A Plague on Both Your Houses

Biological Warfare (2)

by David W. Tschanz, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia

Proliferation

While the great powers wrestled with the intentions of their enemies, some Third World dictatorships began to explore non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction including biological warfare. The construction of a chemical and biological warfare complex near Rabta in Libya and the recent Gulf conflict have since focused public attention on what has been referred to as the "poor man's atomic bomb." At least eight other nations --including Vietnam, North Korea and Iran are rumored to have developed or be in the process of developing biological weapons.

The appeal of such weapons to a Third World nation is obvious. Sophisticated technology is not a prerequisite of weapons development as in the case of nuclear devices. In addition, in the grim ledger sheets of death, biological weapons are cost effective.

For a large scale operation against a civilian population casualties might cost $2000 per square kilometer with conventional weapons, $800 per square kilometer with nuclear weapons, $600 per square kilometer with nerve gas and $1 per square kilometer with biological weapons. As nuclear proliferation continued, nervous dictatorships saw them as a valid response to the perceived threat of their nuclear weapon possessing neighbors. It was also a great way to prove to the other dictators that you had "arrived."

As Iraq made painfully clear, long-range delivery systems also proliferated and continues to proliferate. Aging "obsolete" short range ballistic missiles cast off by the superpowers have been acquired by Third World nations. Some of these could be adapted to the delivery of biological or chemical weapons, though the technological requirements and questions of their though effectiveness might forestall this.

Using Biological Weapons

Using biological weapons in warfare is not that difficult. Many types of delivery systems weapons are feasible -- missiles, artillery, mines, multiple rail and tube launched rockets, fighter bombers and attack helicopters.

Cruise missiles might be the ideal delivery system for biological weapons because of their ability to place a toxic cloud close to the ground. Flight at subsonic speed would avoid some of the problems of heating the agents when it is injected into the windstream. The combination of cruise missile and lethal organism would be vastly superior to the blast effect of nuclear weapons and equivalent to nuclear weapons fallout in terms of area covered. Given suitable weather conditions and a cruise missile that flies like a crop duster 100 g of a biological agent (approximately 10 (20) lethal doses of anthrax spores) could cover 2.6 square kilometers under light wind conditions, and 0.9 tons could cover approximately 26,000 square kilometers -- an area the same order of magnitude as the lethal fallout from a ground burst nuclear warhead of the same size.

Manufacture of biological organisms that are potentially lethal on a large scale is not very difficult. The techniques to grow bacteria are over a hundred years old and well known to any first year microbiology student. The limiting factor is the quantity of bacteria and the size of the manufacturing facility needed to produce large enough quantities of organism.

Targets include not only people, but agricultural products and livestock. Some potential weapon organisms, such as anthrax, can wreak long term damage on an agricultural or livestock producing area by rendering it unusable as long as the organism in the soil. Biological weapons need not kill either to be effective. Some, such as brucellosis, can cause a long term debilitating illness, sapping the strength of the opposing army.

Probabilities

There is no credible defense against a biological warfare attack. The available choice of agents, methods of spread and varied delivery systems make it reasonably simple for any nation or group wishing to launch a biological attack to do so. The potentials of biological warfare are virtually unlimited. But in a world where all things are possible, probability is a better measure of the level of concern that should be attached to capabilities. The likelihood of the deliberate spread of disease remains low, if not non-existent. The reasons for this are rooted in science, history and psychology.

While biological weapons can terrorize their victims with ghastly effectiveness they are far from the ideal weapon. Their value as a tactical battlefield weapon is nonexistent. Using them against an enemy imposes serious problems which must be overcome. Troops of the user would have to operate in a contaminated environment and be supplied with appropriate medicines or vaccines.

Accidents at production facilities could threaten enormous numbers of people. Similarly the persistent ecological consequences of producing and testing biological weapons are potentially more harmful and certainly less understood than the radiological effects of nuclear weapons tests. The myxomatosis inoculation of a few rabbits in France in 1952 resulted in he spread of disease over an entire continent in a matter of months.

On Gruinard Island, scene of the World War II anthrax bomb tests, a 1979 survey still detected viable spores despite an effort at decontamination by burning off the heather. By 1983, the area of significant contamination was small enough to make effective decontamination feasible using sporicides such as potassium permanganate, formaldehyde, glutaraldehyhe and peracetic acid, although use of these chemicals also raises serious ecological concerns.

Psychology also plays a large part. One of the ironies of the Gulf War was the relief expressed that the Iraqi Al-Hussain (Scud) missiles were "only carrying high explosives." Dead is dead, but high explosive dead is accepted more readily than biologically warfare dead. Biological weapons, are, like chemical weapons, weapons of terror. They are viewed with a sense of repugnance that is not felt towards conventional high explosives. They are perceived as heinous, indiscriminate and immoral. They are universally taboo. Biological and chemical weapons are, without a doubt weapons that demand retaliation without limit, because their very use is considered to place the user outside the realm of restraint.

Potential users of unconventional weapons whether biological or chemical seem to recognize this. Since World War I neither chemical nor biological weapons have been used against an opponent with a capacity to respond in kind or by other unconventional means. Every recorded instance -- from proven chemical attacks by the Italians on the Ethiopians to suspected biotoxic warfare in Southeast Asia, has involved the use by a have on a have not. Saddam Hussein, the "Chemist of Baghdad" made a statement underscoring this reality. On August 23, 1990 after several weeks of boasting about his chemical weapons, the Iraqi President was visited by the Soviet Foreign Minister in an attempt to end the crisis. What they talked about precisely is unknown, but the next day, the Iraqi President stated that Iraq "would only use its chemical weapons if the United States used its nuclear weapons first." Saddam Hussein, for all his braggadocio, understood the reality of annihilation.

While it is possible that biological weapons can be delivered and dispersed against a target secretly, the consequences of their presence are readily apparent. Disease surveillance is a component of public health and occurrence of diseases outside of the normal pattern easily detected where public health is good. Ironically the crown jewel of the Centers for Disease Control's epidemiology program is the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), established in 1948 by Alexander Langmuir. Langmuir developed the program after his involvement in biological warfare policy in World War II. The EIS was conceived as a deliberate placement of highly trained disease investigators in fifteen strategic regions of the United States in order to investigate and determine if any unusual disease outbreaks were due to biological warfare. While this function of the EIS has all but vanished in the ensuing years, it has had the fortunate side effect of greatly enhancing US epidemiologic capabilities.

The same bioengineering techniques and understanding of genetic and molecular biology that make it possible to design organisms of particular virulence can also be used to determine the source of the organism. Gene sequencing and DNA homology studies can determine whether organisms are the same and where they came from. In a celebrated investigation in the 1980's, investigators used molecular biology to determine that seemingly unrelated cases of Salmonella bacteremia in various parts of the US were related to contaminated marijuana purchased and distributed from the same vendor. In other words, anyone using biological weapons will eventually be identified. It is not possible to conduct biological warfare with a reasonable degree of anonymity and retribution can be the expected end.

Much has been made of bio-terrorism -- the possible use of biological weapons by groups dedicated to violence to support a particular political cause or sometimes no cause. There is a certain basis for concern here. Self-survival seems to be a lower priority for these groups than for nations, so deterrence in terms of retribution may not have much of a direct influence. On the other hand biological warfare is not something conducted by the unintelligent. It takes unusual learning to develop and employ these weapons. Time, place and opportunity must coincide. People with advanced degrees in microbiology, medicine, pharmacology and agricultural sciences seem to be rare, if not nonexistent, among the membership of identified terrorist groups. Construction of facilities to produce biologics requires enormous capital and space, another item lacking from the usual terrorist organization. The suppliers of these agents therefore would have to be national governments who may be less inclined to risk the wrath of discovery and retribution. Another disadvantage to biological weapons is the uncertainty of what will actually happen once the organism is released. There is an old saying among microbiologists that "microorganisms can't read." Living organisms can develop resistance to vaccines and or antibiotics. The textbooks may say they will perform in such and such a manner, ferment such and such a sugar, but there is always a percentage of organisms that refuse to behave as expected. Potential users face the possibility that biological weapons might outwit their creators. Mutations occur, plasmids and bacteriophages introduce new genetic materials that alter the organism. Vaccines and antibiotics that work in the laboratory do not work in the field. Any user of biological weapons must concern himself with the strong possibility that any weapon unleashed may boomerang on his own population. Shifts in the wind for example may blow a cloud of bacteria over his own unprotected population.

The reality of biological warfare is that the potential effectiveness of these weapons remains a real threat. But, the difficulties inherent in biological warfare make it an unlikely weapon of choice. The complex variables in their release reduces the certainty of their effectiveness. When compared to the far greater certainties that physics and inorganic chemistry dictate for conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons, biological weapons lose their allure. The risk they contain compared to other alternatives makes their not worth considering by an adversary.

Related Biological Warfare

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© Copyright 1994 by David W. Tschanz.
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