One important similarity between biological and chemical weapons is that small nations could produce them relatively easily and cheaply in amounts which may, in the region, be strategically significant. This is why biological (like chemical) weapons are said to be potential weapons of mass destruction for smaller countries - 'poor countries' atom bombs', so to speak. There is considerable current concern about the danger that such weapons may proliferate.
Before the Second World War, no country had acquired modern biological weapons in strategically significant quantities. Earlier interest in biological warfare was related to the use of pathogens for sabotage rather than for the mass killing of people. But, according to Robinson, Germany, the UK, France, Japan and possibly the USSR were 'taking official or semi-official notice of biological weapons' in the 1930s (Robinson 1971).
Of the prewar biological-weapons activities, the Japanese research programme, begun in 1934, was by far the most extensive, involving the development of offensive capabilities as well as defensive ones. The organisms investigated by the Japanese as potential biological-warfare agents included all types of gastrointestinal bacterial patho-gens, plague, anthrax and glanders.
The Japanese developed aircraft bombs to disseminate biological-warfare agents. One type produced aerosols of plague and anthrax; another was a fragmentation weapon which killed animals and people through anthrax contamination of wounds produced by shrapnel. It is also alleged that the Japanese developed bombs to spread plague-infected fleas.
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German, French and British biological-weapon research before the Second World War was primitive and haphazard, producing negligible results. During the Second World War, the fear that Germany and/or Japan might use biological weapons on a large scale stimulated the United States and the United Kingdom to undertake research on these weapons. In fact, German biological-weapon research was negligible until 1943, when a research establishment was set up at Posen. Attempts were then made to develop aircraft spray tanks to disseminate plague, cholera, yellow fever and typhus. The possibility of using insects to attack enemy crops - mainly the use of Colorado beetles to destroy potato crops - was investigated. This research was not very successful.
In spite of reports of German interest in biological warfare during the 1930s, the British took virtually no action apart from stockpiling insecticides in case crops were attacked with insects, such as the Colorado beetle. Even during the Second World War very little British research was done into biological weapons. The main activity was an investigation into ways of disseminating anthrax spores.
The main Allied biological-weapon programme during the Second World War was American. American research work began in August 1941 at Edgewood Arsenal (Robinson 1971). Four years later, it was employing 4,000 workers, military and civilian. No detailed information about the results of American biological-weapon research during the war has been published in the open literature. But Robinson claims that a wide range of biological agents were studied:
Pathogens studied at Camp Detrick included the bacteria of anthrax, glanders, brucellosis, tularemia, melioidosis, and plague; the virus of psittacosis; the fungus of coccidioidomycosis; a variety of plant pathogens - such as rice blast, rice brown-spot disease, late blight of potato, and stem rust of cereals; animal and fowl pathogens such as rinder-pest virus, Newcastle disease virus and fowl plague virus.
(Robinson 1971)
This list, which may not be complete, indicates the extent of the American programme during the Second World War, which was clearly the world's largest.
Virtually no public information is available on the types of biological weapon developed by the Americans during the Second World War. About all that is known is that tests were made on a cluster-bomb designed to disseminate a biological-warfare agent fluid as an aerosol.
By the end of the Second World War, the various national research
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programmes had demonstrated the feasibility of using biological weapons as weapons of mass destruction, but none had yet produced a militarily effective biological weapon. Experimental data indicated that widespread disease could be produced in humans, animals and crops, particularly by the use of aerosols. It was left to postwar military scientists to use these results to manufacture a wide range of operational biological weapons.
During the 1950s and the 1960s, large resources were devoted to the research and development of biological weapons by the United States and, presumably, by the USSR. Biological weapons became firmly integrated into the superpowers' military arsenals and, along with chemical weapons, integrated into their military tactics. The Soviet Union gave no information about the development of its offensive biological capability, and did not even admit its existence, but it is probably safe to assume that it roughly followed that of the USA.
The American programmes after the Second World War had the advantage of exclusive use of the results of the research into biological weapons carried out by the Japanese during the war (these were obtained in return for promises that Japanese military officers would not be charged with war crimes for their research activities). The American programme was centred on the main US Army biological-weapons research and development establishment at Fort Detrick. According to Susan Wright, the research network extended to 'contractors in approximately 300 universities, research institutes and corporations' (Wright 1990).
An interesting feature of the American biological-weapons programme in the 1950s and 1960s is the enthusiasm shown by the Central Intelligence Agency for biological (as well as chemical) weaponry for clandestine operations. In the words of Susan Wright:
The principal CIA operation, code-named MKULTRA, began in 1953, focusing on techniques for controlling human behavior. Over the next ten years, investigations were pursued secretly in over 86 universities and research institutions, often with ruthless insensitivity to ethical considerations. Hundreds of human subjects were involved in tests of hallucinogenic and other drugs, sometimes without their knowledge or consent.
In 1969, President Nixon announced that the USA 'shall renounce the use of lethal biological agents and weapons, and all other methods of biological warfare', and that the USA 'will confine its biological research to defensive measures such as immunization and safety mea-
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sures'. Three years later, the Biological Weapons Convention, banning the development, production and stockpiling of biological and toxic weapons, came into force. As of 1 January 1991, 112 countries had ratified the Convention.
Other than the United States, no NATO country has admitted to having an offensive biological-warfare capability between 1945 and 1972, although there are suspicions that France may have done so (in 1972, a government bill made illegal any French development, manufacturing or stockpiling of biological or toxin weapons). Most major powers, however, probably conducted defensive biological-warfare research. Many still do.
Egypt announced early in 1972 that it had biological weapons. Later in the year it signed the Biological Weapons Convention. Little is known about Israel's interest in biological weapons. Similarly, virtually nothing is known about China's activities in biological warfare.
Before the Gulf War, Iraq was suspected of developing biological weapons. According to the 4 June issue of the American magazine US News and World Report, the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta sent three shipments of the West Nile Fever virus to Iraq. Such agents could be used in a biological-weapons programme.
Inspectors from the United Nations Special Commission inspected Iraq's biological research activities at Salman Pak after the Gulf War. Iraq admitted performing research into biological-warfare agents, beginning in mid-1986. Research was undertaken on Clostridium botulinum, Clostridium perfringens and Bacillus anthracis, said to be for both defensive and offensive purposes (Sigmund and Sigmund, October 1991).
At Salman Pak, the inspectors found a capability to research, test and store biological-warfare agents. Fermentation, production, aerosol testing and storing existed, but there was no evidence that biological weapons were produced and there was no facility for filling weapons with biological-warfare agents. Iraq handed over biological materials, including brucellosis and tularemia, which could be developed as bio-logical-warfare agents.
Iran is also said to be producing biological weapons. According to American intelligence sources, about twenty countries may be developing biological weapons and about ten have biological-weapons pro-grammes. The countries were, however, not named.
Interest in biological weapons does seem to be reviving. Advances in biotechnology are stimulating such interest. And, as Rosenberg and Burck point out, the number of natural biological agents mentioned as possible biological-warfare agents has increased (Rosenberg and Burck 1990). The most lethal ones are 'Marburg, Lassa, Legionnaires' disease, and Ebola viruses'.
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