Directions
Answer questions below in 1 full page no less than 240 words. On second page reply to each student in 1 paragraph for each person each paragraph should be minimum of 115 words you can agree or disagree for each reply. Remember this gets posted on discussion board so reply as you are speaking with student. I.e. “Hello Michael you post was….”
Reconsidering the Utility of BW
Put yourself into the mind set of the head of the People’s Liberation Army in China. What would you recommend your government do in the area of biological weapons in light of your country’s experiences and those of your most likely opponent, the U.S., with COVID 19.
OR
Put yourself in the position of a hard-line follower of a violent right wing group in the U.S. convinced that Donald Trump is going to lose the election and that the country will fall into the hands of your worst enemies. How might you make use of BW?
What are the pros and cons of going down the road of obtaining and or using BW in either of these scenarios?
Readings
Lesson Overview
Biological Weapons don’t get the same level of attention as nuclear weapons. No state uses them or threatens to use them openly. Almost all states are legally bound not to produce them at all. As you may recall from my first lecture, many experts have discounted them as viable means to exert influence or to conduct military operations. But, this view has been slowly shifting over the past three decades. The first blow to that view was the revelation of the Soviet Union’s massive illegal BW program.
Then came the discovery that Saddam Hussein had BW ready to be used at the time of the first Gulf War. (He was deterred from doing so by a rather explicit threat of nuclear retaliation by the U.S.). But, by and large, most experts considered BW an unsuitable military weapon. By the time of the 9/11 attacks, however, security experts were deeply concerned about possible terrorist use of BW. But, repeated terrorist failures to use BW effectively — combined with the catastrophic results of a US preventive attack on Iraq due to its supposed BW program — seemed to constrain the level of alarm over the BW threat. COVID-19 may have just changed the entire calculus. (See new mini-lecture on my own rethinking of the issue.) We are all going to be wrestling anew with this topic this week. Your professor and you will be walking through the topic together on a new basis.
Key Concepts/Topics
• Terrorist use of BW
• The risks and rewards of BW programs for states
• Clandestine vs open programs
• Verification and the BWC
• Technical obstacles to BW production and effective use
Lesson Objectives
• Explore whether COVID 19 will create incentives for BW use/acquisition by states/terrorists
• Propose and evaluate means to deal with the changed environment for BW post pandemic
• Biological Weapons in the Former Soviet Union: An Interview with Dr. Kenneth Alibeck,” Non-proliferation Review, Spring/Summer 1999 (PDF) (eReserve)
• Dr. Stephen Burgess, Dr. Helen Purkitt, The Rollback of South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Program, USAF Counter proliferation Center, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, 2001. (PDF)
https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/2001/southafrica.pdf
Burgess, S. and Purkitt, H. (2001). The Rollback of South Africa’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Program.