Analysis and Implications - Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945 - page 368

• Assimilation of weapons and equipment into operational military forces
and development of doctrine for the use of such weapons
• Lack of transparency about defensive biological programs, leading to
misperceptions of true intent
• Interaction of offensive and defensive programs, including
misperceptions leading to action/reaction arms races
Factors that will tend to retard offensive programs include:
• Scientific and technical difficulties in the effective development, produc-
tion, and use of biological and toxin weapons
• Prevention of the establishment and growth of organizations (and their
individual experts) with offensive objectives
• General dislike among political leaders and military forces for such ab-
horrent weapons
• The prohibitory norm embodied in international arms control agree-
ments if effectively implemented nationally and internationally
• Public support for the prohibitory norm and its further strengthening at
international, national, and substate levels
• As much transparency as possible in biodefense in order to prevent
misperceptions and inappropriate reactions
The balance between these sets of factors has varied over time and in
different states and alliances. In particular, when cold or hot warfare
breaks out and the threats to national security are seen to increase, it is
far less likely that restraint will prevail.
A dangerous combination of events could be the discovery of means to
produce effective BW more easily, coupled with military interest in devel-
oping such weapons. 3 We see such a combination currently with the in-
teraction of discoveries in the biology of receptor systems and military
desires for chemical “nonlethal” weapons for use in operations other
than war. Should such combinations of events lead to the establishment
and growth of national organizations having the objective of developing
such new weapons, then when warfare does come—as in Vietnam in the
1960s, for example—the norm will be under great threat. Norms once
violated on a large scale are not easily restored.
What do the lessons of history have to tell us about policy in regard to
biological and toxin weapons and their effective prohibition in these early