Defense Symposium Research Articles

Rapid developments in biotechnology, genetics and genomics are undoubtedly creating a variety of environmental, ethical, political and social challenges for advanced societies. But they also have severe implications for international peace and security because they open up tremendous avenues for the creation of new biological weapons. The genetically engineered ‘superbug’—highly lethal and resistant to environmental influence or any medical treatment—is only a small part of this story. Much more alarming, from an arms‐control perspective, are the possibilities of developing completely novel weapons on the basis of knowledge provided by biomedical research—developments that are already taking place. Such weapons, designed for new types of conflicts and warfare scenarios, secret operations or sabotage activities, are not mere science fiction, but are increasingly becoming a reality that we have to face. Here, we provide a systematic overview of the possible impact of biotechnology on the development of biological weapons. The history of biological warfare is nearly as old as the history of warfare itself. In ancient times, warring parties poisoned wells or used arrowheads with natural toxins. Mongol invaders catapulted plague victims into besieged cities, probably causing the first great plague epidemic in Europe, and British settlers distributed smallpox‐infected blankets to native Americans. Indeed, the insights into the nature of infectious diseases gained by Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch in the nineteenth century did not actually represent a great breakthrough in the use of infectious organisms as biological weapons. Similarly, the development of a bioweapon does not necessarily require genetic engineering—smallpox, plague and anthrax are deadly enough in their natural states. But the revolution in biotechnology, namely the new tools for analysing and specifically changing an organism's genetic material, has led to an increased risk of biowarfare due to several factors. First, the expansion of modern biotechnology in medical and pharmaceutical research and …

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