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Beginner's Guide (Oneworld Publications)
Bioterror and Biowarfare: A Beginner's Guide
In this essential guide to the past, present and future of bio-warfare, international security expert Malcolm Dando draws a wealth of experience and research to uncover the truth about the alarming failure of international community to place effective curbs on the use of this deadly weapon.
- GenresNonfiction
256 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2006
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March 25, 2022
Seems like a good summary of the history of bio-weapons. Reads very easily. A bit old, but AFAIK no historic bio-weapons events have really happened since 2006? A more modern version would probably just present a better picture of modern biotech threats and bio-weapons policy developments.
In terms of content, the main picture of the bio-security space I got is roughly as follows: currently, only state-scale actors seem to be capable of existential threats. The author says that terrorist-scale organizations are unlikely to solve mass aerosol dissemination, and seems unworried about (doesn't really mention) hyper-infectious diseases making such dissemination unnecessary. Bio-weapons are quite cheap for states and quite costly but heavily asymmetric for terrorists. Often, non-infectious agents are preferred, which is dope, but there are a bunch of scary infectious agents out there. Current control of bioweapons has largely relied on extending older agreements, such as the Geneva Convention - the BWC, in political hardball, is non-functional, since it lacks an inspection/enforcement mechanism. US unilateralism has blocked a lot of biosecurity policy, and the one pro-biosecurity move made under Nixon seems likely to be in the interests of preserving the advantage of nuclear WMD.
In other words, the current bio-security order relies mostly on unwritten rules for states and technological hurdles for terrorists. That produces a lot of questions I want to answer next. What are the emerging threats from modern biotech? What kind of biosecurity strategies scale to work at arbitrary levels of easy access to biotech? What causes a state to pursue infectious vs non-infectious agents?
Notes:
• Author's argument is not value-free: they think bio is dangerous and we need better protection systems. Their position is that "there is no alternative to a joint co-operative international response to the problem of controlling biowarfare and bioterrorism."
• Nuclear disarmament (or at least, preventing armament) has been successful in limiting the number of nuclear powers to <10 because very nukes are hard to make, and especially hard to make secretly.
○ For bioweapons, both of those constraints are weaker. Plus, it has a very strong dual-use aspect. Plus, biotech is progressing and becoming accessible way faster than nuclear engineering.
• Since the 1960's, nuclear arms control has worked by clearly demarcating WMD vs conventional weapons, relying on second-strike capabilities for stability, and reaching bilateral/multilateral agreements to ramp down
○ Demarcation is less obvious due to dual-use, but second-strike capabilities are easy in the bioweapons paradigm. Multilateral agreements might be hard due to greater ease of bioweapons?
• The Biological Weapons Convention has no means of inspection or enforcement, and the Soviet Union had a massive bioweapons program despite being one of the BWC's depositary states
• US unilateralism in foreign policy has made things really difficult for both nuclear and biological arms control. We keep defecting, rejecting multilateral agreements, and forcing the whole world into a dangerous situation
• US has invested a ton of money into "biodefense" research - problem is, this is extremely dual-use, and could be mistaken as an actual weapons program by other countries
• In WWI, pre-existing rules against using poison for warfare were generalized to bioweapons but only for attacks on humans. Efforts were made on both sides to infect draught animals, which were important for war effort at the time.
• Japan used biological weapons in WWII at a sort of medium scale, with limited effectiveness. Interestingly, their weapons program was mostly driven by one dude, who wanted bioweapons for Japan specifically because they were banned
• The UK signed BWC only in a first-use capacity. In WWII, because they feared a Nazi bioweapons program (which didn't actually exist), they manufactured anthrax-laced cattle cakes which could be used to damage Germany's agricultural system in retaliation. This took about 20 people and 5 months.
• Eisenhower abandoned the US's no-first-bioweapons policy, in response to something (?) about the Soviets
• Kennedy administration estimated that "obtaining a complete spectrum of chemical and biological weapons capabilities would cost about US $4 billion."
• Nixon went back to no-first-bioweapons: author speculates this is because nuclear weapons are hard to obtain and US already had those, but bioweapons are easy to obtain, so US had an incentive to participate in a multilateral ban on them to keep other WMD powers from arising, protecting nuclear advantage
• The Soviet bioweapons program seems to be the first that's a plausible existential threat - large scale, infectious agents, and genetic modification
• Bioweapons that permanently incapacitate rather than fully kill victims might actually be more dangerous
• Smallpox is spread by aerosol droplets, very low infection dose. Incubation 7-17d, no good antivirals but (obviously) vaccine is known, even if people don't currently have it equipped.
○ Vaccine-resistant smallpox seems very dangerous, depending on how long the new-vaccine research cycle takes. Unclear whether it's existential threat or not - how does our vulnerability compare to old Europe, old America?
• Plague is much deadlier when pneumonic, which is the likely weapons-distribution method, but not necessarily the person-to-person (or flea-vector) spread method. We don’t currently have a vaccine that works against the pneumonic plague, and treatment with antibiotics has to be within 24hr to be effective
• Tularemia is relatively unknown publicly but Class A and quite dangerous - doesn't spread person to person though.
• Hemorrhagic fevers are highly infectious, highly lethal, and best treated with labor-intensive medical care. Yikes
• Brucella has an extremely long (5-60 day) incubation period, requires expensive treatment, and does not have a vaccine. But fatality rate is low, person-to-person transmission is rare, and antibiotics work if caught early.
• "animal viruses useful for anti-animal biological warfare were investigated thoroughly in the major offensive programs of the last century."
○ Plant pathogens have also been weaponized by past programs
• Production of bioweapons at large scales is relatively cheap and easy for WMD - 1/20 the cost of a nuclear arsenal and 1/5 the cost of a chemical arsenal. US had a plan to "at a cost of $8 million, where 1,000 workers would manufacture more than 500,000 anthrax bombs a month".
• Dissemination through widespread aerosol appears to be quite difficult. Aerosol has to have sufficient density and right size of particles, that are stable enough to stay viable for long enough to infect target population
○ This problem has been solved several times by state-level efforts, but appear to be beyond the capabilities of sub-state actors
○ This isn't the part of biotech that's scaling up! Genetic tech doesn't really help - this is a mechanical engineering and nanoparticles problem
§ Genetics could help with some constraints - reduce viral load needed for infection to reduce necessary viability rate, increase stability, etc.
§ Ehhhh the helpfulness of this barrier depends on the details of which specific hurdle is limiting step
• Modern biotech threats include:
○ Vaccine recognition mechanism avoidance
○ Pathogens modified to produce bioregulators instead of standard toxins
○ Immune system attacks, render vaccines in general ineffective
○ Synthesis or organisms from just DNA
• Smallpox and related-but-less-dangerous vaccinia strain both have complement-deactivators: but smallpox's is way more effective (100x on one protein, 6x on another). This may be part of why it's more deadly - suggesting immune disruptors may be very dangerous
• We should expect defensive biotech to be much harder than offensive - biology has Millions of attack sites, creating a million-fold defender's curse
• The current expected meta for state-scale, widespread anti-personnel attacks is a bomber carrying 10T of biological agent, and dispersing it in a line, on a clear calm night
• Injection into a water main is less costly and requires less bioweapon mass
• Anti-agriculture biowarfare seems more likely to just be highly costly than to actually cause starvation
• So far large-scale dissemination seems beyond terrorist-scale groups. Problem is, they don't really need it. With a focus on highly asymmetric warfare rather than massive scale, and without the need for prolonged shelf life or long-term personal safety, a lot of the key technical hurdles are reduced
• If the goal of terrorism is to impose large costs and make governance difficult, they are likely to have increasing returns on damage from attacks within the recovery window of the previous attack. Danzig thinks the most dangerous form of bio-terrorism is a campaign of attacks harvesting those increasing returns.
• Author says that aside from a unilateral world power, multilateral agreement is only one way to prevent bio-weapons. This, to me, amounts to just facing down the coordination problem. I think this is pretty plausible, but would like to at least consider ways that a good-will agent could unilaterally make the coordination problem easier
• Advantages for prevention: hiding the development of (some kind of) large-scale bioweapons program is pretty hard in modern world. No single-point-of-denial like fissile material for nukes, but a lot of important ways multilateral agreement can restrict development
• Australia Group currently maintains export controls on biotech equipment disproportionately necessary for weapons work
• When BWTC was denied enforcement mechanism due to American opposition, the proposal that was almost agreed upon included regular declarations of biodefense programs, high-containment facilities, high-containment human or plant pathogens, listed agents/toxins, etc. These were to be checked by visits, with ramping penalties for failure to declare.
• The Geneva Protocol is old, but still forms the basics of international laws of war. Biological weapons are included, and their use in war is forbidden - but only the use, and "in war", which is vague. It is also forbidden only against other parties to the Protocol. A lot of things have been generally accepted that aren't actually specified in the text, such as extensions to allies and a general-purpose "no first use" prohibition.
• BTWC summary: don't develop, produce, stockpile, acquire, or keep bioweapons. Don't transfer to or assist others. Option to lodge complaint with the Security Council. Provide assistance in the event of a violation. #include Geneva Protocol. Amendment procedure
○ Prohibiting research and use was lost in the negotiations
○ According to the General Criterion, forbidden items are "microbial or other biological agents/toxins 'of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes'".
§ This seems dangerously vague and open to political skew
• What biosecurity measures scale to arbitrary levels of biotech?
In terms of content, the main picture of the bio-security space I got is roughly as follows: currently, only state-scale actors seem to be capable of existential threats. The author says that terrorist-scale organizations are unlikely to solve mass aerosol dissemination, and seems unworried about (doesn't really mention) hyper-infectious diseases making such dissemination unnecessary. Bio-weapons are quite cheap for states and quite costly but heavily asymmetric for terrorists. Often, non-infectious agents are preferred, which is dope, but there are a bunch of scary infectious agents out there. Current control of bioweapons has largely relied on extending older agreements, such as the Geneva Convention - the BWC, in political hardball, is non-functional, since it lacks an inspection/enforcement mechanism. US unilateralism has blocked a lot of biosecurity policy, and the one pro-biosecurity move made under Nixon seems likely to be in the interests of preserving the advantage of nuclear WMD.
In other words, the current bio-security order relies mostly on unwritten rules for states and technological hurdles for terrorists. That produces a lot of questions I want to answer next. What are the emerging threats from modern biotech? What kind of biosecurity strategies scale to work at arbitrary levels of easy access to biotech? What causes a state to pursue infectious vs non-infectious agents?
Notes:
• Author's argument is not value-free: they think bio is dangerous and we need better protection systems. Their position is that "there is no alternative to a joint co-operative international response to the problem of controlling biowarfare and bioterrorism."
• Nuclear disarmament (or at least, preventing armament) has been successful in limiting the number of nuclear powers to <10 because very nukes are hard to make, and especially hard to make secretly.
○ For bioweapons, both of those constraints are weaker. Plus, it has a very strong dual-use aspect. Plus, biotech is progressing and becoming accessible way faster than nuclear engineering.
• Since the 1960's, nuclear arms control has worked by clearly demarcating WMD vs conventional weapons, relying on second-strike capabilities for stability, and reaching bilateral/multilateral agreements to ramp down
○ Demarcation is less obvious due to dual-use, but second-strike capabilities are easy in the bioweapons paradigm. Multilateral agreements might be hard due to greater ease of bioweapons?
• The Biological Weapons Convention has no means of inspection or enforcement, and the Soviet Union had a massive bioweapons program despite being one of the BWC's depositary states
• US unilateralism in foreign policy has made things really difficult for both nuclear and biological arms control. We keep defecting, rejecting multilateral agreements, and forcing the whole world into a dangerous situation
• US has invested a ton of money into "biodefense" research - problem is, this is extremely dual-use, and could be mistaken as an actual weapons program by other countries
• In WWI, pre-existing rules against using poison for warfare were generalized to bioweapons but only for attacks on humans. Efforts were made on both sides to infect draught animals, which were important for war effort at the time.
• Japan used biological weapons in WWII at a sort of medium scale, with limited effectiveness. Interestingly, their weapons program was mostly driven by one dude, who wanted bioweapons for Japan specifically because they were banned
• The UK signed BWC only in a first-use capacity. In WWII, because they feared a Nazi bioweapons program (which didn't actually exist), they manufactured anthrax-laced cattle cakes which could be used to damage Germany's agricultural system in retaliation. This took about 20 people and 5 months.
• Eisenhower abandoned the US's no-first-bioweapons policy, in response to something (?) about the Soviets
• Kennedy administration estimated that "obtaining a complete spectrum of chemical and biological weapons capabilities would cost about US $4 billion."
• Nixon went back to no-first-bioweapons: author speculates this is because nuclear weapons are hard to obtain and US already had those, but bioweapons are easy to obtain, so US had an incentive to participate in a multilateral ban on them to keep other WMD powers from arising, protecting nuclear advantage
• The Soviet bioweapons program seems to be the first that's a plausible existential threat - large scale, infectious agents, and genetic modification
• Bioweapons that permanently incapacitate rather than fully kill victims might actually be more dangerous
• Smallpox is spread by aerosol droplets, very low infection dose. Incubation 7-17d, no good antivirals but (obviously) vaccine is known, even if people don't currently have it equipped.
○ Vaccine-resistant smallpox seems very dangerous, depending on how long the new-vaccine research cycle takes. Unclear whether it's existential threat or not - how does our vulnerability compare to old Europe, old America?
• Plague is much deadlier when pneumonic, which is the likely weapons-distribution method, but not necessarily the person-to-person (or flea-vector) spread method. We don’t currently have a vaccine that works against the pneumonic plague, and treatment with antibiotics has to be within 24hr to be effective
• Tularemia is relatively unknown publicly but Class A and quite dangerous - doesn't spread person to person though.
• Hemorrhagic fevers are highly infectious, highly lethal, and best treated with labor-intensive medical care. Yikes
• Brucella has an extremely long (5-60 day) incubation period, requires expensive treatment, and does not have a vaccine. But fatality rate is low, person-to-person transmission is rare, and antibiotics work if caught early.
• "animal viruses useful for anti-animal biological warfare were investigated thoroughly in the major offensive programs of the last century."
○ Plant pathogens have also been weaponized by past programs
• Production of bioweapons at large scales is relatively cheap and easy for WMD - 1/20 the cost of a nuclear arsenal and 1/5 the cost of a chemical arsenal. US had a plan to "at a cost of $8 million, where 1,000 workers would manufacture more than 500,000 anthrax bombs a month".
• Dissemination through widespread aerosol appears to be quite difficult. Aerosol has to have sufficient density and right size of particles, that are stable enough to stay viable for long enough to infect target population
○ This problem has been solved several times by state-level efforts, but appear to be beyond the capabilities of sub-state actors
○ This isn't the part of biotech that's scaling up! Genetic tech doesn't really help - this is a mechanical engineering and nanoparticles problem
§ Genetics could help with some constraints - reduce viral load needed for infection to reduce necessary viability rate, increase stability, etc.
§ Ehhhh the helpfulness of this barrier depends on the details of which specific hurdle is limiting step
• Modern biotech threats include:
○ Vaccine recognition mechanism avoidance
○ Pathogens modified to produce bioregulators instead of standard toxins
○ Immune system attacks, render vaccines in general ineffective
○ Synthesis or organisms from just DNA
• Smallpox and related-but-less-dangerous vaccinia strain both have complement-deactivators: but smallpox's is way more effective (100x on one protein, 6x on another). This may be part of why it's more deadly - suggesting immune disruptors may be very dangerous
• We should expect defensive biotech to be much harder than offensive - biology has Millions of attack sites, creating a million-fold defender's curse
• The current expected meta for state-scale, widespread anti-personnel attacks is a bomber carrying 10T of biological agent, and dispersing it in a line, on a clear calm night
• Injection into a water main is less costly and requires less bioweapon mass
• Anti-agriculture biowarfare seems more likely to just be highly costly than to actually cause starvation
• So far large-scale dissemination seems beyond terrorist-scale groups. Problem is, they don't really need it. With a focus on highly asymmetric warfare rather than massive scale, and without the need for prolonged shelf life or long-term personal safety, a lot of the key technical hurdles are reduced
• If the goal of terrorism is to impose large costs and make governance difficult, they are likely to have increasing returns on damage from attacks within the recovery window of the previous attack. Danzig thinks the most dangerous form of bio-terrorism is a campaign of attacks harvesting those increasing returns.
• Author says that aside from a unilateral world power, multilateral agreement is only one way to prevent bio-weapons. This, to me, amounts to just facing down the coordination problem. I think this is pretty plausible, but would like to at least consider ways that a good-will agent could unilaterally make the coordination problem easier
• Advantages for prevention: hiding the development of (some kind of) large-scale bioweapons program is pretty hard in modern world. No single-point-of-denial like fissile material for nukes, but a lot of important ways multilateral agreement can restrict development
• Australia Group currently maintains export controls on biotech equipment disproportionately necessary for weapons work
• When BWTC was denied enforcement mechanism due to American opposition, the proposal that was almost agreed upon included regular declarations of biodefense programs, high-containment facilities, high-containment human or plant pathogens, listed agents/toxins, etc. These were to be checked by visits, with ramping penalties for failure to declare.
• The Geneva Protocol is old, but still forms the basics of international laws of war. Biological weapons are included, and their use in war is forbidden - but only the use, and "in war", which is vague. It is also forbidden only against other parties to the Protocol. A lot of things have been generally accepted that aren't actually specified in the text, such as extensions to allies and a general-purpose "no first use" prohibition.
• BTWC summary: don't develop, produce, stockpile, acquire, or keep bioweapons. Don't transfer to or assist others. Option to lodge complaint with the Security Council. Provide assistance in the event of a violation. #include Geneva Protocol. Amendment procedure
○ Prohibiting research and use was lost in the negotiations
○ According to the General Criterion, forbidden items are "microbial or other biological agents/toxins 'of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes'".
§ This seems dangerously vague and open to political skew
• What biosecurity measures scale to arbitrary levels of biotech?
August 29, 2020
A book pretending to have a content that is not there. Only banalities, platitudes, exagerations and overt bullshit.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews