There’s no motive – bioterrorism probability is at an all-time low

Do countries still need to worry about threats from biological weapons? The COVID-19 pandemic has led to renewed discussion of biological weapons and whether bad actors — both nations and terrorists — have refocused their attention on developing them. In a recent War on the Rocks article, Joseph Buccina, Dylan George, and Andy Weber argue that the “inadequate initial U.S. response to COVID-19, coupled with new advances in biotechnology, could make biological weapons more appealing for U.S. adversaries.” They add that China and Russia could use biological agents in a “low-boil” manner to undermine the United States as part of a “Shadow War,” a term first coined by Jim Sciutto, referring to a hybrid war, gray war, or non-linear war. The specter of mass casualty biological weapons attacks — whether by nations or terrorists — is unrealistic. The United States should not overreact to the threat of biological weapons. Although the threat from biological weapons has not vanished, it is, in fact, at one of its lowest points since the Cold War’s end. Biological weapons are primarily a tool of assassination — largely for purposes of ensuring regime security in authoritarian states — and special forces operations. U.S. policymakers should strengthen diplomatic and intelligence community efforts to protect the American people from this enduring — but manageable — threat. The History of Biological Weapons Use During the Cold War, several nations developed biological weapons for potential military use. Scholar W. Seth Carus identified 15 national biological weapons programs active from 1915 to the end of the Cold War. He points out that the number of national biological weapons programs fluctuated, with the majority lasting for only a short time. The number of biological weapons programs during the Cold War fluctuated from between eight to five. The development and possession of biological weapons is trending dramatically downward since the end of World War II. With the 1975 Biological Weapons Convention, signatories placed biological weapons use beyond the pale and the use of biological weapons has been stigmatized. After the Cold War, countries largely abandoned large-scale counterforce or countervalue biological weapons capabilities, and those that retained biological weapons programs focused on its utility for assassinations and sabotage operations in the immediate prelude to conflict. Although not a new capability, however, the potential use of biological weapons by special operations forces or intelligence operatives against fixed targets like naval bases, ports, and airbases was particularly attractive to some countries. Despite the Biological Weapons Convention and international efforts to combat the biological weapons threat, concerns about biological weapons use remain. The United States currently assesses only one country (North Korea) possesses an offensive biological weapons program and three countries (China, Iran, Russia) are engaged in activities that raise concerns about their compliance to the Biological Weapons Convention. Nations likely no longer see utility in developing or possessing biological weapons for use in large-scale, offensive military operations given the devastating capabilities of today’s advanced conventional weapons. Even as a deterrent, biological weapons have little-to-no utility against an adversary contemplating the use of biological weapons. Historically, almost all nations possessing biological weapons saw it as a deterrent against adversarial use. Most nations renounced first-use of biological weapons, holding biological weapons only to retaliate in kind. The use of weaponized Yersinia pestis (the causative agent of plague) by Imperial Japan against China during World War II is a glaring exception. In that case, Japan used biological weapons against a numerically superior opponent incapable of retaliation.