Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
pute. The major states that ended on the winning side after World War II
had developed BW programs because such weapons were seen to be po-
tentially important militarily for retaliation in kind, and they continued
or restarted them for the same reasons. The two states definitely known
to have begun offensive BW programs later in the century also had mili-
tary reasons for their programs. Programs were terminated because of
regime change (South Africa and possibly Russia), because of imposed
disarmament following defeat in war (Iraq), because BW were overshad-
owed by nuclear weapons (the UK, France, the US), or because major part-
ners terminated their program (Canada). Finally, when states terminated
their offensive programs, because they had been kept highly secret there
was generally little attention given to providing information to convince
other states that the offensive programs had indeed been terminated.
Overarching Themes
In the history of the period since 1945 there are several recurrent themes
that help to elucidate the nature of BW programs: (1) changing percep-
tions of BW, and of their utility or lack of utility; (2) the limitations of in-
telligence; (3) the shifting balance between secrecy and transparency,
suspicion and confidence; and (4) the influence of treaties and of interna-
tional technological collaboration upon national BW programs.
Changing Perceptions of BW
By the end of World War II many countries had concluded that BW
would be effective. The UK stockpile of cattle cakes inoculated with Bacil-
lus anthracis, developed during World War II as an antianimal weapon,
was destroyed after the war, and the subsequent high-priority programs
in the UK, US, and Canada focused initially on weapons to deliver antiper-
sonnel agents, such as anthrax spores, against military targets; but the de-
velopment of antiagricultural BW, particularly means of attacking staple
crops, also became important. As the nuclear weapons programs in the
US and UK came to fruition, attention to BW began to be focused more on
sabotage and special forces operations. Nevertheless, as the programs de-
veloped attention turned also toward large area coverage and on attain-
ing a casualty-causing capability comparable to that of nuclear weapons.
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