ARGUMENT: Assessing Biowarfare Biological Weapons in the “Shadow War”

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.

Glenn Cross, a former deputy national intelligence officer for Weapons of Mass Destruction responsible for biological weapons analysis, notes that 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.

Cross, writing in War on the Rocks, says that 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.

Cross says that the development and possession of biological weapons is trending dramatically downward since the end of World War II. “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,” Cross writes, adding that, currently, 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.

Do biological weapons have any role in the “Silent War” between great powers?

They do, but that role is limited to assassination attempts and special operations forces. In that sense, things have not changed since the Cold War. Targets of these assassination plots typically were political opponents, dissidents, journalists or academics critical of a regime, defectors, and individuals deemed a security threat.

….

Given realistic biological weapons threats focus largely on assassinations and special operations forces, embracing a deterrence by denial strategy against biological threats misses the mark. Under this strategy, a country would make major investments in public health in anticipation of a mass casualty attack on the American people. Although good reasons exist to increase funding for public health measures, the fear of biological weapons is not one of them. Doing so would assume an intent that is not currently evident and conflates intent with capability.

Cross concludes:

The threat of intentional, large-scale biological weapons dissemination likely is a thing of the past. Almost no nation, with the possible exception of North Korea, is intent on the theater-wide battlefield use of biological weapons. The threat today is that biological weapons will be used as a tool by intelligence services to assassinate or debilitate high-value targets, or by special forces to conduct small-scale, targeted attacks to sabotage facilities or deny their use by an adversary.

….

Biological weapons have a role in the “Shadow War” — which is far more insidious, far more difficult to detect, and far harder to defend against. It likely cannot be deterred using our current approaches and attribution is fraught with challenges, both technical and political.