Analysis and Implications - Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945 - page 367

States Parties that declared BW programs during the period from 1945
until the BWC in 1972—Canada, France, the USSR, and the UK—ren-
dered such programs, so long as they were for retaliatory purposes only,
not incompatible with the obligations of the Geneva Protocol. Although
the US did not ratify its signature to the Geneva Protocol until 1975, after
the entry into force of the BWC, it then did so with a similar reservation.
The BWC, which totally prohibits the development, production, acquisi-
tion, and retention of biological and toxin weapons, rendered the reser-
vations to the Geneva Protocol inconsistent with the obligations under
the BWC. This situation led to the gradual withdrawal of these reserva-
tions—by Canada on 20 August 1991, by France on 25 November 1996,
by Russia on 18 January 2001, and by the United Kingdom on 8 Novem-
ber 1991.
Implications
During the early 1980s CBW still did not lie within the mainstream of
military theory and practice. 2 Constraints of international law and do-
mestic political, military, and technological factors had prevented the ef-
fective assimilation of BW. Yet we now know that the Soviet Union un-
dertook a thoroughgoing attempt to use the new revolution in the life
sciences in its late Cold War offensive program.
The reasons for the Soviet decision to embark on this program remain
unclear, but the historical record that we have examined here, and the
earlier SIPRI study of the years before 1945, demonstrate that several fac-
tors enhance the likelihood that offensive BW programs will be initiated
or maintained and that other factors deter initiation and development.
The likely enhancing factors include:
• A regional or international security situation in which conflict has bro-
ken out or is feared and in which military forces are being strengthened
• Scientific and technological change that demonstrates that BW can be
used effectively for hostile purposes in current conflicts
• Intelligence (threat analyses) that suggests that potential adversaries are
involved in offensive biological warfare programs (even if they are not)
• Organizations set up to pursue offensive programs, and individuals seek-
ing advancement within such programs