Responding to the Threat of Biological Weapons

1 The issue of non-state actors using BW, or state actors using clandestine and unattributed delivery, is also a serious problem. The question of how to deter or manage such threats is even more difficult than the issue of responding to state use of BW. This article focuses on the simpler, but still very difficult issue of state use of BW.

2 Vladimir Pasechnik, a senior biologist who defected to Britain in 1989, appeared on BBC's `Newsnight' program and stated that Russian scientists cultivated bacteria in containers of Western antibiotics to make them resistant to treatment. See Bill Gertz, `Russia Has Biological Weapons, Defector Says', The Washington Times, 22 January 1993, p. A9.

3 Measures other than arms control and deterrence have also been explored, but have not been deemed effective. Export controls have no true role in checking BW proliferation because the tools and materials are the same as those used in legitimate bio-medical research and are widely available. Positive incentives, such as assistance, may actually fuel proliferation. On this latter point, see Michael Moodie, `Arms Control Programs and Biological Weapons' in Brad Roberts ed., Biological Weapons: Weapons of the Future? (Washington DC: Center for International and Strategic Studies, 1993) p. 50.

4 Effective verification is generally held to mean verification which would provide one significant confidence that cheating would be discovered.

5 See for example Edward J. Lacey, `Deterring Biological Weapons: The Role of Arms Control' (Washington DC: US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, 23 February 1995).

6 Graham S. Pearson, `Prospects for Chemical and Biological Arms Control: The Web of Deterrence', The Washington Quarterly, Spring 1993, p. 151.

7 Jonathan B. Tucker, `Strengthening the Biological Weapons Convention', Arms Control Today, April 1995, p. 12.

8 Because biological weapons can be produced in non-descript buildings, satellite photography would be of no use in identifying suspect sites. Although it is conceivable that there will someday be tools which would detect telltale biological effluent from a facility, for example, such technologies do not yet exist.

9 Pharmaceutical firms store samples of pathogens in a number of ways. For example, they may be placed in thin 10 cm. long straws and kept in cryogenic storage vessels containing up to 435,000 samples, each of which is identified by a number. It would be very simple secretly to code the samples intended for weapons purposes and place them amid samples intended for pharmaceutical research. Even if an inspection were to take the time to sort through all of the samples, the inspectors would not be able to identify the offensive sample as being for weapons. The planned use for the sample is a matter of intention, which is not something that can be identified by inspection.

10 Some organisms double in 20-30 minutes, so 2 liters could be made within 24 hours.

11 If manual methods of production were used, the equipment would consist primarily of glass flasks.

12 Purification need not be done at the same site as fermentation. If time were a critical factor due to an impending inspection, the product from the fermenters could be shipped off-site for purification and processing for weapons.

13 In a large facility, there are dozens of seals on each fermenter and there are hundreds of fermenters. Sampling the right seal on the right fermenter would be a matter of chance.

14 A. P. Zelicoff, `The Biological Weapons Convention: What is the Role of Sample Collection in a Legally-Binding Regime?' Politics and the Life Sciences, vol. 14, pp. 79-84.

15 The US pharmaceutical and bio-technology industries have expressed similar concerns about the verification scheme proposed for the Chemical Weapons Convention. The US chemical industry, which has less to lose in such inspections, is also reticent regarding verification inspections, despite public statements to the contrary by a few chemical representatives. This author has spoken with many officials from both chemical and bio-technology companies who are adamantly opposed to arms control inspections of their plants.

16 There are thousands of facilities in the US pharmaceutical and bio-technology industries that would be subject to inspections. There are at least 500 BL3 facilities in the United States.

17 Al Holmberg, `Industry Concerns Regarding Disclosure of Proprietary Information', The Director's Series on Proliferation, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, (UCRL-LR-114070-4), May 1994, p. 93.

18 A trial inspection conducted at a US company's pharmaceutical facility in December 1993 proved this point. Company officials, in cooperating with the inspectors (whose roles were played by US and UK government representatives), found that they revealed too much information piecemeal. At the end of the inspection, they felt that they had, in aggregate, revealed both process and throughput proprietary information. Were such information to fall into the hands of a competitor, the company almost certainly would have suffered severe losses.

19 This example was provided to the author by two US pharmaceutical industry representatives.

20 This information was provided to the author by officials from two different US pharmaceutical companies. A similar figure was cited by US Army officials as the cost associated with closing a base for inspection for one day.

21 Nikolai Burbyga, `US, UK, Not Russia, Ready to Resume Bioweapons Production', Izvestiya, 5 April 1994, p. 2. The article implies that the US company has been used for BW agent manufacture and is being kept ready for future BW production. It states, `At Pfizer's former plant for the production of biological weapons, manufacturing equipment formerly intended for the production of military-use biological compounds not only survives and is maintained in good working order, but is even being redesigned and modernized.'

22 Another option, chemical weapons, is not addressed here because it would entail many of the same pitfalls as conventional retaliation and is not viewed by this author as commensurate with BW, and therefore not highly effective as a deterrent.

23 The United States continues to believe that Russia has an offensive BW program. `With regard to former Soviet biological weapons related facilities, some research and production facilities are being deactivated and many have taken severe personnel and funding cuts. However, some facilities, in addition to being engaged in legitimate activity, may be maintaining the capability to produce biological warfare agents. The Russian Federation's 1993 and 1994 BWC data declaration contained no new information and its 1992 declaration was incomplete and misleading in certain areas. With regard to the trilateral process that began in 1992, while there has been progress towards achieving the openness intended in the Joint Statement, the progress has not resolved all U.S. concerns.' US Arms Control & Disarmament Agency Report to Congress on Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control Treaties, 30 May 1995.

24 This has been pointed out by Brad Roberts in his chapter in Brad Roberts (ed.) Biological Weapons: Weapons of the Future?, p. 95.

25 For example, both the United States and Russia would hesitate to use strategic conventional missiles in regional conflicts for fear of causing the other to think that the missile, perhaps nuclear armed, was instead intended for it. And, both nations have few intermediate-range missile options due to their adherence to the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty.

26 On 23 December 1990, Secretary Cheney said, `Were Saddam Hussein foolish enough to use weapons of mass destruction, the US response would be absolutely overwhelming and it would be devastating.' See US Department of Defense, Conduct of the Persian Gulf War: Final Report to Congress, April 1992, Appendix Q, p. 2. The report further states that biological weapons pose a strategic threat to the US which `...will continue to require the full range of US deterrence and defense capabilities.' Also, General Schwartzkopf makes it clear in his book about the war that nuclear deterrence played a role vis-a-vis Saddam Hussein. See H. Norman Schwartzkopf, It Doesn't Take A Hero (New York: Bantam Books, 1992) pp. 389-390.

27 `UN Envoy: Iraqi Change Ended Crisis', The Washington Times, 30 August 1995, p. A10.

28 There has been recent publicity that the US nuclear arsenal cost billions of dollars, which is true when one lumps together the cost of the actual weapons as well as peripheral costs such as environmental cleanup. See Robert B. Barker, `The Environmental Costs of the United States Nuclear Weapons Programme', in Kathleen C. Bailey (ed.) Weapons of Mass Destruction: Costs Versus Benefits (New Delhi: Manohar Publishers, 1994). If a smaller nuclear arsenal is the objective, and if enriched uranium is used instead of plutonium (the latter being more expensive to acquire and more costly to clean up after), the costs can be quite low. For example, South Africa's six-weapon stockpile is officially estimated to have cost only USD 200 million. See Waldo Stumpf, `South Africa's Nuclear Weapons Programme', in Bailey, Weapons of Mass Destruction, pp. 75-76.

29 This assumes that the nuclear retaliation is against a country armed with BW, but having no nuclear counterforce. If the nuclear response were made against a country which also had nuclear weapons, it is likely that they would be used as well.

30 Nuclear weapons may be very effective against BW targets, in part because they may neutralize the biological agent. (This of course assumes that there is accurate intelligence regarding the location of the BW, which is by no means assured.)

31 This phrasing is based on the US negative security assurance. The statements by the other four declared nuclear-weapon states is similar. See Paul Bedard & Gus Constantine, `US Vows No Nuke Attacks Against Non-Nuclear Nations', The Washington Times, 6 April 1995, p. A3.

32 For example, if a warhead with a yield of 10 tons were to be targeted against a buried bunker and detonated 15 m below ground, it would create a large crater with a diameter between 25 and 40 m, depending on geology. Fallout of 10 rad/hr would extend about 0.5km downwind, and would cover about .06 sq km. Fallout of 1 rad/hr could extend as far as 1.2 km downwind from the blast but would cover less than 0.25 sq km. Radiation doses of 10-50 rad rarely cause radiation sickness, but there could be unpredictable long-term effects, such as increased incidence of cancer. The US Department of Energy's radiation limit for workers is 5 rem per year, equivalent to 5 rad per year from fallout. This example and the associated data on fallout are taken from Thomas W. Dowler & Joseph S. Howard, `Stability in a Proliferated World', Strategic Review, Spring 1995, pp. 31-33.