1 Introduction: Past Estimates in the Twentieth Century
1938: “The
articles here summarized were contributed by three French military and scientific
experts: General-Doctor Romieu (former chief medical officer of the Ecole
Militaire de St. Cyr etc.), Commandant Velu (head of the veterinary research
department of the Morocco army etc.) and Professor Vincent of the Institut de
France, who discuss bacterial warfare and its probable developments.
Both Commandant Velu and Gen. Romieu
express the opinion that if war broke out nothing would prevent the use of the
most effective weapon known at the time, and they quote the words of several
foreign authorities, confirming that the use of bacteria in future warfare is
inevitable and that increasing knowledge will certainly render it a most
effective auxiliary weapon.
Epidemics would help to thin out the
Army, disorganise transport, and demoralize both the fighting troops and those
behind the lines, and might constitute one of the incalculable factors which
transforms methodical plans into a panic and the most accurate reckoning into a
catastrophe….
Gen. Romieu gives a detailed
description of the various disease germs which might be employed, their
comparative effectiveness, and the means by which infection might be spread.[1]
1942: “Dated February 17, 1942, the final report of
the WBC Committee was monumental in size.
It began by saying the committee considered biological warfare a
distinct possibility and U.S. authorities should formulate both defensive and
offensive measures….
“Attached
to the main report was a world-wide collection of 230 articles published on
biological warfare: 61 French, 60
German, 40 English and American, 27 Italian, 5 Russian, one Japanese and so
on. ‘An analysis of the opinions
expressed by the authors of the articles under consideration reveals that the
great majority believe that Biological Warfare is possible or probable in the
future. In addition, a significant
number assert emphatically that this arm will be used.’”[2]
1946: “Difficulties
in the Control of Research and Development Work in the Field of Biological
Weapons
It
is important to note that, unlike the development of the atomic bomb and
certain other secret weapons during the War, the development of agents for
biological warfare is possible in many countries, large and small, without vast
expenditures of money or the construction of huge production facilities. It is clear that the development of
biological warfare could very well proceed in many countries, perhaps under the
guise of legitimate medical or bacteriological research. Many plants designed and ostensibly built
for industrial fermentation processes could be used for the pass production of
pathogenic microorganisms or their poisonous products.
It
is quite probable that research directed toward enhancing the virulence of
pathogenic microorganisms would result in the production of varieties much more
virulent than those now known. The use
of varieties of pathogenic microorganisms of such unusually high virulence
might well overpower the means of protection now believed adequate. In addition, there is the probability that a
variety of a known pathogenic agent, antigenically different from those
varieties normally encountered, might be selected or developed. If this were done, the presently known
immunizing agent would be ineffective against the newly selected or developed
variety….
In whatever deliberations that take place concerning the implementation of a lasting peace in the world, the potentialities of biological warfare cannot safely be ignored.”[3]
Chemical weapons saw very extensive use during World War I. Nevertheless, despite chemical weapons procurement programs by all the major combatants in World War II, chemical weapons were not used again except for isolated instances: Italy in Ethiopia, the USSR in Sinkiang, Japan in China, Egypt in Yemen, the United States in Vietnam (chemical herbicides and incapacitating gases), and Iraq in Iran. Biological weapons saw virtually no use at all in the entire twentieth century, and in the very few instances that did occur (two), its use resulted in absolutely no military consequences whatsoever. Such BW proliferation as did occur did not take place until the 1970s and 1980s.
Biological weapons, along with chemical and nuclear weapons,
are the three systems designated as weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention
(BTWC), which bans the development, production, and stockpiling of BW, as well
as BW research for offensive purposes, was signed on April 10, 1972. The treaty came into force on March 16,
1975, when the United States, the USSR, and the United Kingdom deposited their
instruments of ratification for the convention. It was the first – and for a long time the only – post-World War
II disarmament treaty in which an entire class of weapons of mass destruction
was done away with. Or so it was widely
assumed at the time. The arms control
community by and large thought biological warfare had been removed form the
global agenda. Contrary to the nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968 (NPT), in the BTWC there was to be no preferred
group of countries that would continue to retain the weapons. Biological weapons were to be prohibited to
all forever.
A second unique feature of the BTWC was that the United States, one of the two superpowers that did possess biological weapons, gave them up and destroyed them in 1969, even before the BTWC came into being. The United States chose this policy at the time to dissociate biological from chemical weapons. Prior to 1969, arms control negotiations in Geneva dealing with both classes of weapons had always been combined. Article 9 of the BTWC was an undertaking to continue negotiations to achieve a chemical weapons disarmament treaty – but an additional twenty-two years would pass before that would happen. The BTWC additionally carried no verification provisions; on-site verification was not something that the USSR would consider or accept before the Stockholm Conference in 1986 and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in December 1987. Nonetheless, the BTWC does address the question of non-compliance.
There was, however, a third major and unique distinction of the BTWC. In 1992, Russia admitted that the former USSR had been in gross, generic violation of the treaty, the only instance in which one of the superpowers admitted to having been in total violation of a post-World War II arms control treaty. By the end of the 1980s, it had also become clear that a half-dozen or more countries had decided to develop biological weapons in the intervening twenty years. One official US government estimate in 1988 was that “the number of nations having or suspected of having offensive biological or toxin warfare programs has increased from four to ten since 1972.”[4] As the same statement noted, some of the ten states in question “are signatories of the BWC.” Thus, the assumed achievement of the 1970s had been, at least in part, reversed.
[1]ENDNOTES
[1] Bacterial Warfare (A series of three articles), Le Moment, February 16, 17 and 18, 1938, “Foreign Publications Summary: Roumania [French Source], 701, 674/6, Air Raid Precautions Department, Intelligence Branch, I.O.(T) 19, Public Records Office, United Kingdom, Reference WO 188/650 [Declassified].
[2] The WBC Committee was the Special Committee for Biological Warfare, delegated by the US National Academy of Sciences to prepare an analysis of BW (for the US governments Office of Scientific Research and Development during WWII) and subsequently served as an oversight body for the programs, quoted in John Bryden, Deadly Allies, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, Inc., 1989, p. 99.
[3] George W. Merck et al., “Implications of Biological Warfare,” in The International Control of Atomic Energy: Scientific Information to the United Nations Atomic Energy Committee, June 14, 1946-October 14, 1946, Washington, DC: US Department of State, p. 71.
[4] These number were first presented in US government testimony to Congress in 1988 by Dr. Thomas J. Welch of the US Department of Defense to the House Committee on Armed Services. See also John H. Cushman, Jr., “US Cites Increase in Biological Arms,” New York Times (May 4, 1988). Another version of this estimate reads: “During the 20 years the BW Convention has existed, the number of countries considered to be developing or recently engaged in offensive BW programs has risen from 4 in 1972 to 10 in 1992 --- some of which are members of the convention,” US and International Efforts to Ban Biological Weapons, US General Accounting Office, GAO/NSIAD-93-113 (December 1992), pp. 2-3, 16.