Biological Weapons §

Created Time: March 20, 2022 8:57 PM Database: Evergreen Database Last Edited Time: March 26, 2022 3:46 PM Type: Permanent Notes

Biological Weapons §

• Biological Weapons: spreading of virus or starting a pandemic in an enemy’s country as a Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD)
  • Most believe biological weapons are too unpredictable to use as a reliable weapon
• Uses of Biological Weapon
  • strategic or tactical military applications
  • political assassination
  • the infection of livestock or agricultural produce to cause food shortages and economic loss
  • the creation of environmental catastrophes
  • the introduction of widespread illness, fear and mistrust among the public
• Types of agents
  • Bacteria: most lethal is anthrax. Easy to store, spread, stays a long time, non-contagious (easily contained)
  • Virus: smallpox is contagious, 30% lethality, leave survivor horribly scarred, vaccinations must available be in millions quickly to stop spread.
  • Toxin: are poisons produced by organisms, used to attack one person (Ricin is easily made by individuals)
• Biological Weapons Convention: Most states pledged to not develop, stockpile, or employ biological weapons in combat (1972)
  • Limitations: Codified everybody’s wants to rid of bio-weapons but isn’t legally binding
    • No verify compliance
    • Hard to verify because its very easy to make in small scales, pharma companies would need to open up to inspections → benefit competitors?
  • Solutions: To be more effective
    • Governments must have domestic laws against non-state actors in accordance with international law
    • A common regime must exist to secure pathogens in research and medical labs & define scientific codes of conduct
    • Increase international efforts to investigate suspicious disease outbreaks (COVID-19)
    • Require general global disease surveillance to monitor global ban of bio-weapons
• Challenges posed by Biological Weapons
  • Easily produced by non-state and terrorists without being detected and are highly lethal in small quantities
    • Experts doubt non-states can utilize it since state sponsored programs couldn’t
    • Hard to control and might affect terrorists’ own people
    • effectiveness relies on capabilities of public health service
  • Upcoming genetic engineering technology (CRISPR) makes it easy to manipulate natural diseases and transform them into effective bio-weapons
    • Small research labs could make a bio-weapon
    • Governments can’t ban all labs in the country since all could make biological weapons
  • Inability to determine if a case was an attack or natural occurrence: they look exactly the same
• Case: Terrorists used anthrax in US
• Not viable inside real wars because it will spread back to own troops

References §

1. C12-RHOSS-Routledge handbook of security studies-Routledge (2017): Weapons of mass destruction and the proliferation challenge