Biological Warfare: Strategies, Risks, and Defenses

By Fouad Sabry

What is Biological Warfare

Biological warfare, also known as germ warfare, is the use of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, insects, and fungi with the intent to kill, harm or incapacitate humans, animals or plants as an act of war. Biological weapons are living organisms or replicating entities. Entomological (insect) warfare is a subtype of biological warfare.

How you will benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: Biological warfare

Chapter 2: Bioterrorism

Chapter 3: Biodefense

Chapter 4: Biological Weapons Convention

Chapter 5: Biological agent

Chapter 6: Ken Alibek

Chapter 7: Vozrozhdeniya Island

Chapter 8: National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center

Chapter 9: United States biological weapons program

Chapter 10: Al Hakum (Iraq)

(II) Answering the public top questions about biological warfare.

Who this book is for

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of Biological Warfare.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: May 29, 2024

Book preview

Chapter 1: Biological warfare

Biological warfare, also called germ warfare, biological warfare is the employment of biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, insects, and fungus with a killing intent, damage or disable human beings, Animals or plants as a war crime.

Biological weapons (often referred to as bio-weapons, agents of biological threat, or bio-agents) are living organisms or replicating entities ( ⁠i.e. viruses, which are not commonly regarded as living.

Entomological warfare (using insects) is a sort of biological warfare.

Several international treaties and customary international humanitarian law prohibit offensive biological warfare.

Biological warfare is separate from other forms of conflict involving weapons of mass destruction (WMD), such as nuclear, chemical, and radiological warfare. These are not conventional weapons, which are typically employed for their explosive, kinetic, or incendiary properties.

Biological weapons can be used in a variety of ways to obtain a strategic or tactical edge over the enemy, including through threats and actual deployments. Biological weapons, like some chemical weapons, may be helpful as area denial weapons. These agents may be fatal or nonlethal, and they may be aimed against a single person, a group of people, or an entire population. States and non-state actors can develop, acquire, stockpile, and employ such weapons. In the latter instance, or if a nation-state utilizes it covertly, it may also be deemed bioterrorism.

A biological strike might potentially result in a substantial number of civilian deaths and serious disruption of economic and social infrastructure. which they had been working with in the laboratory (though no one else was infected in those cases) — while there is no proof that their work was intended for biological warfare, it highlights the possibility of accidental infection even among cautious researchers who are aware of the dangers. While the containment of biological warfare is less of a worry for some criminal or terrorist groups, it remains a major concern for the military and civilian populations of practically all governments.

Since antiquity, primitive kinds of biological warfare have been employed.

In June 1763, a group of Native Americans lay siege to British-held Fort Pitt during the French and Indian War.

The germ hypothesis and advancements in bacteriology provided a new level of complexity to the techniques for the potential employment of bioagents in warfare by the year 1900. During World War I (1914–1918), the Imperial German government carried out biological sabotage in the form of anthrax and glanders, with mixed effects.

With the outbreak of World War II, the British Ministry of Supply established a biological warfare program at Porton Down, under the direction of microbiologist Paul Fildes. Winston Churchill championed the study, and tularemia, anthrax, brucellosis, and botulism toxins were quickly weaponized. Specifically, Gruinard Island in Scotland was polluted with anthrax over the course of 56 years of extensive testing. Although the United Kingdom never deployed the biological weapons it produced offensively, its program was the first to successfully weaponize and industrialize a number of lethal microorganisms.

Unit 731 of the Imperial Japanese Army conducted the most infamous program of the period during World War II, based at Pingfan in Manchuria and commanded by Lieutenant General Shirō Ishii.

This biological warfare research section frequently conducted fatal human experiments on inmates, Manufacturers manufactured biological weapons for military use.

Plague, brucellosis, tularemia, and later horse encephalomyelitis and vaccinia viruses were weaponized in Britain throughout the 1950s, but the programme was terminated unilaterally in 1956. The Biological Warfare Laboratories of the United States Army weaponized anthrax, tularemia, brucellosis, Q-fever, and others.

In the 1970s, Israel poisoned West Bank Palestinian land in order to create Israeli colonies.

The 1925 Geneva Protocol, which outlaws the use of biological and chemical weapons but not their possession or development, marked the beginning of international prohibitions on biological warfare.

Biological weapons are difficult to detect, inexpensive, and simple to employ, which makes them attractive to terrorists. In order to deliver comparable numbers of mass casualties per square kilometer, it is estimated that the cost of a biological weapon is around 0.5% of the cost of a conventional weapon. In addition, the manufacture of biological warfare agents is quite simple, as they can be created using the same technology that is used to create vaccinations, foods, spray devices, beverages, and medicines. Terrorists are attracted to biological warfare due to the ease with which they can escape before government or secret organizations even begin their inquiry. This is due to the fact that the prospective organism has a 3-to-7-day incubation period, after which the results