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isolation to acquire an offensive strategic potential, BW if further devel-
oped might be used” as an incapacitating weapon in limited war, as a
clandestine weapon, as “a weapon in the exploitation phase in Global
war, and on rear target areas in all phases of global war.” The Todd Panel
had concluded that the USSR was not a suitable target for BW attack and
had ruled out the potential of BW in tactical situations. Cawood's ad hoc
group, drawing on these conclusions, agreed that “an expansion of effort
on investigations of the offensive aspects of CW and BW is warranted,”
although they added that no strategic offensive capability in either chem-
ical or biological warfare was required. They also complained that the
Todd Panel's statement that Russia was not a suitable target for a germ
warfare attack was too categorical and might change, given future techni-
cal advances. 104
The change in fortune for biological and chemical warfare rests in part
upon the threat from the LAC and, on the chemical side, the potential of
incapacitating agents and the discovery of a new and especially lethal se-
ries of chemical agents, the V-agents. Broader changes in the political cli-
mate, suggested by Wilson Smith's earlier comment on the nuclear stale-
mate, also contributed to a more favorable context for biological warfare
policy. Continuing threats from Khrushchev over Berlin from late 1958
into 1961 and the building of the Berlin Wall did “not shift the British
view that only nuclear war could prevent the Russians from strangling
West Berlin if they chose to do so and that, despite the rhetoric, West
Berlin was not worth a holocaust.” 105
And if Berlin was not worth the holocaust, neither was Cuba the fol-
lowing year. In this light, while still emphasizing an independent nuclear
deterrent, UK policy began to shift and, following the US, the notion of a
graduated deterrence emerged. 106 Nuclear deterrence was to be a last re-
sort, and thus a new role for CBW was suggested on the way to this ulti-
mate response.
Policy did not immediately adapt to these changes in strategic outlook.
At a meeting of the Chiefs of Staff in 1962, Cawood pointed out that the
defensive policy for CBW still dated from 1958, when “it was considered
that if the West were subject to an attack by the USSR the response would
be immediate retaliation with nuclear weapons; it was not therefore con-
sidered profitable to develop an offensive strategic BW or CW capabil-
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