Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 1
Historical Context
and Overview
MARK WHEELIS,
LAJOS RÓZSA,
AND MALCOLM DANDO
The threat of biological weapons (BW) use by either states
or terrorists has never attracted so much public attention as in the past
five years, when heads of state and other governmental leaders have spo-
ken repeatedly about the dangers from weapons of mass destruction and
the threat of bioterrorism. BW proliferation among states has been a con-
cern since before the end of the Cold War, and concerns about BW in
terrorist hands became a prominent issue in the early 1990s. The US an-
thrax letter attacks of 2001 seemed to validate these concerns, and intelli-
gence suggesting interest in BW among international terrorist organiza-
tions has exacerbated them, especially in the US. Currently the threat of
BW attracts keen international attention at the highest levels.
These contemporary concerns relate largely to the threat of BW acqui-
sition and use by rogue states or by terrorists. However, the BW threat
has much deeper roots, and it has changed markedly over the past 60
years. During most of the Cold War period, major global powers invested
substantial resources to develop a strategic BW capability aimed at the
military forces, civilian populations, or agricultural resources of their ad-
versaries. Indeed, early in this period BW were considered to rival nu-
clear weapons in strategic importance.
Despite the shifting view of the nature of the BW threat, it has been ev-
ident for over 60 years that biological agents can be used to cause mass
casualties and large-scale economic damage. However, BW are not well
understood, and there has been little historical analysis—and hence little
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