more destructive, the Department of Defense views biological weapons as a greater overall danger. This is due to their dangerously low barrier to entry, as they can be engineered with minimal training and available tools, bypassing military safeguards.
The U.S. maintains a "launch on warning" policy. If military satellites and early warning radar confirm an incoming nuclear attack, the President launches a retaliatory strike before the enemy's bomb hits U.S. soil, a fact confirmed by former Secretary of Defense William Perry.
The power to launch nuclear weapons rests solely with the President, requiring no approval from Congress or military advisors. This monumental decision must be made within a six-minute window after an attack is confirmed, a timeframe President Reagan himself described as "irrational."
Scientists deliberately engineer pathogens to be more dangerous to develop defenses against them. Critics argue this work, given hundreds of past lab failures, creates catastrophic global risk and is functionally identical to creating illegal biological weapons, blurring the line between prevention and proliferation.
The U.S. has a classified program, "Devolution," to ensure government continuity during a catastrophic biological event. It involves evacuating a pre-chosen group of individuals to secret bunkers while the nation collapses and a majority of citizens die, revealing a stark gap between government planning and public awareness.