CSWMD OccasionalPaper-12

Occasional Paper 12
A Short History of
Biological Warfare:
From Pre-History to the
21st Century
W. Seth Carus
Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction
National Defense University
MR. CHARLES D. LUTES

Director
MR. JOHN P. CAVES, JR.

Deputy Director
Since its inception in 1994, the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass
Destruction (WMD Center) has been at the forefront of research on the
implications of weapons of mass destruction for U.S. security. Originally
focusing on threats to the military, the WMD Center now also applies its
expertise and body of research to the challenges of homeland security. The
Center’s mandate includes research, education, and outreach. Research
focuses on understanding the security challenges posed by WMD and on
fashioning effective responses thereto. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff has designated the Center as the focal point for WMD education in the
joint professional military education system. Education programs, including its
courses on countering WMD and consequence management, enhance
awareness in the next generation of military and civilian leaders of the WMD
threat as it relates to defense and homeland security policy, programs,
technology, and operations. As a part of its broad outreach efforts, the WMD
Center hosts annual symposia on key issues bringing together leaders and
experts from the government and private sectors. Visit the center online at
wmdcenter.dodlive.mil.
A Short History of
Biological Warfare
A Short History of
Biological Warfare:
From Pre-History to the
21st Century
W. Seth Carus

Occasional Paper, No. 12
National Defense University Press

Washington, D.C.
August 2017
Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied
within are solely those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent
the views of the Defense Department or any other agency of the Federal
Government. Cleared for public release; distribution unlimited.
Portions of this work may be quoted or reprinted without permis-

sion, provided that a standard source credit line is included. NDU Press
would appreciate a courtesy copy of reprints or reviews.
First printing, August 2017

Contents
Introduction.............................................................................................. 1
Early Use (through 1900)......................................................................... 2
Prehistoric Biological Warfare................................................................. 3
Ancient BW (500 BCE to 1000 AD).......................................................... 4
Medieval and Early Modern BW (1000 AD to 1750 AD)........................ 5
Late Modern BW (1750 AD to 1900 AD)................................................. 7
Summation............................................................................................. 11
The Origins of Modern BW (1900–1945).............................................. 12
Summation............................................................................................. 27
The Cold War and Beyond (1945–Present)........................................... 27
Summary................................................................................................. 44
Biological Warfare’s Future................................................................... 44
Appendix 1. Additional Reading........................................................... 46
Appendix 2. Definitions and Methodology.......................................... 48
Notes....................................................................................................... 51
About the Author.................................................................................. 69

A Short History of Biological Warfare
Introduction
This short monograph reviews the history of biological warfare (BW) from
prehistory to the present. It covers what we know about the practice of BW and
briefly describes the programs that developed BW weapons based on the best
available research. To the extent possible, it primarily draws on the work of his-
torians who used primary sources, relying where possible on studies specifically
focused on BW. By broadening our knowledge of BW, such studies have enabled
us to write about the topic with more accuracy and detail than could have been
done even a few years ago.
This is an overview, not a definitive history. Much about BW remains un-
known, either because it is unknowable (due in some cases to the deliberate de-
struction of records) or because it is knowable only to some people (such as those
who might have access to classified information) or because of the absence of
academic research.1
This survey breaks the history of BW into three periods. The first section
examines prehistory to 1900—the period before scientific advances proved that
microorganisms were the cause of many diseases. Despite many claims to the con-
trary, resort to BW was exceedingly rare during this era. Readers interested only
in BW’s modern history can skip this section.
The second section looks at the years from 1900 through 1945. This period
saw the emergence of state BW programs, the employment of biological weapons
in both world wars, and the use of biological agents by nonstate actors, including
criminals. This period witnessed the most significant resort to BW. It included
the first organized state campaign to wage BW—sabotage operations organized
by the German government during World War I. It also saw the most extensive
use—the Japanese attacks in China. Almost all the known victims of BW were
Chinese, mostly civilians, who were killed in these operations. This period also saw
the initial efforts to control BW in the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which essentially
prohibited the first use of BW agents.
Finally, the third section, covering the period from 1945 to the present, fo-
cuses mostly on developments during the Cold War, including descriptions of
1
CSWMD Occasional Paper 12
state BW programs as well as known uses of biological agents by states, terrorists,

and criminals. Despite the development of highly sophisticated techniques for
dissemination of biological agents by the United States and the Soviet Union
during the Cold War (the two countries with the largest and most advanced BW
programs ever organized), most of the known programs were small and possessed
only crude dissemination capabilities. The known uses were unsophisticated as
well, essentially no more advanced than what the Germans did during World War
I. This era also saw the negotiation of the 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons
Convention (BWC).
This history focuses on those agents covered by the BWC, which prohibited
weapons disseminating biological agents or toxins. Biological agents are replicat-
ing biological entities, such as bacteria. Toxins, poisons of biological origin, are
similar to chemical warfare agents and also have been banned by the Chemical
Weapons Convention. Definitional matters are discussed in more detail in ap-
pendix 2.
Biological agents are referred to by their scientific name. Following scientific
practice, the name is abbreviated after the first mention. Thus, Bacillus anthra-
cis (commonly, but incorrectly, called anthrax), which causes several diseases (in-
cluding cutaneous anthrax, inhalational anthrax, and gastrointestinal anthrax), is
hereafter called B. anthracis. Those seeking additional information about specific
diseases should refer to specialist works that describe them in more detail.2
Readers wishing more detailed information should look at the references
cited in the notes. Appendix 1 also provides suggested readings.
Early Use (through 1900)

Biological warfare, as we understand it today, is a modern invention. It was not
until the middle of the 19th century that the pioneering scientific research of Louis
Pasteur in France and Robert Koch in Germany demonstrated that microorganisms
could cause disease. Before then, people had a limited understanding of disease cau-
sation, and what they thought they knew was often wrong. Many people ascribed
diseases to supernatural causes. It is thus not surprising that the Romans used the
same word, veneficium, for both “poisoning” and “practicing sorcery.”3 Even after
2
the emergence of scientific explanations for disease causation, there were many
competing theories, generally partly or wholly wrong. Some emphasized environ-
mental factors, such as the miasma theories that focused on the harmful effects of
rotting organic matter, while others focused on supposed imbalances in the body as
the likely cause of specific diseases.4
Further complicating matters, medical diagnosis was often poor. Before the
widespread use of autopsies to support clinical research and the development of
modern diagnostic techniques, medical practitioners often had difficulty differ-
entiating between diseases with similar symptoms. For example, the symptoms
of some diseases caused by poison can mimic those of diseases caused by micro-
organisms. Thus, it was difficult to differentiate between the effects of strychnine,
a common arrow poison obtained from certain species of Strychnos plants found
in sub-Saharan Africa, and tetanus, which is caused by the pathogen Clostridium
tetani.5 Similarly, many physicians could not distinguish between different fever-
causing diseases. It was not until 1837 that an American doctor described the
differences between typhoid and typhus fevers.6 Even in the late 19th century, most
doctors could not distinguish typhoid fever from malaria.7
Nonetheless, there is evidence that some people in past eras deliberately tried
to spread diseases that we now know are spread by pathogens, and that those ac-
tions plausibly could have caused disease transmission. This occurred with both
plague and smallpox, which some people thought could be transmitted by fomi-
tes (contaminated materials, such as bedding or clothes). Smallpox can be spread
through such exposure, although the risk of transmission is relatively small.8 In
contrast, plague is not transmitted by contaminated material; only in the late 19th
century was the flea proved to be the vector for the Yersinia pestis, the organism
that causes plague.9
Prehistoric Biological Warfare

Biological warfare may have originated in prehistory, although that is not
certain. Archeologists believe that poisons were used widely for fishing, hunting,
and warfare by nomadic and primitive tribal societies, although direct evidence is
scanty for the prehistoric period. The poisons were toxins obtained from readily
3
available plants or animals.10 In some cases, however, primitive peoples contami-

nated arrows in ways that seemed likely to introduce pathogens. Such techniques
were employed by tribes located in North America, South America, sub-Saharan
Africa, and Southeast Asia.11
The methods used varied widely. Sometimes, the methods were quite simple,
as when Melanesian tribesmen in what is now Vanuatu covered arrows with the
contents of crab burrows and thus contaminated them with Clostridium tetani (the
organism causing tetanus).12 Other methods were quite elaborate. The Scythians,
a nomadic tribe that inhabited what is now Ukraine, during the era of Classical
Greece, used an elaborate technique to produce an arrow poison that almost cer-
tainly contained some pathogens. One ancient account reports that the Scythians
killed young vipers and allowed them to rot. At the same time, they took human
blood, put it into a small vessel, and allowed it to decompose. They then mixed the
liquid from the rotten vipers and the sediments from the decomposed blood and
put it on arrowheads.13
Primitive tribes have used such methods even in the modern era. These tech-
niques, reportedly only used in warfare and not for hunting, would have produced
uneven results, dependent as they were on the vagaries of nature to inoculate their
concoctions with a dangerous pathogen. Unfortunately, only a handful of scien-
tific studies have been conducted on poisoned arrows to look for the presence of
pathogens, and those are dated (some to the 1890s).14 For that reason, we do not
know the extent of these practices, the likely viability of the organisms, or their
possible effectiveness.
Ancient BW (500 BCE to 1000 AD)

Some authors assert that BW was practiced widely in the ancient world.15
Such claims should be viewed skeptically, because most of the alleged incidents
almost certainly never occurred. Indeed, there is no reliable evidence for BW
in the ancient world, apart from contaminated arrows such as those made by
the Scythians.16 What is undeniable, however, is that some people did fear the
intentional spread of disease. We are told, for example, that some Athenians
initially but falsely thought that the Spartans poisoned their water, thus causing
4
the devastating 430 BCE “plague” outbreak in Athens during the Peloponnesian
War (431–404 BCE).17
The absence of BW is surprising, given the apparent ubiquity of poisoned
arrows among hunter-gatherer communities. The use of arrow poisons mostly dis-
appeared in the civilizations that arose in the Mediterranean world, the Tigris-
Euphrates river valleys, the Indian subcontinent, China, and elsewhere. What
seems clear is that most early civilizations developed an antipathy toward the use
of poison in warfare. This was most explicit in ancient India, where Brahmins were
forbidden the use of poisoned weapons. However, an Indian manual of statecraft
from the same era, the Kautiliya Arthasastra, advised rulers on the clandestine use
of poisons, suggesting that the prohibition may have been more theoretical than
real.18 Some sources also claim that the Greeks of the classical world believed only
barbarians used poisons to fight wars, but the supporting evidence is thin, and the
topic merits more serious study.19
Unfortunately, there is no historical record to help understand why the transi-
tion from hunter-gatherer bands to ancient civilizations resulted in the abandon-
ment of poison as a common weapon of organized violence. It may have some-
thing to do with transformed social structures or with changes in the character
of warfare. Hunter-gatherer warfare bears little resemblance to that practiced by
larger, settled societies. Hunter-gatherers rely on ambushes, typically finding and
killing isolated members of other bands, or on formalistic “line battles,” ritualistic
displays of aggression that usually resulted in few deaths.20 Whatever the cause,
the propensity to use poison in warfare largely disappeared.
Medieval and Early Modern BW (1000 AD to 1750 AD)

Although there are numerous allegations of BW during the medieval and early
modern eras, the evidence supporting all but one of them is weak or nonexistent.21
The most plausible instance of BW occurred in 1346 during the Mongol siege of
Caffa, a Genoese city located in modern Crimea. Our knowledge of this incident is
based on one source, a Genoese chronicle written by Gabriele de’ Mussi. Although
not an eyewitness, de’ Mussi wrote soon after the events, clearly had access to peo-
ple who had been present, and is considered highly credible. He reported that the
5
Mongols, then in control of the territory around Caffa, besieged the town in 1345
but were forced to retreat in 1346 when their army suffered a plague outbreak. Be-
fore abandoning the siege, the Mongols catapulted “what seemed like mountains
of dead” into Caffa, which de’ Mussi says caused an outbreak in the city. Although
the Genoese clearly suffered heavily, they were not forced to abandon Caffa. Some
of the survivors carried the disease with them when they left Caffa, and de’ Mussi
attributes the further spread of the plague to the return of these people to their
homes. This view is no longer accepted; we now know that the plague entered
Western Europe through multiple routes. Nevertheless, his description of events
is consistent with our modern understanding of Yersinia pestis, the organism that
causes plague.22
The siege of Caffa is mentioned in several medieval accounts, but de’ Mussi’s
is the only one to mention the plague outbreak. Moreover, none of our accounts
comes from Mongol sources. Thus, even if the events occurred as described, we
do not know for certain that the Mongols intended to spread disease. None of
the modern accounts discuss Mongol concepts of disease causation, so we do not
know if the Mongols believed that the bodies of dead plague victims might spread
the plague. It also is unclear whether the Mongols would have had time to gain an
empirical understanding of how Y. pestis spread. Although “plagues” were common
in the ancient world, most were caused by other pathogens, and the last major
plague outbreak tied to Y. pestis (the Plague of Justinian) occurred around 800
years earlier. The medieval Black Death would have been something altogether
new to the Mongols.23 Finally, fleas living on rats are the primary vectors for
spreading the plague, not dead bodies, and they leave a corpse as the body cools
down. Hence, unless the catapulted bodies were recently dead, it is unlikely that
they would have been infested with fleas.24
There were few if any other examples of BW during these years, although
some people considered using disease as a weapon. Documents in the Venetian ar-
chives suggest that they discussed the possibility when attempting (1649–1651) to
break the Turkish siege of a town in Crete.25 Many people also feared intentional
disease, although armies invariably lost more soldiers to disease from natural causes
than from enemy weapons prior to the 20th century. Some Venetians believed the
6
Byzantines were responsible for an 1171 “plague” outbreak that erupted while
their fleet was wintering on the island of Chios, but this seems doubtful. There was
no explanation for how the Byzantines might have caused the outbreak.26 Perhaps
the best-documented examples are the scapegoating that occurred during the Eu-
ropean plague from 1348 to 1351, which was widely blamed on foreigners, Jews,
and beggars. Scapegoating appeared again during plague outbreaks in the late 16th
and early 17th centuries. The tendency to blame disease outbreaks on intentional
acts has varied over time.27
Late Modern BW (1750 AD to 1900 AD)

During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, several documented attempts
were made to deliberately spread biological agents, although there were no signifi-
cant advances in medicine or the biological sciences to enhance the effectiveness
of BW. Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek discovered the existence of microor-
ganisms in the 1670s, but it was not until the 1860s and 1870s that the pioneering
research of Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch proved that microorganisms could
cause disease in humans and animals. The first identified human pathogen was B.
anthracis, the organism that causes anthrax, which Koch demonstrated could cause
disease in a series of experiments he described in an 1876 article. Proof of the
germ theory provided the scientific underpinnings for the use of biological agents
as weapons, but it took decades for scientists to associate specific pathogens to
specific diseases, as well as to isolate and cultivate them.28 None of the attempted
instances of BW prior to 1900 was based on a modern scientific understanding of
infectious disease.
The first well-documented case of BW was by the British against Native
Americans in 1763. That year, a confederation of Native American tribes launched
what is now called Pontiac’s Rebellion. The Indians, dissatisfied with the results
of the French and Indian War, which ceded control of Canada to the British
and thus led to British domination of the Great Lakes region, launched a series
of attacks on forts and settlements along the western frontier of the northern
tier of Britain’s American colonies. From around June 22 through August 20, the
Delaware loosely besieged Fort Pitt, a British fortification on the site of modern
7
Pittsburgh. On June 24, a group of Delaware parlayed with the fort’s leaders and
tried to convince the British to abandon their post. At the end of the parlay, the
British gave the departing Indian chiefs food and goods. Among the gifts were
blankets and a handkerchief taken from the fort’s smallpox hospital, provided with
the hope that they would cause a smallpox outbreak.29
This incident often is attributed to the commander of British forces in North
America at the time, Sir Jeffery Amherst, because letters survive showing that he
also advocated spreading smallpox among the hostile Indians. However, those let-
ters were written in July, weeks after the contaminated material was given to the
Delaware, and there is no evidence to suggest that Amherst’s suggestion led to any
follow-on actions.30
Less clear are the consequences of the attack. Some recent accounts incor-
rectly assert that large numbers of Indians were killed due to the activities of those
at Fort Pitt and that the outbreak broke the siege. The record does not support
such claims. One historian argues that documentary evidence shows that only
about 100 Indians died during this smallpox outbreak. Moreover, at least some
historians believe that the epidemic started well before the late June encounter
at Fort Pitt.31 Given that smallpox was circulating already among many of these
same tribes during the French and Indian War (1756–1763), it would be surpris-
ing to discover that there were large numbers of people susceptible to the disease
by the time of the Fort Pitt incident.32
Nor is there necessarily an association between the smallpox victims of 1763
and what happened at Fort Pitt. There were many other contacts between Europe-
ans and Indians during this period, and it is far more likely that the smallpox out-
break resulted from those interactions than from the transmission caused by the
Fort Pitt material.33 Although exposure to material contaminated with smallpox
virus can lead to infection, it is a relatively low probability route of transmission.
Smallpox virus degrades in the environment, and over time the virus particles on
the contaminated material would have lost infectivity and virulence.34 Hence, it
is perhaps unsurprising that Indians identified by name as having been associated
with the Fort Pitt incident never became sick and are known to have survived.35
8
What is incontestable, however, is that some British soldiers deliberately tried

to spread smallpox, that the idea of disseminating the disease was discussed at the
highest levels of command in British North America, and that senior officers con-
doned the action. However, not all were convinced of the strategy. Many British
troops and colonials were not immune, given that there was no routine smallpox
vaccination at the time. Indeed, even some senior British officers were vulnerable
and thus less than enthusiastic about deliberately spreading the disease.36
There are a handful of other episodes of attempted deliberate disease trans-
mission. Although there are claims that whites routinely introduced disease into
Native American populations during the 19th century, this was not true.37 The only
credible allegation was made by Isaac McCoy, a prominent Baptist missionary
who also worked for the U.S. Government as an Indian agent. He claimed to have
obtained a firsthand account of an attempt to deliberately spread smallpox among
the Pawnee in 1831. McCoy’s source told him that the men in charge of a trade
caravan traveling from St. Louis to Santa Fe, angry at previous harassment by the
Pawnee, planned to transmit smallpox to the Indians by using tobacco mixed with
smallpox (probably from scabs) or smallpox-contaminated clothing. Allegedly, the
attempt succeeded and caused a subsequent disease outbreak among the Pawnee,
killing thousands. The smallpox epidemic is well documented, but no documents
have surfaced that might confirm McCoy’s allegation.38 Even if true, it also is im-
possible to prove that the outbreak resulted from the contaminated material. As
previously noted, there were many interactions between whites and Native Ameri-
can communities, and the disease could have been spread through other contacts.
Some historians argue that the first smallpox outbreak in Australia, which
occurred in early 1789, just over a year after the establishment of the first British
colony, may have been deliberate. The colony, comprising transported convicts,
arrived in January 1788 and quickly faced numerous difficulties, including increas-
ingly hostile relations with the nearby Aboriginal peoples. In April 1789, the Brit-
ish authorities discovered that a smallpox outbreak had erupted in the Aboriginal
population. The outbreak devastated the population, and some people credited it
with allowing the colony to survive in the face of growing Aborigine hostility. The
origins of this outbreak mystified the British at the time, because the new colony
9
was demonstrably free of smallpox, and there was no evidence of smallpox among
the Aborigines prior to the arrival of the colonists. For that reason, it was impos-
sible for the disease to have spread from the white settlers by natural causes.39
Several theories have been suggested to account for this mysterious outbreak,
but two alternatives currently are favored. One theory is that the disease might
have been introduced by Macassar fishermen from the Indonesian island of Su-
lawesi (once called Celebes). These fishermen regularly visited Australia’s northern
shore to harvest sea slugs, and it is believed that they were subjected to periodic
outbreaks of smallpox by the late 1700s. For this to have happened, smallpox
would have had to spread from one small group of Aborigines to another, travel-
ing the 2,000-mile distance from the northern coast to the area around the new
colony.40
Some dissenting historians claim that the smallpox outbreak resulted from a
deliberate introduction.41 They reject the theory that Macassar fisherman intro-
duced the disease, arguing that it would have been difficult to sustain the chain
of transmission such a long distance through such a sparsely inhabited area. They
argue that the colonists had the motive and capability to use smallpox as a weapon
against the Aborigines. At least one of the Royal Marine officers tasked to protect
the colony had served in North America at the time of the Fort Pitt episode and
plausibly may have known of that attack. The only known smallpox in the whole
area was in the possession of a British physician who brought the smallpox mate-
rial to inoculate the colonists should the need arise.42 This involved a technique
called variolation to immunize people against smallpox by exposing them to ma-
terial taken from smallpox victims.43 At best, this is a highly circumstantial case,
so in the absence of new evidence, there is no way to ascertain how the smallpox
was introduced.
It also is possible that there were deliberate introductions of smallpox by Por-
tuguese settlers into the indigenous population of Brazil. Claude Lévi-Strauss, the
famed anthropologist, heard these reports and considered them credible. These
accounts dated the practice to as far back as the 16th century and suggested that it
continued into the 19th century.44 In contrast, there is no reason to believe allega-
tions that the Spanish did the same.45
10
There also were incidents of failed attempts to spread biological agents. Dur-
ing a 1784–1785 plague outbreak in Tunis, there was considerable tension be-
tween the local Muslims and the European Christians residing there. The Euro-
peans isolated themselves from the rest of the city, and in reaction, some Muslims
buried plague victims near the European enclave and tossed cloth soaked in the
pus from plague buboes into the European sector.46 This incident is misrepresent-
ed in some sources that incorrectly claim that a besieging Muslim army catapulted
contaminated clothing.47
Better documented is an incident during the American Civil War in which a
Confederate physician tried to spread yellow fever in Northern cities and among
Union troops. Although he successfully obtained clothing and bedclothes con-
taminated by yellow fever victims and distributed some of it in Washington, DC,
the action produced no results. The plot probably was not authorized by the Con-
federate government in Richmond, but it was abetted by Confederate officials
in Canada.48 We now know that the plan could not have worked. In the 1860s,
many physicians believed that yellow fever could be spread through contact with
contaminated materials, as was true for smallpox. It was not until 1900, however,
that scientific studies demonstrated that yellow fever was spread by mosquitoes
and could not be transmitted using contaminated material.49
Interestingly, some people claimed during and after the Civil War that the
other side was responsible for deliberately spreading disease. Thus, on one occa-
sion, the North repatriated some Southern prisoners of war who were sick with
smallpox, which led some Southerners to claim that the Northerners deliberately
sought to spread the disease. On another occasion, Southerners alleged that the
North deliberately inoculated prisoners of war with syphilis-contaminated small-
pox vaccine. Some Northerners claimed that prisoners of war in the notorious
Andersonville Prison were similarly inoculated with contaminated vaccine. There
is no evidence to support any of these allegations.50
Summation
Although fears of intentional disease existed before 1900, and some people
thought about spreading disease, such intentions were rarely acted upon. It is also
11
evident that such actions usually had little effect. The most catastrophic uses of
biological agents would have targeted indigenous populations, such as the alleged
deliberate introduction of smallpox in Australia.
The Origins of Modern BW (1900–1945)

The first decades of the 20th century saw the creation of several BW programs,
mostly small and unsophisticated. The Germans organized the first documented
state program at the start of World War I (probably in late 1914 or early 1915).
They also were the first to employ biological weapons and the first to embark on
a BW campaign, attempting to use biological agents in multiple countries over
the course of several years. During the period between the two world wars, it
appears that France, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Poland, and the Soviet Union all had
BW programs, although they varied substantially in scope. The Japanese program
was by far the largest, possibly with more people and resources than all the others
combined.
Views of BW varied considerably. During World War I, the Germans under-
took what have been called biological sabotage operations, deliberately targeting
animals and not people. Others thought that BW could be employed to create tac-
tical effects on the battlefield or even mass casualties to achieve a strategic impact.
Many people were skeptical of the utility of BW and considered its use unsavory
or immoral, resulting in resistance to its employment.
Biological weapons were used during World War II, primarily by the Japa-
nese. Their operations mostly were large-scale biological sabotage, although they
did make some attacks involving aircraft release of fleas infected with the plague-
causing organism. Resistance groups in Eastern Europe also employed biologi-
cal agents against the occupying Germans, also relying on crude dissemination
means. This experience demonstrated the limitations of BW at that time.
World War I (1915–1918)
The origins of the German BW program are obscure. By 1915, however, the
Germans began producing several animal pathogens, particularly B. anthracis and
Pseudomonas mallei (the agent that causes glanders).51 Most armies at the time
12
depended on horses and mules to move supplies, and so the German BW efforts
focused primarily on such animals. The Germans operated globally and are known
to have attempted to spread disease in Argentina, Finland (then a part of Russia),
France, and the United States, and possibly other countries as well.52 For example,
stocks of Germany’s biological agents were discovered in Romania, but it is not
known if they were used there.53 There is some evidence that the French also
mounted biological sabotage operations in 1916.54
A great deal is known about German BW operations in the United States.
These activities, which occurred while the United States was still a neutral country,
were part of a larger sabotage effort. The Germans targeted the munitions that
U.S. industry was manufacturing for the Allies, including attacks on factories,
storage facilities, and ships. These attacks, which caused considerable loss of life,
were controlled by the staff of the German embassy in Washington, DC.55 The
Germans’ biological sabotage campaign initially relied on pathogens shipped to
the United States through covert channels, but it proved difficult to ensure that
their agents received viable organisms in this way. Accordingly, they established a
small laboratory in the basement of a Silver Spring, Maryland, house to grow their
biological agents. The Germans organized a network of operatives in several port
cities to disseminate the pathogens.56
The effectiveness of these attacks is uncertain. The most careful review of the
evidence suggests that they caused only minor results.57 The virulence of the cul-
tures used in these attacks is unknown. Not much is known about how the attacks
were conducted, but reliance on unskilled dockworkers raises questions about the
frequency of the attacks and whether they were carried out in ways likely to result
in disease.
Mark Wheelis, who conducted the most careful study of the German BW
program, argues that it was significant in several respects. It was the first orga-
nized state BW program; it was the first BW program that relied on a scientific
understanding of disease, based on the microbiological discoveries of the previous
decades; it was one of only two BW campaigns mounted in wartime (the other
was Japan’s during World War II); and it was the only substantial BW campaign
undertaken by clandestine state agents.58
13
BW Arms Control: The 1925 Geneva Protocol
Some legal experts have argued that BW was prohibited under customary
international law prior to 1925, while others have contended that it was banned by
the prohibition against the use of poisons in the 1907 Hague Convention. How-
ever, the 1925 Geneva Protocol was the first explicit ban on the use of biologi-
cal agents as weapons of war.59 The extensive employment of chemical weapons
(CW) during World War I led to efforts—both by military leaders who opposed
them for practical reasons and by others who had moral objections— to pre-
vent their future use. While the focus of the agreement negotiated, the Geneva
Protocol, was on chemical weapons, it also prohibited “the use of bacteriological
methods of warfare.” This proscription, which was introduced at the request of the
Polish government, subsequently was taken to cover the employment of any mi-
croorganisms, not just bacteria (viruses had not yet been discovered at the time).60
It appears that the Poles requested the inclusion of bacteriological agents due to
their concerns that the Soviet Union had initiated a BW program.61
The scope of the protocol was limited. It only applied to conflicts between
countries adhering to the agreement, meaning it posed no binding constraints
on employment in internal conflicts or for use against countries that were not
signatories. Nor did it prohibit possession of biological weapons. Many nations
added reservations to their adherence asserting a continued right to retaliate in
kind should they be attacked by chemical or biological agents, which transformed
the protocol into a “no first use” agreement. Most of the major powers ratified
the Geneva Protocol, including France, Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union,
but China did not do so until 1952, Japan until 1970, and the United States until
1971.62
These legal prohibitions failed to prevent further use of chemical and biologi-
cal weapons. The Italians, who were a party to the protocol, extensively employed
chemical agents during their 1935 invasion of Ethiopia, arguing that atrocities
(unrelated to CW use) committed by their enemies justified retaliatory CW em-
ployment. The Italians were not sanctioned by the international community. The
Japanese, who did not yet adhere to the protocol, extensively employed chemical
and biological agents in China during World War II. Other countries did not
14
use chemical or biological weapons, probably because their military and political
leaders were skeptical about the utility of such weapons or because they feared en-
emy retaliation. In those cases, legal restrictions accentuated other tendencies that
militated against the employment of chemical and biological weapons.63
Japanese BW (1939–1945)
The Japanese BW program is significant for several reasons. First, the Japa-
nese used their agents in China in the most extensively known employment of bi-
ological weapons, probably killing tens of thousands of Chinese, mostly civilians.
Second, the Japanese program was one of the largest ever organized, exceeded in
size only by the Cold War programs of the Soviet Union and possibly the United
States.
The origins of the Japanese program date to 1925, during the negotiation of
the Geneva Protocol. At that time, Ishii Shiro, an Imperial Japanese army physi-
cian, became convinced that Japan needed to develop biological weapons, believ-
ing that BW must be an effective form of warfare if the Western powers wanted
to ban it. It was not until 1932, however, that the first biological weapons research
facility was established at the army’s medical school in Tokyo. Another facility,
apparently intended for human experimentation, was created the next year in Jap-
anese-occupied Manchuria. The program was further expanded in 1936 with the
organization of Unit 731 (known as the Kwantung Army Epidemic Prevention
Division), along with the Kwantung Army Military Horse Epidemic Prevention
Workshop, later known as Unit 100.64
The program was quite primitive in many ways (“amateurish” in the view
of one BW expert).65 The Japanese developed methods for disseminating fleas
infected with Y. pestis, the organism responsible for plague, from aircraft, as well
as bombs that could be filled with agent slurries that would explode and generate
infectious droplets. Although they experimented with an aircraft sprayer to spread
biological aerosols, they abandoned the effort after only a few tests. They also ap-
pear to have dropped contaminated food from planes and used soldiers to pour
pathogen slurries into water supplies.66
15
The Japanese program is most notorious for its research activities, which in-
cluded extensive human experimentation. People were exposed to different bio-
logical agents, and the course of their disease was studied. In some cases, the
victims were dissected while still alive. It is known that thousands of people died
in those experiments, possibly as many as 10,000.67
The Japanese employed their BW capabilities against the Soviets and Chi-
nese on multiple occasions, although there is some uncertainty about the scope
of their activities. A Chinese researcher has identified about 161 such operations
during the late 1930s and 1940s, but that estimate may be too high. In any case,
it includes many small-scale attacks in addition to a few large campaigns that
involved extensive dissemination of biological agents. A Western historian iden-
tified seven operations from 1939 to 1942, but that list included only the most
significant attacks.68 What seems clear is that the major attacks ended in 1942.
The Japanese tried to use biological agents during the so-called Nomonhan
(Kahalkin-Gol) Incident, a border war fought with the Soviet Union from May to
September 1939. The Japanese made several attempts to spread biological agents
but did so in a crude fashion unlikely to cause casualties. According to accounts
given many years later by soldiers who participated in the operation, the Japa-
nese poured Salmonella typhi, the organism responsible for typhoid, into a river
upstream of Soviet forces. There is no evidence that any Soviet personnel were
infected (the organisms probably did not survive once in the water), but at least
some of the Japanese soldiers involved in the operation became sick and died.69
Japanese dissemination methods could cause epidemics, but effective medical
and public health response could limit the danger. Some of the earliest attacks
against the Chinese occurred in Zhejiang Province. On October 27, 1940, Japa-
nese aircraft dropped packages of rice and wheat containing fleas infected with
Y. pestis on the Chinese port city of Ningbo. The first victim died on October 30.
Local officials only recognized the presence of plague on November 4, although
laboratory confirmation took until November 8. A coordinated local response was
undertaken, which included measures to treat victims and other measures to limit
further spread. Those who might have been exposed were isolated, contacts of
patients were tracked, the area where the attack occurred was quarantined, steps
16
were taken to bury the dead safely, and a rat eradication campaign was organized
to prevent further spread and to ensure the disease did not become endemic. These
measures were supported by an effective public communications campaign. The
outbreak was brought under control by December 1 at the cost of 106 lives.70
In contrast, an attack on October 4 on the river town of Quzhou using the
same techniques resulted in more deaths. The outbreak emerged far more slowly
than the one in Ningbo. The first known case was identified 38 days after the at-
tack. Even after 8 weeks, there were only 22 known cases (21 of the victims died).
The outbreak extended into 1941, killing another 275 people. Effective public
health responses probably could have reduced the number of deaths to a handful.
The problem was an uncoordinated and slow response, poor leadership by govern-
ment officials and local elites, and inept laboratories and public health organiza-
tions.71
Unfortunately, refugees took the plague with them to surrounding rural areas
and spread the disease. More than 600 died in Yin County, which surrounded
Ningbo. In the counties around Quzhou, it appears that another 2,000 died.72
Thus, approximately 3,000 people were killed during the outbreak. Most of these
deaths could have been prevented through effective public health interventions.
The largest Japanese employment of biological weapons occurred during
the Zhe-Gan (Zhejiang-Jiangxi) campaign. This operation was a response to the
April 18, 1942, Doolittle Raid, which was the first U.S. air attack on the Japanese
homeland. The B-25 bombers used in the Doolittle Raid flew to Zhejiang Prov-
ince, the only coastal area still under Chinese control. The raid alarmed the Japa-
nese military because its leaders feared that the United States would use newly
improved airfields in Zhejiang to mount additional air attacks on the Japanese
islands. Accordingly, the Japanese organized a massive incursion into Zhejiang
intended to destroy infrastructure that could be used to support bombing raids.73
The Zhe-Gan campaign (May to September 1942) was one of the largest of-
fensives mounted by the Japanese against the Chinese in the last 4 years of the war.
The Japanese assigned 8 divisions and 3 separate brigades to the attack, a signifi-
cant portion of the 22 divisions belonging to its China Expeditionary Army. The
17
175,000 Japanese troops confronted about 260,000 poorly equipped and trained
Chinese troops and easily overwhelmed them.74
Spreading biological agents was an integral part of the Zhe-Gan campaign.
In May 1942, the Japanese spread Y. pestis and other pathogens by aircraft, focus-
ing on the Zhenjiang-Jiangxi Railway. As the Japanese began their withdrawal in
August 1942 from the areas they had occupied, they contaminated water supplies
with the organisms responsible for causing cholera, typhoid, and paratyphoid.
They also spread B. anthracis in rice fields, released fleas infected with Y. pestis, and
gave the Chinese cakes contaminated with unspecified pathogens. These activities
were conducted under the direct control of Ishii.75 At the end of the operation, the
Japanese reportedly infected 3,000 Chinese prisoners of war by giving them food
contaminated with the organisms responsible for typhoid and paratyphoid. The
prisoners were then freed to spread the disease further.76
The Japanese claimed that they lost only 1,000 dead and another 10,000
wounded or sick from all causes while in turn causing 30,000 Chinese military
losses.77 In addition, the Japanese killed large numbers of civilians, especially in
communities that had assisted the U.S. Airmen involved in the Doolittle Raid. A
senior U.S. military officer estimated that as many as 250,000 Chinese died as a
result of the Japanese campaign.78
Spreading biological agents caused many people to become ill. A Chinese
account claims that the BW attacks caused 1 million people to become sick, kill-
ing a “few” tens of thousands.79 It is impossible to verify this estimate; the actual
numbers might have been far lower. The Japanese also managed to infect many of
their own troops during the operation, causing 10,000 to become sick and killing
1,700, according to one account.80
What were the Japanese trying to accomplish? The leaders of the BW pro-
gram apparently viewed the operations as field experiments, as a test of the po-
tential effectiveness of biological weapons. Martin Furmanski, a U.S. expert who
has studied the action, suggests that the actions also may have been intended to
support the campaign’s broader strategic objectives by spreading biological agents
to prevent the Chinese from establishing airbases for U.S. strategic bombers. For
18
that reason, this may have been the most significant BW campaign ever con-
ducted because it was undertaken to achieve strategic and operational objectives.81
Some accounts suggest that Japan’s military leaders were unhappy with the
number of their own soldiers who became infected during the operation.82 For
this reason, it appears that they refused to authorize additional large-scale biologi-
cal weapons employment, and there were no more major BW attacks.
The Japanese continued to conduct smaller BW operations through the end
of the war. Although most of the attacks were aimed at China, the Japanese also
tried to cause disease outbreaks in the Soviet Union. They sent infected individuals
across the border, hoping that they would infect others. In addition, the Japanese
released balloons carrying flasks filled with biological agents, spreading the agent
in the area around the point of dissemination.83 It does not appear that these at-
tempts had any result.
Some Chinese sources claim that the Japanese attacks killed hundreds of
thousands of people. One study puts the number at 740,000.84 A Western expert
who has studied the Japanese attacks in some detail, however, concluded, “The
Japanese BW program caused a few tens of thousands of deaths overall, almost
all Chinese civilians (if you don’t count whatever ‘blowback’ casualties occurred
among Japanese troops).”85 At least some of the casualties probably resulted from
epidemics that continued after the initial dissemination. In addition to person-to-
person transmission, biological weapon attacks can create new enzootic reservoirs
and thus cause outbreaks long after the initial dissemination.86 Clearly, the victims
of such epidemics are as much BW casualties as those infected in the initial at-
tack. Whichever figure is correct, Japan’s BW attacks in China were history’s most
lethal uses of biological weapons.
The Soviet Union held a war crimes trial for Japanese soldiers associated with
their BW program. The United States refused to assist in the effort, choosing
to view it as a politically motivated propaganda stunt. The United States never
prosecuted anyone for their involvement in Japan’s BW program, having offered
amnesty in return for information about what the Japanese accomplished. It is
generally agreed that the Japanese information was incomplete and proved to have
little value.87
19
Other State BW Programs
Several other countries had BW programs during the first half of the 20th
century. Some were small or poorly organized, while others were large and well-or-
ganized. In no case, however, is there evidence of biological weapons employment.
Canada. In 1937, Sir Frederick Banting, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in
1923 for the co-discovery of insulin, began agitating for Canada to organize a BW
program. Although his efforts met with considerable opposition, both in Canada
and the United Kingdom, exploratory research was under way by mid-1940. Dur-
ing the war, the Canadians investigated several biological warfare agents, includ-
ing the pathogens responsible for anthrax, brucellosis, and tularemia, and they
produced small quantities of B. anthracis for munitions testing. Canadian facili-
ties tested several biological weapons, including the British Mark I, a 4-pound
bomblet filled with the agents causing brucellosis and tularemia. Botulinum toxin
also was a part of the program; the Canadians tested a cluster munition that dis-
pensed darts coated with the poison. The Canadian effort should be seen not as
an independent activity but rather as a component of the larger British and U.S.
programs. The Canadians developed no operational BW capability.88
France. The French had a small BW program during the period between the
two world wars. They benefited from the contributions of André Trillat. One of
the world’s leading experts on dissemination of disease through the air, he pub-
lished seminal articles on the topic in 1918 and 1920. The program was active
from 1921 to 1927 and then went dormant, but efforts resumed in 1935. Trillat
remained a part of the program until Germany’s occupation of France in 1940
caused its termination.89 The French program drew on the expertise of the Pasteur
Institute, giving it access to some of the world’s leading biological scientists.90
The French effort had both defensive and offensive elements. On the one
hand, the French were trying to understand the potential threat better. They began
researching dissemination technologies and techniques, even to the extent of re-
leasing microorganisms in the Paris subway to determine the degree to which they
would disperse. They studied botulinum toxin and determined that it could survive
the destructive forces of an exploding artillery shell. Similarly, they researched
20
dissemination of animal diseases. They also tried to implement some defensive

measures, including the production of anti-anthrax sera.91
In the months before the start of World War II, the French explored sev-
eral different types of biological weapons, including an aircraft bomb, an artillery
shell, and a hand grenade. The French tested some of these devices in early 1940,
reportedly with positive results. Interestingly, it appears that the devices dissemi-
nated “bovine plague virus,” probably a reference to “cattle plague” or rinderpest.92
Rinderpest is an animal disease and does not affect people, so the objective must
have been to attack horses used by military units (most German army units relied
on horses for transport).
The French program ended with their military defeat in 1940. The French
destroyed most of their records and hid others.93 The Germans discovered some
of their work, which affected German thinking about both BW and biodefense.94
Hungary. The Hungarians organized a small BW program. Although autho-
rized in 1936, it was not until August 1938 that it became active. Known as the
Health Control Station of the Hungarian Royal Defense Forces, the institution
was based in a converted artillery warehouse in Budapest. The program reportedly
employed only six technicians but supposedly made considerable progress before
the facility was destroyed during a bombing raid in April 1944. The Hungarians
researched Bacillus anthracis, Clostridium perfringens, Salmonella paratyphi, and
Shigella dysenteriae. They also explored various dissemination techniques, includ-
ing glass bombs capable of carrying 1 to 50 kilograms of a biological agent (either
wet or dry). The Hungarians thought that these weapons were highly effective, but
that claim is questionable. Their munitions probably could not generate effective
aerosols.95
Italy. The Italians initiated a small BW program in 1934.96 The program re-
portedly was based in a military hospital in Rome. Mussolini reportedly suggested
in February 1936 that Italy employ biological weapons against hostile forces during
the invasion of Abyssinia. At least one of his senior commanders opposed the pro-
posal, fearing that such attacks would undermine support from Ethiopians sym-
pathetic toward the Italians and that any possible operational benefits would not
outweigh the negative international repercussions.97 The Germans never discovered
21
the existence of this program.98 It seems likely that the program went moribund
in 1940 when its director and chief advocate was given a battlefield assignment.99
Poland. The available evidence suggests that the Polish BW program was
motivated by concerns that the Soviet Union had initiated work on biological
weapons. The Polish program, underway by 1928, was under the authority of the
intelligence services and operated from a dedicated military laboratory. Although
its personnel drew on the expertise of other Polish scientists, it worked under
intense secrecy, and the Poles probably did not interact with other BW programs.
Polish BW scientists debated how to use their emerging capabilities best. One of
its senior scientific managers told U.S. interrogators that the program’s primary
military objective was the development of a capacity for conducting biological
sabotage operations against a military force occupying Polish territory. Efforts
were accelerated in the years immediately before the war. By 1938, 67 people were
working in their research institute. Some of the key BW scientists fled Poland
ahead of the invading Germans in September 1939 after destroying their military
laboratory.100 As discussed below, the Polish resistance army conducted extensive
biological sabotage operations against the Germans, probably drawing on skills
developed by their prewar BW program.
The Soviet Union. The Soviet Union opened its first laboratory for conduct-
ing BW-related research in 1925, although research may have started earlier. This
small facility did research on B. anthracis and C. botulinum to determine if it were
possible to wage biological warfare with them. The results of those early experi-
ments led the Soviet government to commit to the establishment of an organized
offensive BW program by 1928.101
During the next decade, the Soviets created a substantial infrastructure to
support its BW program. They used existing organizations, which included 35
institutes controlled by the Ministry of Health, and created several dedicated BW
research centers, initially concentrated around Leningrad and Moscow. In addi-
tion, testing facilities were established, which were used to conduct open-air test-
ing of biological agents. The most important was on Vozrozhdenia Island in the
Aral Sea. The program benefited from the already formidable talent of Russian
biological scientists.102
22
Although the Soviet Union had an extensive BW program by the late 1930s,
reportedly comparable in size to the one organized by the Japanese, it was dis-
rupted by the purges of the late 1930s. A considerable number of BW scientists
and administrators were accused of sabotage and espionage. Some were executed,
while others were sent to prison camps for periods of time. This appears to have
significantly hindered Soviet BW activities at that time.103
The Soviets researched numerous pathogens for use as BW agents, includ-
ing B. anthracis, C. botulinum, Francisella tularensis, and Y. pestis. It appears that
the elements of the program specifically targeted animals, which were a military
target at the time given the dependence of most armies on horses for movement
of supplies and transport of artillery. Foot and mouth disease virus was researched,
as well as several zoonotic agents, such as the organism that causes glanders. The
Soviets tested some weapons during this period, but it is unclear if any reached
operational status. The potential effectiveness of the munitions is unknown. Infor-
mation on Soviet preparedness to employ BW is scanty, but it is unlikely that the
Soviets used biological agents except in sabotage operations.104
The Soviet military is not known to have used any BW agents during this
period, despite claims that a 1942 outbreak of F. tularensis among German troops
during the Battle of Stalingrad resulted from a deliberate release.105 Also uncon-
firmed is an allegation that the Soviets caused a 1943 outbreak of Q fever (caused
by Coxiella burnetti) in Crimea.106
Possible links between the Soviet BW program and partisan use of biologi-
cal agents in German-occupied areas of the former Soviet Union require further
investigation.107 Recently discovered documents confirm that some Soviet intelli-
gence operatives deliberately spread a biological agent. Reportedly, a sabotage team
operating in German-occupied Slavuta (a town in Ukraine) infected Germans
(including civilians, government officials, and soldiers) with Rickettsia prowazekii,
the organism that causes typhus fever. They did this by spreading infected lice.
Although some of the infected lice were obtained locally from typhus victims, the
origin of the initial batches used by the team is unknown. Unconfirmed claims
found in Soviet intelligence files indicate that more than 120 Germans were killed
in these operations.108
23
The United Kingdom. The British initiated an offensive BW program in 1940.

Prior to the war, press reports suggesting that the Germans had an offensive BW
program attracted high-level official attention.109 This led to some defensive ef-
forts. It was only after the war started, however, that serious investments were
made in offensive weapons. This was a relatively modest program, guided by a
research laboratory with about 45 personnel.110 It was, however, staffed with tal-
ented scientists, and its director, Paul Gordon Fildes, was one of the world’s most
respected microbiologists.111 The program focused primarily on research designed
to understand the character of aerosol transmission of pathogens.
The British program explored several biological weapons options but devel-
oped only a few. The focus was the Mark I, a modification of the Type F cluster
munition originally intended for use with high explosives and chemical agents.
Field tests demonstrated that it could disseminate B. anthracis from a liquid slurry,
although it was highly inefficient in generating aerosols. The British were unable
to produce the bulk agent required to fill these munitions and intended to rely on
the United States to do so. The planned U.S. facility was not completed before
the war ended, and the munitions were never fielded. The British did produce
large quantities of cattle cakes impregnated with anthrax for bomber delivery. The
intended targets were German cattle herds.112 Designed for retaliatory attacks
should the Germans resort to BW, the effectiveness of such a weapon is unclear;
its strategic utility was dubious.
The United States. The United States initiated a BW program in 1942, af-
ter the attack on Pearl Harbor brought the Nation into World War II, although
serious work did not begin until the spring of 1943. By that time, it was known
that the Japanese were using biological agents in China, although it is unclear
whether defense planners in Washington fully understood this. President Frank-
lin D. Roosevelt, fearing that the Germans or Japanese might employ biological
weapons against the United States, considered the BW program as a deterrent.
The U.S. Army organized a substantial effort, ultimately spending roughly $60
million (about $800 million in 2016 dollars) and employing approximately 4,000
personnel.113 This was far larger than the British program. By comparison, the
24
United States spent about $1.9 billion (over $25 billion in 2016 dollars) on the
Manhattan Project to produce the atomic bomb.114
The research efforts were highly successful, demonstrating that it was possible
to transmit certain pathogens through the air in aerosol clouds. At least 18 differ-
ent biological agents were studied, including some intended for use against crops
and animals. The primary focus was on B. anthracis and botulinum toxin as anti-
personnel agents.115 The program made much less progress in the development of
biological weapons and in the mass production of biological agents. A few muni-
tions were tested and adopted for service, although they were marginally effective
at best. Given the perceived need to have a deterrent capability, the U.S. military
was willing to accept weapons with known flaws. For this purpose, a modified ver-
sion of the British Mark I cluster munition was adopted. The United States made
little progress in the large-scale production of biological agents. Construction was
started on a large-scale biological agent production facility intended to provide
B. anthracis, but it was not completed before the end of the war. Technical chal-
lenges were never overcome, and the military abandoned the facility, which never
produced any BW agent.116
The United States ended the war with no employable BW capability but had
a research effort, undertaken in close collaboration with the British and Canadi-
ans, that transformed BW science and laid the foundation for future U.S. efforts
during the Cold War. In particular, the United States learned enough about the
transmission of disease through the air to reshape the understanding of infectious
disease transmission in natural settings and to create conceptions of aerosol trans-
mission for biological warfare.117
Nonstate Use (1900–1945)
The early 20th century saw efforts by criminals and terrorists to exploit patho-
gens for use as weapons. Some attempts to use biological agents are well docu-
mented, others less so. Documented incidents occurred in countries around the
world, including in France, Germany, India, Japan, and the United States.
In France, Henri Girard used S. typhi to commit insurance fraud on several
occasions starting in 1910. He would open an insurance policy in the name of
25
a victim, making either himself or a confederate the beneficiary. He killed one

person using the pathogen but failed in several other attempts. He was caught but
died before he was tried.118
In January 1914, a German court sentenced Karl Hopf to death for the mur-
der of his first wife and the attempted murder of other family members, includ-
ing his third wife. While most of his victims were given arsenic, he reportedly
laced food given to his third wife with the organisms responsible for cholera and
typhoid. It was the first case tried in Germany involving the use of pathogens to
attempt murder.119
In 1916, a resident of New York, Arthur Warren Waite, tried to kill his in-
laws by infecting them with several pathogens, but with no success. He ultimately
murdered his father-in-law using arsenic.120 In 1935, Benoyendra Chandra Pan-
dey and Dr. Taranath Bhatacharya conspired to kill 20-year-old Amarendra Pan-
dey, Benoyendra’s half-brother, by infecting him with a lethal dose of Y. pestis.121
Some resistance groups, primarily in Eastern Europe, employed biological
agents against the Germans during World War II. There are numerous reports of
such activity, but no comprehensive historical review has been made. The Germans
reported 25 such incidents in 1943, mostly associated with the Polish and Soviet
resistance.122 One incident investigated by the Germans involved the contamina-
tion of coffee with Salmonella typhi by a Czech saboteur. The investigation identi-
fied 60 examples of contamination.123 In contrast, the Germans concluded that a
typhoid outbreak in France resulted from natural causes.124 Polish resistance forces
made extensive use of chemical and biological agents after the Germans occupied
their country in 1939. Prior to the war, the Polish intelligence service devised a
program to attack enemy personnel with poisons and infectious diseases in the
event that their country was occupied. According to Polish records, they executed
thousands of such attacks, mainly targeting individuals, but most involved poisons
and not pathogens. Although these attacks are known to have killed or harmed
some Germans, the claimed results usually cannot be confirmed. The Germans
may not have realized that some disease outbreaks resulted from deliberate attacks,
but it is also evident that the Poles had no way to assess the effectiveness of their
26
activities. Apparently, the Poles found it hard to culture the biological agents and
keep them viable until used.125
Claude Lévi-Strauss, the eminent anthropologist, reported that indigenous
peoples in Brazil were exposed to smallpox virus by landowners from 1918 to
1935, apparently to facilitate expropriation of land for farming. These landown-
ers spread the disease by taking clothing from smallpox victims and leaving it on
trails frequented by the natives. Unfortunately, there is no other corroboration of
this allegation.126
Summation
The first half of the 20th century saw the emergence of crude efforts to exploit
the biological sciences to create weapons of war. The initial steps were hesitant.
During World War I, the Germans focused their efforts on animals and rejected
plans to use disease against people. In contrast, the Japanese were quite willing to
use disease against people, mostly against noncombatants. However, the amount
of effort Japan devoted to BW was not matched by its results. Ultimately, in-
adequate scientific and engineering foundations limited the effectiveness of the
Japanese program. Although many countries organized BW programs during this
period, it was the Western allies—the United States, the United Kingdom, and
Canada—that undertook the research suggesting that it would be possible to em-
ploy BW in ways that could rival the atomic bomb in lethality.
The Cold War and Beyond (1945–Present)

The period since 1945 has been characterized by several key trends. First,
massive investments by the superpowers (the Soviet Union and the United States)
in BW science and technology converted a technique useful mostly for sabotage
operations into one capable of inflicting mass casualties potentially equaling the
lethality of thermonuclear weapons.127 This resulted largely from the develop-
ment of methods for the effective and efficient aerosol dissemination of biologi-
cal agents.128 Both the United States and the Soviet Union had programs that
exploited these advances. Second, while other countries also had BW programs,
most appear to have been small, and none approached the capabilities of the two
27
superpowers. Indeed, many seem to have had capabilities little more complex than
those developed prior to World War II. Third, biological arms control and dis-
armament became a serious topic of discussion in the international community,
resulting in the BWC prohibiting the possession of biological weapons.
Most remarkably, despite the growing lethality of biological weapons and the
investments in BW by many countries, there was no significant resort to BW. In-
stead, biological agent use was confined primarily to terrorists and criminals. The
few cases of state use were limited to relatively simple, small-scale attacks.
State BW Programs
It is difficult to definitively determine the extent of biological weapons pro-

liferation during the Cold War era. Although several dozen countries have been
accused of having a BW program since 1945, the supporting evidence is weak or
even nonexistent in many cases. Some countries appear to have considered the
acquisition of biological weapons but never organized an effective research and
development program. In other cases, research and development programs never
produced results, either because of poor quality research or the low priority as-
signed the effort.129
Open-source information, admittedly of uneven reliability, suggests that
fewer than 20 countries had or attempted to organize programs to develop BW
capabilities (including weapons utilizing pathogens, toxins, or both) at any time
between 1945 and 2015. The number active in any given year was small, probably
no more than five to eight.130
These programs differed radically in size and sophistication. The largest (or-
ganized by the Soviet Union) may have employed 60,000 scientists, engineers,
technicians, and other personnel. The smallest (Rhodesia) had no more than six
technically trained people (although not all may have worked on biological as
opposed to chemical agents). Some programs relied on crude dissemination tech-
niques, such as contamination of food and water (Israel in 1948, Rhodesia in the
1970s, South Africa in the 1980s). Only the United States and the Soviet Union
are known to have developed operational capabilities to disseminate biological
agents over large areas using sophisticated aircraft and missile delivery systems.131
28
Some of these programs were initiated before or during World War II

(Canada, France, the former Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the Unit-
ed States). Several programs were terminated before the final negotiation of the
BWC (Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States). In some
countries, biological weapons competed poorly with nuclear weapons. Nuclear
weapons were given priority, and resources devoted to BW development were
transferred to nuclear weapons programs deemed strategically far more important
(France and the United Kingdom). With a few exceptions, these programs oper-
ated independently with no intentional transfers of technology from one BW
program to another. The sole known exception was the close collaboration starting
in the 1940s between the United States and the United Kingdom, supported by
the much smaller Canadian effort.132 The United States remains concerned that
Russia never dismantled all the components of the former Soviet BW program.
Canada. The Canadian BW program, tied closely to the efforts of the United
States and the United Kingdom, was centered on a small but high-quality research
establishment. Canada abandoned its own offensive program in 1958 but contin-
ued to support U.S. activities through the 1960s.133
China. Little is known about the Chinese BW program. The United States
believed that it started in the 1950s and was still active after the Chinese acceded
to the BWC in 1984.134 Practically nothing else is known.135
Egypt. In early 1972, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat stated, “Briefly, we
have the instruments of biological warfare in the refrigerator and we will not use
them unless they [the Israelis] begin to use them.” This assertion was repeated
by another Egyptian official a few months later.136 Other reports suggest that
the Egyptians initiated their program in the 1960s. In the late 1990s, the U.S.
Government thought that the Egyptians retained a capability to employ BW but
has not repeated that claim since then. In 2015, the U.S. State Department once
again mentioned Egypt in its annual arms control compliance report but stated
that “available information did not indicate that Egypt was engaged in activities
prohibited to States Parties of the BWC.”137 Egypt is a signatory to the BWC but
has never ratified it and thus has “an obligation under international law to refrain
from acts that would defeat the object and purpose of the treaty.”138
29
France. The resumption of BW research, building on the work of the prewar

program, was authorized by the French in early 1947. This effort continued un-
til 1956 when funding diminished as the priority shifted to the development of
nuclear weapons. Although technically sophisticated, the BW program remained
a research activity and did not build facilities for large-scale production of BW
agents or conduct open-air testing. The program was smaller and less advanced
than the British or U.S. programs.139
Iran. Although the United States and others have asserted that Iran initiated
a BW program in the 1980s, possibly in response to Iraqi activities during their
1981–1988 war, almost nothing is known about it.140 Much of the open-source
reporting refers to dual-use items not necessarily associated with BW activities.141
There is insufficient information to assess the likely size or sophistication of the
Iranian BW program.
Iraq. Despite many gaps in the available information, much is known about
Iraq’s efforts to develop BW capabilities due primarily to the efforts of United Na-
tions (UN) inspectors after the 1991 Gulf War and the investigations of the U.S.
Government after 2003.142
A small program was initiated in 1974 but was disbanded in 1979 due to lack
of progress. Its staff was dispersed, including some assigned to an intelligence ac-
tivity. In the following years, the Iraqis continued to develop dual-use capabilities
needed for a BW program but undertook little substantive work. In 1983, Saddam
Hussein decided to restart the BW program. Over the next 3 years, a bureaucratic
structure was put into place, and the new program was given the budget, person-
nel, and leadership to create biological weapons capabilities. In 1986, a 5-year
plan for weapons development was adopted. One senior Iraqi military official told
UN inspectors in 1998 that Iraq’s leaders organized their BW program to provide
a strategic weapons capability until they had nuclear weapons.143 According to
a UN assessment, the program had about 100 dedicated staff, including 25 key
technical personnel.144
The program researched many biological agents, focusing especially on B.
anthracis and Clostridium perfringens, a pathogen typically associated with food
poisoning but also responsible for wound gangrene. At various times, their pro-
30
gram investigated viral agents, including three apparently intended for use as in-
capacitants: camelpox virus, Enterovirus 70, and rotavirus. An anti-plant agent,
wheat cover smut, also was researched. The greatest attention, however, was given
to toxin agents, including aflatoxin, botulinum toxin, and ricin.145
Iraq attempted to develop a number of biological munitions, including artil-
lery rockets, aircraft bombs, and missile warheads, typically chemical munitions
modified to carry biological agents. The Iraqis also worked on aerial sprayers, in-
cluding modification of existing drop tanks for use with their French-made Mi-
rage F1 fighters and a helicopter system using an adapted agricultural sprayer.
None of these sprayer systems was operational at the time of the Gulf War.146
By early 1991, when the Gulf War started, the Iraqis had a small arsenal of
biological weapons. They had produced and weaponized B. anthracis, aflatoxin,
and botulinum toxin.147 The Iraqis intended to fill 200 R-400A aircraft bombs
and 25 Al Hussein missile warheads with these agents. Ultimately, lack of agent
allowed them to field only some of these munitions. According to the Iraqis, they
had filled 157 of the aircraft bombs (100 with B. anthracis, 50 with botulinum tox-
in, and 7 with aflatoxin) and 25 Al Hussein warheads (16 with botulinum toxin, 5
with B. anthracis, and 4 with aflatoxin), but both UN and U.S. investigators were
unable to confirm these numbers. The missile warheads were never tested. They
were fitted with fuses that detonated on impact, meaning that the agent would be
disseminated when the warhead hit the ground.148
Iraq never employed its biological munitions; their effectiveness was dubi-
ous. At least some senior Iraqi military officers were skeptical of their weapons’
military effectiveness, hoping instead that the psychological effect of a biological
attack would have a strategic impact:
The Iraqis were well aware of the shortcomings of the Al Husayn

missile and the R-400. Lt. Gen. Hazim, commander of the surface-
to-surface missile forces, openly admitted that the Al Husayn, with a
BW agent filled warhead, would fulfill its purpose if after impact in
an enemy country sufficient material survived to enable its detection
as a BW agent. It was a weapon of terror.149
31
It is unlikely that they could have caused mass casualties and may have been no
more dangerous than conventional munitions.
After Iraq’s defeat in the 1991 Gulf War, the UN Security Council required
it to accede to the BWC and account for its past BW activity. Iraq destroyed most
of its BW agent and associated munitions in the months after the war but at-
tempted to keep the program a secret. Until 1995, the Iraqis apparently hoped to
revive their previous activity and tried to prevent UN inspectors from identifying
BW-related facilities. Even after Iraq finally admitted to having had a program
in 1995 and began providing information to UN inspectors, it continued to hide
information and sustained its denial and deception activities. Subsequently, some
Iraqi BW scientists were assigned to laboratories run by the Iraqi intelligence, and
may have been helping develop poisons and toxins for use in assassinations.150
Based on statements made by Saddam Hussein, U.S. investigators concluded that
he hoped to create the impression that Iraq retained some weapons capability as
a deterrent against regional neighbors, especially Iran.151 So far as is known, the
Iraqis never employed their biological weapons.
Israel. The Israeli BW program was initiated in the months before the estab-
lishment of the state in May 1948 and the subsequent outbreak of hostilities with
neighboring Arab countries. As discussed below, biological agents were employed
with limited success during 1948 against the British (who had legal authority over
Mandatory Palestine) and the invading Arab armies. Following the end of hos-
tilities, the Israelis created a BW program within their new Ministry of Defense.
Although Israel created a world-class biological research establishment, it is not
known what kinds of BW capabilities resulted.152 Given the advanced state of Is-
raeli biology and the competence of its military industry, it is reasonable to assume
that it could have created highly effective BW capabilities.153 However, there is no
publicly available evidence to support such a conjecture.
North Korea. Although there is a substantial body of literature on North Ko-
rea’s BW program, hard facts are rare, and most open-source information comes
from South Korean sources of uncertain reliability. This makes it difficult to assess
the size, sophistication, or intended role of North Korea’s program, or even if the
program remains active.154
32
The U.S. Government believes that the program originated in the 1960s, and
a 1993 Russian government report claims that the North Koreans were testing
biological weapons on an offshore island. The Russians also mentioned that North
Korea held stocks of smallpox, which it was supposed to have destroyed after the
eradication of that disease.155 Other sources claim that the North Koreans have
a large infrastructure devoted to BW activity and that they are working on nu-
merous BW agents. It is unclear if such reports differentiate legitimate research
from a covert BW program, especially since the allegations often refer to diseases
endemic to the Korean Peninsula.156
Most analysts believe that North Korea is most likely to rely on covert dis-
semination of BW agents. North Korea operates a substantial force of special
operations units and is thought to give particular emphasis to their use. Some
sources doubt that they have BW missile delivery systems but speculate that they
might have aircraft sprayers.157
Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). The white Rhodesian regime operated a small
BW program in the 1970s run by a professor of anatomy at the University of Rho-
desia. It appears that the Rhodesians tried to culture the organisms responsible
for cholera and anthrax. They had no specialized dissemination capabilities and
allegedly poured out a liquid slurry of the biological agents when they mounted
an attack. The Rhodesians apparently experimented with cigarettes laced with B.
anthracis. The Rhodesians probably were assisted by the South Africans, but the
surviving evidence is limited.158 Rhodesia probably used biological agents, as dis-
cussed in the next section.
South Africa. South Africa developed a chemical and biological weapons
program in the 1980s, possibly benefiting from knowledge from Rhodesia’s ex-
perience.159 The BW program operated out of a front company, Roodeplaat Re-
search Laboratories, to hide its ties with the government. Much of its work was
focused on the development of toxins intended for assassinations. In addition, the
South Africans created small stocks of biological agents for use against regime
opponents, including B. anthracis (which causes various forms of anthrax), botuli-
num toxin, Brucella melitensis (which causes brucellosis), Salmonella typhimurium
33
(which causes food poisoning), and Vibrio cholerae (which causes cholera). All this
work was in violation of South Africa’s obligations as a BWC signatory.160
The South African program appears schizophrenic to the outside observer.
Like the Rhodesian practice, the South Africans developed only rudimentary bio-
logical agent dissemination capabilities. On the other hand, the South Africans
created Roodeplaat Research Laboratories as their primary BW research insti-
tution. It had well-equipped biological research laboratories staffed with skilled
personnel. Nearly a fifth of the laboratories’ activities were focused on antifertility
drugs intended for use against the country’s black population. That project never
produced any concrete results. The program also was supported by another orga-
nization, Delta-G, which primarily focused on chemical agents but also developed
and manufactured biochemical products. Ultimately, it also produced a consider-
able quantity of several types of street drugs.161
The Soviet Union and Russia. The Soviet Union operated a BW program dur-
ing the entire Cold War. The best available evidence (admittedly scanty) suggests
that it made relatively little progress from the end of World War II until the early
1970s. However, the program was then reorganized and rejuvenated, even though
the Soviet Union joined the BWC after playing a leading role in negotiating that
treaty. The new effort exploited the possibilities offered by advances in biology and
resulted in the largest and most sophisticated BW program ever organized. This
account is based largely on the best description of Soviet BW activities, a study
by Milton Leitenberg and Ray Zilinskas, The Soviet Biological Weapons Program.162
A great deal is known about the scientific underpinnings of the program; much
less is known of its military dimensions. In addition, there are whole aspects of So-
viet BW development that remain largely unknown, including the anti-agriculture
activities of the Ministry of Agriculture and the clandestine operations capabilities
of the Soviet intelligence services, especially the KGB. The Soviets worked on bio-
logical agents for attacking both crops and animals, including organisms that infect
wheat, rye, and rice plants and numerous viruses that affect agricultural animals.163
We do know that the KGB viewed pathogens as possible weapons for targeted kill-
ing. Documents uncovered after the collapse of the Soviet Union reveal that Joseph
Stalin instigated a plot to assassinate Josip Broz Tito and that one of the options
34
was to infect him with Yersinia pestis, the organism that causes plague. Stalin died
before the assassination plot was finalized, and it was abandoned.164
Little is known of Soviet BW efforts from 1945 until the early 1970s. The
Soviet military continued BW research and development, but it is unclear that the
program ever fielded militarily significant capabilities. Part of the problem was
scientific. During the 1930s, Soviet biology was tainted by the views of Trofim Ly-
senko, an agricultural scientist who rejected Mendelian genetics and instead advo-
cated an alternative holding that traits acquired through environmental exposures
could be transmitted to offspring. Consequently, Soviet biology lagged the West.
Another part of the problem was bureaucratic. The Soviet military establishment
was unable to support the type of creative scientific research needed to advance
the program.165
Convinced that the Soviet Union needed a robust BW program, the country’s
leaders were open to the persuasions of its scientific elite. It appears that leading
Soviet scientists successfully lobbied for the organization of a new BW research
and development organization, Biopreparat, separate from the existing military
laboratories. The Politburo provided generous funding to Biopreparat, also accept-
ing Western biology and repudiating Lysenko’s views.
During the 1970s and 1980s, the Soviet program made enormous strides, and
by the time the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the scientific underpinnings of
its BW program went far beyond anything accomplished by others. Although the
research program was highly inefficient, its sheer size more than made up for the
usual deficiencies that compromised Soviet productivity by the end of the Cold
War.
The Soviet BW program always was kept secret, but the intensity of its ac-
tivities increased after negotiation of the BWC. The Soviets designed their new
program knowing that it was in violation of the treaty, and hence they had to
protect the mere fact of its existence. Some of its facilities were located in closed
cities, communities in remote areas accessible only with special permission. Some
of these closed cities also were unacknowledged, not even appearing on maps.166
The scope of the program is evident in a listing of facilities associated with just
the civilian components of the program: 10 research and development institutes,
35
14 production and mobilization plants, and 8 special weapons and facility design
units.167 There were additional military installations, including test sites that con-
ducted open-air testing of munitions with a live agent.168 The military and civilian
production sites had the capacity to produce hundreds of tons of biological agent
per year.169
The research facilities engaged in a wide range of activity, both offensive and
defensive. Some work was devoted to enhancing traditional biological agents, but
the Soviets also were interested in adopting emerging pathogens and creating
novel biological agents. Biopreparat was organized mainly to develop enhanced
pathogens resistant to antibiotics and able to evade vaccine protection. The Soviets
explored certain emerging infectious diseases as potential BW agents, including
the Ebola and Marburg viruses. They eventually selected Marburg virus and devel-
oped formulations that would enable its use in weapons. Finally, the Soviets were
attempting to develop so-called chimeras, biological agents that incorporated ge-
netic components from different pathogens to create an organism with unique
characteristics. None of the novel agents were ready for service when the Soviet
Union collapsed in 1991. Among the agents being developed was a strain of vac-
cinia, the virus used in the smallpox vaccine, incorporating genes from the Ebola
virus. Another variant added genes that produce certain bioregulators (chemicals
naturally present in the body) with the intent of disrupting the immune system.170
Most of the biological agents adopted by the Soviet Union were like those
used in other BW programs, such as the smallpox virus, B. anthracis, Coxiella bur-
netii, and Y. pestis, all weaponized by the early 1970s. The only new agent added to
the program by the beginning of the 1990s was the Marburg virus, but it seems
likely that new strains of older agents replaced those previously in use.171
Because little is known about Soviet biological weapons design, concepts of
operation, or the intended strategic role of their BW program, it is impossible to
assess its likely effectiveness. However, the Soviets developed standardized tech-
niques for large-scale production of pathogens and associated formulations to en-
hance dissemination and virulence. They certainly viewed their weapons as having
both strategic and operational utility.172 The Soviet Union built a huge complex
for the production of biological weapons. A former Soviet BW scientist claimed
36
that the Soviet Union maintained a stockpile of 20 tons of smallpox virus, grown
in eggs and constantly replenished as old stocks lost viability. It also built 3 plants
with an annual wartime production capacity of 1,800 tons of B. anthracis.173
It is unclear whether the Russians have entirely terminated the former Soviet
BW development program. In 1992, Russian president Boris Yeltsin admitted
that the Soviet Union had operated a BW program in contravention of its BWC
obligations and promised to terminate it. Yeltsin encountered considerable op-
position to his efforts, and it is unclear that all elements of the program were shut
down. The Russian government officially admitted to some of its past activities in
a report to the United Nations in 1992 (a document submitted as a BWC confi-
dence-building measure), but by 1994 it had backed away from that admission.174
Since then, the U.S. Government has regularly expressed concerns about the
lack of transparency. In 2005, for example, the U.S. State Department declared,
“The United States judges based on all available evidence that Russia continues
to maintain an offensive BW program in violation of the [Biological and Toxin
Weapons] Convention.”175 The Barack Obama administration did not repeat the
allegation that the Russians kept a BW program, but in 2016 it still reported that
the Russians “have not satisfactorily documented whether this program was com-
pletely destroyed or diverted to peaceful purposes.”176
In 2012, Vladimir Putin called for the development of “weapons systems
based on new principles,” including genetics.177 Subsequently, the Russian minis-
ter of defense reportedly initiated planning to implement this agenda.178 Acquisi-
tion and use of such a “genetic weapon,” whether based on new or old principles,
is illegal under international law. As far as is known, the Soviet Union never em-
ployed its biological weapons during the Cold War.
Syria. The first references to a Syrian BW program appeared in 1990, but
it is not known when the program started. The Syrians admitted to producing
ricin toxin for use in weapons.179 In contrast, no evidence has emerged to support
claims that Syria also was exploring biological agents, including B. anthracis, or
that it developed and deployed missile warheads for their delivery.180
The United Kingdom. The efforts of the United Kingdom built on the coun-
try’s World War II experiences. Initially, efforts to develop BW capabilities had
37
a priority equal to that assigned to the atomic bomb program. The Air Ministry
drafted a requirement for the development and procurement of air-delivered clus-
ter munitions for use against Soviet industrial centers. In other words, civilians
would be the primary target. Support infrastructure was improved, including con-
struction of a small production facility to produce quantities of biological agent.
Open-air biological agent releases, intended initially to test biological munitions,
were conducted in the Caribbean and off the coast of England. Among the agents
tested were B. anthracis, Brucella suis, Brucella arbortus, and Francisella tularensis.181
The program produced little. The weapons tests were disappointing, as the ex-
isting bomblets proved highly inefficient. In 1952, a new British military strategy
downplayed the importance of the BW program, assigning greater importance to
nuclear weapons, and the requirement for a near-term biological weapons capa-
bility was eliminated. Over time, even the long-term need for a biological muni-
tion disappeared, and by 1957 all offensive development activity had ended.182
Although the British retained considerable expertise in BW science and technol-
ogy, supporting a technically sophisticated biodefense effort, they never had an
operational capability to employ biological weapons.
Paul Gordon Fildes, who had led the program during World War II, ulti-
mately concluded in 1955, “It was becoming clear that the hazards of biological
warfare, as distinct from sabotage, were not as great as has been thought.”183 While
British military planners accepted that North Atlantic Treaty Organization coun-
tries might need BW capabilities, they also concluded that the United Kingdom
did not. They believed BW was not useful as a deterrent and could not identify a
useful operational military role for it. British policy never changed, even after the
United States demonstrated a strategic BW capability in the 1960s.
The United States. The United States almost certainly had the world’s most
accomplished BW program during the Cold War, at least until it was canceled in
1969. Support for the program waxed and waned, and levels of funding fluctuated
accordingly. However, the quality of the science that supported it was excellent,
and program leaders persistently worked to solve the many technical obstacles
to a fully realized BW capability. In the end, the program failed because the U.S.
national security establishment found no strategic rationale for BW.184
38
U.S. BW scientists understood the implications of agent aerosolization and

focused efforts on the complex task of identifying agents, formulations, and dis-
semination systems optimized for that purpose.185 Through a series of elaborate
field trials, the United States eventually demonstrated an ability to disseminate
lethal biological agents over large areas. By the mid-1960s, the U.S. Air Force
had a bomblet delivery system that allowed a single B-52 bomber sortie to affect
10,000 square miles as well as spray tank systems for use on fighter-bombers af-
fecting 25,000 to 50,000 square miles. It also sought to develop agents with dif-
fering characteristics, including a focus on supposedly nonlethal agents that could
be used in limited wars. Indeed, in the late 1950s, the program invested far more
on so-called incapacitating agents than acknowledged lethal agents.186
Considerable effort was devoted during the 1950s to develop anticrop mu-
nitions. The intended target was the agriculture of the Soviet Union and China.
The U.S. Army acquired biological agents and associated delivery systems for use
against rice, rye, and wheat. The requirement apparently derived from a need to
undermine the ability of the Communist countries to fight a protracted war.187 The
utility of these weapons was dubious in the strategic environment that emerged
during the Cold War. The technical effectiveness of these programs also was un-
clear.
Despite claims that the United States employed biological weapons during
the Korean War, the reality is that it had no capability to use biological agents in a
militarily significant way at that time.188 There is little evidence to support claims
that the United States used biological weapons during that conflict and consider-
able evidence that the allegation was not true.189
The U.S. program was terminated unilaterally in 1969 by President Richard
M. Nixon (toxin work was not stopped until later), who concluded that biological
weapons added little to U.S. security even as they complicated arms control nego-
tiations with the Soviet Union.190
Biological Arms Control and Disarmament
Negotiations to prohibit biological weapons became part of the agenda of

the international community with the organization of the United Nations. Initial
39
discussions focused on a treaty aimed at both chemical and biological weapons,

but little progress was made until the mid-1960s. At the insistence of the Brit-
ish, negotiators began to focus on a treaty limited solely to biological weapons.
The result was the 1972 BWC, which prohibited possession of any biological and
toxin weapons. Although the treaty does not define what constitutes a biologi-
cal weapon, subsequent deliberations made clear that the agreement proscribes
the possession of any weapon that incorporates any pathogenic microorganism or
poison of biological origin, including those developed using science that did not
exist at the time the treaty was negotiated.191
The Soviet Union never intended to respect the treaty. Its efforts to develop bi-
ological weapons accelerated after the BWC entered into force. Because the BWC
lacks verification procedures, the treaty’s signatories tried to negotiate a protocol
to provide them during the 1990s. The attempt failed. While the United States is
often blamed, Russia and the members of the Non-Aligned Movement also under-
mined the negotiations. U.S. opposition reflected widely held views in Washington
that the proposed agreement was fatally flawed, unlikely to uncover treaty viola-
tions or otherwise enhance confidence in treaty compliance.192
Despite the treaty’s flaws, it plays a central role in the delegitimization of BW.
Review conferences, held every 5 years since the treaty entered into force, provide
an opportunity for the international community to reaffirm its continued impor-
tance. At those meetings, the states’ parties have also concurred that the agreement
comprehensively applies to new scientific developments. As the 2006 conference
reported, the treaty “applies to all scientific and technological developments in
the life sciences and in other fields of science relevant to the Convention.”193 The
failure of the 2016 Review Conference to reach agreement has generated concerns
about the treaty’s future.194
Preventing countries from acquiring biological weapons capabilities also is
a part of the BW nonproliferation regime. The Australia Group, created as a re-
sponse to Iraq’s use of chemical warfare agents during its war with Iran in the
1980s, strives to harmonize export regulations among a like-minded group of
countries. It covers biological warfare agents and equipment need to produce
biological agents and weapons.195 In addition, United Nations Security Council
40
Resolution 1540, originally adopted in 2004, requires all UN member states to

prevent terrorists from obtaining access to weapons of mass destruction, including
BW capabilities. In 2010, the resolution’s mandate was extended to 2021.196 More
recently, scientific organizations supported by national governments have created
codes of conduct to establish norms against the use of biology as a weapon.197
State Use
A few countries, including Israel, Rhodesia, and South Africa, made limited,
small-scale use of biological agents. These activities were little more than biologi-
cal sabotage, not too dissimilar from German BW operations during World War
I, and had nothing in common with the sophisticated aerosol delivery techniques
mastered by the United States and the Soviet Union.
Israel employed biological agents on several occasions during 1948 by con-
taminating water supplies. Some Israeli operatives attempting to spread infectious
agents were captured by the Egyptian army in Gaza. Allegedly, the Israelis also
tried to attack Syrian forces. In addition, there is evidence that the Israelis targeted
Palestinian settlements, apparently to prevent refugees from returning to their
former homes.198 There also were allegations that a British military unit was at-
tacked.199 These were crude attacks, less sophisticated than the ones launched by
the Germans decades earlier.
The Rhodesian government employed biological and chemical agents dur-
ing its struggle against African nationalists in the 1970s. It made extensive use of
chemicals, usually by contaminating clothing with deadly pesticides, probably kill-
ing hundreds of guerrillas. Some reports allege that it also made a failed attempt
to disseminate the pathogen responsible for cholera and experimented with other
agents as well. Claims that the Rhodesians were responsible for a massive anthrax
outbreak among cattle that led to a substantial number of cases of gastrointestinal
anthrax, including many deaths, have never been proved.200
The South Africans admitted to mounting a few small biological attacks. Re-
portedly, they tried to spread cholera in a guerrilla camp, but the water treatment
system killed the pathogens. One account claims that they also distributed sugar
41
contaminated with B. typhimurium at a meeting of the African National Congress.

It is doubtful that these attacks were effective.201
It also appears that officials working for the Brazilian government’s Indian
Protective Service deliberately introduced pathogens into the aboriginal popula-
tion. Mestizos, people of mixed blood, sick with smallpox, influenza, tuberculosis,
and measles, were sent to interact with aboriginal peoples between 1957 and 1963.
Investigators could not confirm reports that some Indians were infected with the
smallpox virus. There is no evidence to suggest that these actions were officially
sanctioned by the country’s leaders.202
Although there are numerous additional allegations of employing biological
weapons during the Cold War era, most are untrue. The Soviet Union and its al-
lies were responsible for spreading many of them, including false claims that the
United States spread biological agents during the Korean War, that HIV origi-
nated in U.S. BW laboratories, and that the United States mounted numerous
biological attacks on Cuba.203
Nonstate Use
During the Cold War, there was limited terrorist interest in BW.204 The only
significant act of bioterrorism during that period was committed by a cult group,
the Rajneeshees, in 1984. Having come into conflict with the local community,
the leaders of the cult decided to take over the county government by suppressing
voter turnout. This was to be accomplished by making voters too sick to cast their
ballots on election day. They experimented with their biological agents in August
and September by contaminating food at restaurants in the town of The Dalles,
Oregon, with a common foodborne pathogen, Salmonella typhimurium. These at-
tacks ultimately caused 751 people to become ill, including several dozens who
had to be hospitalized. The plot was uncovered when internal conflicts led the
cult’s leaders to accuse former members of conducting the biological attack.205
The Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese cult group, created both chemical and biologi-
cal weapons programs, attempting to produce both botulinum toxin and Bacillus
anthracis. There is no evidence that the cult ever acquired strains of C. botulinum ca-
pable of producing the toxin or the virulent B. anthracis. Recent evidence suggests
42
that the group deliberately obtained a vaccine strain of B. anthracis, believing that it
could employ newly developed techniques to insert the toxin-producing plasmids
that are missing from the vaccine strain. Aum produced quantities of this suppos-
edly lethal strain and tried to disseminate it but to no effect. In addition to lacking
a deadly strain of the pathogen, their dissemination device was totally ineffective.206
Al Qaeda created a BW program in the late 1990s. Some evidence suggests
that it was motivated at least in part by growing commentary in the United States
about the dangers of bioterrorism. In any case, the program was still in the for-
mative stage in September 2001. Although the group had made progress in con-
structing a laboratory in Afghanistan, there is no evidence that it ever obtained
any biological agents. The available evidence suggests that its activities were dis-
rupted by the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, and the program was never recon-
stituted.207 Other jihadi groups also have expressed interest in BW but generally
seem to focus on capabilities easier to acquire but less likely to inflict catastrophic
casualties.208
The last major bioterrorism event (although it might better be classified as a
biocrime) was the anthrax letter attacks that occurred in September and October
2001. The letters targeted three news outlets and two U.S. Senators. The B. an-
thracis in the last two letters sent was highly refined. While not weaponized in a
military sense, the agent readily spread through the air when the envelopes were
opened. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) ultimately identified the per-
petrator of the attacks as Bruce Ivins, an anthrax expert at the U.S. Army Research
Institute of Infectious Disease. Although critics have cast doubt on the FBI’s case,
an independent psychological evaluation suggests that Ivins was capable of having
committed the crimes.209
Finally, there were several biocrimes committed using pathogens during the
last half of the twentieth century. Most were relatively minor. A notable case was
the deliberate infection in the early 1990s of a woman by a Louisiana doctor with
HIV-infected blood. In that case, the prosecutors used newly developed genetic
tests to demonstrate that the HIV in the victim was consistent with the HIV in
samples held by the suspect. This was the first courtroom test of the new science
and demonstrated that judges were willing to accept such forensic evidence. The
43
accused physician was convicted, and appellate courts upheld the use of the bio-
logical forensics.210
In another notable case that occurred in the late 1990s, public health inves-
tigators linked a hospital technician to an unusual outbreak of Shigella associated
with the eating of pastries. This was the first time that law enforcement officials
employed epidemiology as an investigative tool to support the prosecution of the
suspect. The suspect was convicted.211
Summary
Since the end of World War II, BW science and technology has developed
in ways that could make effectively disseminated biological weapons as deadly as
thermonuclear weapons.212 At the same time, globalization and the widespread
adoption of so-called dual-use technologies—those with legitimate uses for com-
merce, science, or medicine—have made many of the underlying scientific and
technical capabilities required for BW programs accessible even to small groups
and individuals.213
The growth in BW’s lethality was not matched by increased use. Indeed, there
is no evidence of widespread use of biological agents since 1945. There were small-
scale attacks, amounting to biological sabotage, but none of those exploited the
new dissemination technologies developed by the United States and the Soviet
Union. There was some terrorist interest in BW and a few instances of actual use.
These attacks either failed or caused sickness but no deaths. The deadliest biologi-
cal attacks have been attributed to criminals. Why has there been so little resort to
BW since 1945? There is no clear answer to that question, but it is likely to have
resulted from some combination of a lack of interest, countermeasures that reduce
the attractiveness of BW for those inclined toward exploring its utility, and at least
some good luck.214
Biological Warfare’s Future

What is the future of BW? Will there be a resurgence of BW proliferation?
Will nonstate actors resort to bioterrorism? Will any countries or states employ
biological agents to inflict catastrophic casualties?
44
As this study illustrates, biological warfare has been rare. So far as is known,
the only significant use resulting in substantial loss of life was by Japan against the
Chinese during the 1940s. Despite advances in BW science, the only subsequent
uses have been sabotage operations resulting in few casualties. Why it has been so
rare is unclear, because the simpler forms of biological sabotage have been acces-
sible for more than 100 years.
Some argue that continuing advances in the biological sciences, the globaliza-
tion of biological skills and technology, and the growing accessibility of enabling
technology will inevitably result in more, and more deadly, use of biological weap-
ons. Capabilities once limited to the Soviet Union and the United States might
be accessible even to nonstate actors in the future. Indeed, given the pace of new
scientific discovery, capabilities not available to even the superpowers during the
Cold War might be accessible to lone actors.215
In contrast, others are more skeptical, arguing that biological weapons are
harder to develop and employ than many have claimed. These skeptics also con-
tend that technical considerations may not be the most significant constraint. Tac-
it knowledge, which is undocumented information essential for the exploitation
of science and technology required to make biological weapons, is known to prac-
titioners of BW (an ever-smaller group) but not to others expert in the biological
sciences. Additionally, there is limited evidence that states or nonstate actors will
be attracted to BW because they or their supporters might find the use of biologi-
cal weapons morally or politically repugnant.216 Some argue that ultimately there
are strong norms against BW and that the few attempts to use it represent outliers
unlikely to be often repeated.217
If the use of biological weapons increases in the future, it will be because some
past constraint has disappeared. Although technological and scientific advances
might facilitate that trend, it is most likely to result from fundamental changes in
attitudes toward the use of disease as a weapon.
45
Appendix 1. Additional Reading
Readers unfamiliar with BW should start with a topical overview. Useful

starting points are books by Jeanne Guillemin, Greg Koblentz, and Milton Leit-
enberg.218 All approach the subject in different ways, so they are not interchange-
able, and each has its strengths. Dated, but still relevant, is the multivolume SIPRI
study of chemical and biological weapons, The Problem of Chemical and Biological
Weapons, and the BW section of an Office of Technology Assessment report, Tech-
nologies Underlying Weapons of Mass Destruction.219 For a more technical treatment
of biological warfare agents, the reader should review the chapters in Medical As-
pects of Biological Warfare.220
There is a growing literature on the history of BW. For those interested in
exploring in detail, one possible starting point is this author’s review of writings
on the history of biological agent employment.221 Readers also should look at the
sources used in that survey. The best starting point on pre-1945 history is the col-
lection of essays in Biological and Toxin Weapons: Research, Development, and Use
from the Middle Ages to 1945, edited by Erhard Geissler and John van Courtland
Moon.222 A companion volume, Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons since 1945,
while also essential, is more uneven, reflecting the difficulties in studying more
recent BW activities.223
Mark Wheelis has an excellent survey of the pre-1914 era, as well as the best
review of World War I biological sabotage operations.224 Wheelis also wrote the
best account of the alleged Mongol dissemination of plague in the 14th century.225
Essays by Elizabeth Fenn and Philip Ranlet supersede Wheelis’s review of the
1763 Fort Pitt smallpox attack.226
There is a substantial literature on the Japanese BW program. The best over-
view is probably an essay by Tsuneishi Keiichi.227 The work by Sheldon Harris also
is essential, although he was more interested in documenting the horrors of Japan’s
laboratory research than in documenting the development, acquisition, and use of
biological weapons.228
For French and German BW activities, the best sources are the essays by
Olivier Lepick and Erhard Geissler in the Geissler and Moon volume.229 There
46
are no good English-language studies of the Italian program. Recent research by

Robert Petersen has confirmed the extensive use of biological agents and poisons
by the Polish resistance during World War II.230 His work supplants the earlier
research in Geissler’s study of German BW.231
Soviet BW activities are the subject of an outstanding book by Milton Leit-
enberg and Raymond Zilinskas.232 It provides the best single source on this im-
portant topic, although it is admittedly not comprehensive. Leitenberg and Zilin-
skas give a detailed reading of the program’s scientific underpinnings, as well as a
host of specialized topics, such as Soviet biological arms control policies and BW
disinformation activities. Unfortunately, much remains unknown about the Soviet
program, including the role of BW in the Soviets’ strategic thinking, their biologi-
cal weapons use doctrine, and their actual weapons.
There is no study of comparable quality and depth of the U.S. biological
weapons program, although John van Courtland Moon has published useful es-
says on the topic.233 The same volumes containing the Moon articles also provide
reviews of the programs of both the United Kingdom and Canada, although they
have been given longer treatment elsewhere as well.234
Other countries are thought to have had BW programs since 1945, but there
are no useful histories of most of them. The main exception is Iraq’s program,
which is extensively documented in UN and U.S. Government documents, as well
as numerous essays and books written by researchers associated with the efforts
to uncover Iraq’s activities.235 Avner Cohen has written the best studies of Israel’s
BW program.236
Terrorist and criminal interest and use of biological agents are reviewed in
Biocrimes and Bioterrorism by Seth Carus, while Maasaki Sugishima gives a more
detailed account of Japanese biocrimes cases.237 Toxic Terror, a volume edited by
the late Jonathan Tucker, contains several essays reviewing the bioterrorism activi-
ties of several groups, including the Minnesota Patriot’s Council, the Rajneeshees,
and R.I.S.E.238 Aum Shinrikyo’s chemical and biological weapons programs are
examined by Richard Danzig and his coauthors.239 A more skeptical view of Aum’s
activities is offered by Milton Leitenberg.240
47
Appendix 2. Definitions and Methodology
A biological agent is a pathogen, a microorganism capable of causing disease

in humans, animals, or plants. Conceptually, a biological agent also could be a mi-
croorganism capable of degrading materiel, such as bacteria that might attack the
silicon on computer chips or tire rubber. Multicellular animals, such as insects, are
not biological agents, although they can disseminate biological agents and have
been used to deliver pathogens.
Other substances, such as toxins and bioregulators, are sometimes treated as
biological agents but are more like chemical warfare agents. Toxins, poisons of
biological origin, are produced by poisonous plants and animals, but most now
can be made synthetically. Similarly, bioregulators, chemicals that control normal
bodily processes, also are not considered BW agents.241 There is a third category of
substance, prions, which are infectious proteins that can replicate in their victim.
They are chemicals, but their ability to replicate in a host gives them some simi-
larities to pathogens. There are only two prions known to infect humans, but no
BW program is known to have developed or employed infectious proteins, so they
are not mentioned in this account.242
Potential biological warfare agents are not limited to some short list of patho-
gens but rather include all microorganisms pathogenic to humans, plants, and ani-
mals, as well as those that could be used to attack materials. According to a 2007
survey, there were more than 1,400 human pathogens, including 541 bacteria, 189
viruses, and 57 protozoa (the rest were parasites, such as ringworm, and fungi).243
A more recent study identified 219 pathogenic viruses and estimated that 3 to
4 more are identified every year.244 While many of the diseases are rare and may
cause only mild illness, nearly 350 are considered clinically significant.245
Pathogens aimed at agricultural targets, both plants and animals, also were
adopted by several state biological weapons programs.246 There is no comprehen-
sive list of plant and animal pathogens, although one survey identified 616 patho-
gens of livestock (which included cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and horses).247 Many of
these also affect humans: 76 percent of viruses and half of bacteria dangerous to
humans also affect animals, usually other mammals.248 Anti-material agents have
48
been explored for their BW potential, but there is no evidence of their incorpora-
tion into any BW program.249
State biological weapons programs have valued certain desired characteristics
for their anti-personnel BW agents, often related to lethality, producibility, and
suitability for dissemination.250 For that reason, they have focused on a relatively
small number of pathogens naturally possessing those traits. Such technically de-
manding selection criteria are probably not applicable to terrorists or criminals,
who may value different criteria, such as ease of access, which can lead to the selec-
tion of organisms considered useless by a state weapons program.251
A biological weapon consists of a biological agent packaged so that the micro-
organism can do harm, whether to a person, animal, plant, or materiel. It consists
of the agent and some delivery mechanism. Biological weapons can be extremely
complex, such as a bomblet carrying a ballistic missile warhead or a cruise missile
with spray devices. In such cases, the agent might be formulated to incorporate
additives that enhance its survivability once released into the environment or that
make it easier to disseminate. Biological weapons also can be extremely simple,
such as a vial containing a fluid consisting of a biological agent and growth media
or an envelope with a dry powdered spore. Much of the art and science of BW is
associated with techniques intended to enhance agent dissemination and surviv-
ability.252 Some biological agents can be transmitted through contact with fomites,
materials contaminated by exposure to a pathogen, such as clothing, bedding, or
other items that were in direct contact with someone who had the disease.253
Biological weapons are treated as weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by
the international community. This is sometimes a source of confusion. While bio-
logical weapons can cause mass casualties, they are not destructive (except for
hypothetical anti-materiel agents). Moreover, while biological weapons can infect
indiscriminately, as when aerosol clouds of a biological agent are released into the
air, they also can be highly discriminate, as when a single individual is infected
using a needle. It is for this reason that some WMD definitions exclude uses of
biological agents that do not result in mass casualties.254
Biological warfare (BW) is the term traditionally used to refer to the employ-
ment of biological weapons. It originated at a time when the focus was on state use
49
of biological weapons. However, three different kinds of actor have used biological
weapons: states, terrorist groups, and criminals.255 When states employ biological
weapons against other countries or in insurgencies, they engage in biological war-
fare or biowarfare. In contrast, biological terrorism, or bioterrorism, involves the
terrorist use of biological weapons against any type of adversary. Finally, biological
crimes, or biocrimes, are the employment of biological weapons by criminals for
financial gain, revenge, or pathological reasons. These are distinctly different uses,
which led one scholar to adopt the term “biological violence” to encompass all of
them.256 However, that term has not become common.
The most difficult obstacle to writing the history of BW is separating what
is true, or probably true, from what is undoubtedly or probably false. Published
accounts of BW programs are relatively rare. Some programs have never been
described, and critical information gaps remain for even the best-documented
programs.
There are many allegations of biological weapons use that, on closer inspec-
tion, are either demonstrably false or substantiated only by flimsy evidence. In-
deed, a monograph several times longer than this history could be written just
to debunk the many false allegations of BW use. Readers interested in learning
more about such false claims can find a discussion of them elsewhere.257 These
false allegations arise for multiple reasons. Some come from outbreak victims who
misinterpret natural events or who seek scapegoats for an outbreak that resulted
from natural causes. Some allegations, however, are deliberate fabrications. The
Soviet Union routinely spread false claims in orchestrated disinformation cam-
paigns, such as the allegations that the United States generated HIV in supposed
biological warfare laboratories and deliberately spread the virus.258 Finally, some
claims result from misinterpretation of the historical record by modern authors.
50
Notes
1
For an assessment of the gaps in our understanding of the history of biological
agent use, see W. Seth Carus, “The History of Biological Warfare: What We Know and
What We Don’t,” Health Security 13, no. 4 (August 2015), 219–255.
2
A good survey of human disease organisms is Zygmunt F. Dembek, ed., Medical
Aspects of Biological Warfare (Washington, DC: Office of the Surgeon General, U.S. Army,
2007), available at <www.cs.amedd.army.mil/Portlet.aspx?ID=66cffe45-c1b8-4453-91e0-
9275007fd157>.
3
David B. Kaufman, “Poisons and Poisoning among the Romans,” Classical Philology
27, no. 2 (April 1932), 156–167.
4
Phyllis Allen, “Etiological Theory in America Prior to the Civil War,” Journal of the
History of Medicine and Allied Sciences II, no. 4 (1947), 489–520.
5
Gerald F. O’Malley and Kelli D. O’Donnell, “Strychnine,” in Criminal Poisoning:
Clinical and Forensic Perspectives, ed. Christopher P. Holstege et al. (Sudbury, MA: Jones
and Bartlett Publishers, 2011), 159–163.
6
Allen, 489.
7
Burke A. Cunha, “Osler on Typhoid Fever: Differentiating Typhoid from Typhus
and Malaria,” Infectious Disease Clinics of North America 18, no. 1 (March 2004), 111–125.
8
Frank Fenner et al., Smallpox and Its Eradication (Geneva: World Health Orga-
nization, 1988), 194; Andrea M. McCollum et al., “Poxvirus Viability and Signatures in
Historical Relics,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 20, no. 2 (February 2014), 177–184.
9
Ludwik Gross, “How the Plague Bacillus and Its Transmission through Fleas Were
Discovered: Reminiscences from My Years at the Pasteur Institute in Paris,” Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 92, no. 17 (August 15,
1995), 7609–7611.
10
Émile Perrot and Émile Vogt, “Poisons de Flèches et Poisons D’épreuve” (Paris:
Vigot Freres, 1913); H.D. Neuwinger, “Alkaloids in Arrow Poisons,” in Alkaloids, ed.
Margaret F. Roberts and Michael Wink (New York: Springer US, 1998), 45–84; David E.
Jones, Poison Arrows: North American Indian Hunting and Warfare (Austin: University of
Texas Press, 2007).
11
Perrot and Vogt; Jones; Leonard A. Cole, “The Poison Weapons Taboo: Biology,
Culture, and Policy,” Politics and the Life Sciences 17, no. 2 (September 1998), 119–132;
Ivan C. Hall and Richard W. Whitehead, “A Pharmaco-Bacteriologic Study of African
Poisoned Arrows,” Journal of Infectious Diseases 41, no. 1 (1927), 51–69.
12
Le Dantec, “Origine Tellurique du Poison des Flèches des Naturels des Nouvelles-
Hébrides (Océanie),” Annales de L’Institut Pasteur 4, no. 11 (November 1890), 716–721;
Le Dantec, “Origine Tellurique du Poison des Flèches des Nouvelles-Hébrides (Océ-
anie),” Annales de L’Institut Pasteur 6, no. 12 (December 1892), 851–853.
51
13
Jonathan Barnes, The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 1294.
14
Jones; Carus, “The History of Biological Warfare,” 222–223.
15
Adrienne Mayor, Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Biological and
Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World, 1st ed. (Woodstock: Overlook, 2003).
16
Carus, “The History of Biological Warfare,” 224–226.
17
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian Wars, vol. 1 (New York: G.P. Putnam’s
Sons, 1919), 343.
18
Manu, The Law Code of Manu, trans. Patrick Olivelle (New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2004), 101; R.P. Kangle, The Kautiliya Arthasastra, vol. 2 (Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 1986).
19
Mayor.
20
Keith F. Otterbein, The Anthropology of War (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press,
2009).
21
Carus, “The History of Biological Warfare,” 227–229.
22
Mark L. Wheelis, “Biological Warfare at the 1346 Siege of Caffa,” Emerging Infec-
tious Diseases 8, no. 9 (2002), 971–975; V.J. Derbes, “De Mussis and the Great Plague of
1348: A Forgotten Episode of Bacteriological Warfare,” JAMA 196, no. 1 (April 4, 1966),
59–62.
23
The Black Death was the second major Y. pestis pandemic. The previous one, the
so-called Plague of Justinian, emerged in the Byzantine Empire around 540 AD, spread
through the rest of Europe, and continued to recur into the 8th century. Recovery of Y.
pestis DNA from plague victims recently confirmed the cause of the outbreak. Michaela
Harbeck et al., “Yersinia Pestis DNA from Skeletal Remains from the 6th Century AD
Reveals Insights into Justinianic Plague,” PLOS Pathogens 9, no. 5 (May 2, 2013).
24
Gross.
25
Eleni Thalassinou et al., “Biological Warfare Plan in the 17th Century—The Siege
of Candia, 1648–1669,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 21, no. 12 (December 2015).
26
Thomas F. Madden, Enrico Dandolo and the Rise of Venice (Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2007), 55–56; Donald MacGillivray Nicol, Byzantium and
Venice: A Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations (New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1988), 99.
27
Samuel K. Cohn, Jr., “The Black Death and the Burning of Jews,” Past and Present,
no. 196 (August 2007), 3–36; Samuel K. Cohn, Jr., “Pandemics: Waves of Disease, Waves
of Hate from the Plague of Athens to AIDS,” Historical Research 85, no. 230 (November
2012), 535–555.
28
Paul De Kruif, Microbe Hunters (San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1996).
29
P. Ranlet, “The British, the Indians, and Smallpox: What Actually Happened at
Fort Pitt in 1763?” Pennsylvania History 67, no. 3 (2000), 427–441; Elizabeth A. Fenn,
52
“Biological Warfare in Eighteenth-Century North America: Beyond Jeffery Amherst,”

The Journal of American History 86, no. 4 (2000), 1552–1580.
30
Fenn; Ranlet.
31
Ranlet.
32
D. Peter MacLeod, “Microbes and Muskets: Smallpox and the Participation of
the Amerindian Allies of New France in the Seven Years’ War,” Ethnohistory 39, no. 1
(1992), 42–64. Smallpox spreads rapidly through groups containing large numbers of
people without immunity to the variola virus, which accounts for the catastrophic impact
of smallpox outbreaks in Native American populations. People who survive a smallpox
infection gain such immunity.
33
Fenn; Ranlet.
34
Fenner et al., 193, 1343.
35
Fenn; Ranlet.
36
Ranlet; MacLeod.
37
The reasons for skepticism about such allegations are discussed in Carus, “The His-
tory of Biological Warfare.”
38
Isaac McCoy, History of Baptist Indian Missions: Embracing Remarks on the Former
and Present Condition of the Aboriginal Tribes and Their Settlement within the Indian Ter-
ritory, and Their Future Prospects (New York: Wm. M. Morrison, 1840), 441–443; Mark
L. Wheelis, “Biological Warfare before 1914,” in Biological and Toxin Weapons: Research,
Development, and Use from the Middle Ages to 1945, ed. Erhard Geissler and John Ellis
van Courtland Moon, SIPRI Chemical and Biological Warfare Studies 18 (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1999), 8–34.
39
John Howard Lidgett Cumpston, The History of Small-Pox in Australia, 1788–1908
(Melbourne: Albert J. Mullett, Government Printer, 1914), 1–2, available at <http://
archive.org/details/39002011127157.med.yale.edu>; Judy Campbell, Invisible Invaders:
Smallpox and Other Diseases in Aboriginal Australia, 1780–1880 (Carlton South, Victoria:
Melbourne University Press, 2002); N.G. Butlin, “Macassans and Aboriginal Smallpox:
The ‘1789’ and ‘1829’ Epidemics,” Historical Studies 21, no. 84 (1985), 315–335.
40
Cumpston, 1–2; Michael J. Bennett, “Smallpox and Cowpox under the South-
ern Cross: The Smallpox Epidemic of 1789 and the Advent of Vaccination in Colonial
Australia,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 83, no. 1 (Spring 2009), 37–62; Christopher
Warren, “Smallpox at Sydney Cove—Who, When, Why?” Journal of Australian Studies 38,
no. 1 (2014), 68–86.
41
N.G. Butlin, Our Original Aggression: Aboriginal Populations of Southeastern Austra-
lia, 1788–1850 (Boston: G. Allen and Unwin, 1983); Butlin, “Macassans and Aboriginal
Smallpox”; Warren, “Smallpox at Sydney Cove—Who, When, Why?”; Christopher
Warren, “Could First Fleet Smallpox Infect Aborigines? A Note,” Aboriginal History 31
(2007), 152–164; Bennett, “Smallpox and Cowpox under the Southern Cross.”
53
42
Bennett, “Smallpox and Cowpox under the Southern Cross,” 44–46; Cumpston, 2.
43
Fenner et al.
44
Claude Lévi-Strauss, Tristes Tropiques, trans. John Russell (New York: Criterion
Books, 1961); Wheelis, “Biological Warfare before 1914.”
45
Noble David Cook, Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
46
Nancy Elizabeth Gallagher, Medicine and Power in Tunisia, 1780–1900 (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1983), 30.
47
A.G. Robertson and L.J. Robertson, “From Asps to Allegations: Biological War-
fare in History,” Military Medicine 160, no. 8 (1995), 369–373.
48
Edward Steers, “Risking the Wrath of God,” North and South 3, no. 7 (2000),
59–70; Jane Singer, The Confederate Dirty War: Arson, Bombings, Assassination, and Plots for
Chemical and Germ Attacks on the Union ( Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co., 2005).
49
Robert Latham Owen, Yellow Fever; a Compilation of Various Publications. Results of
the Work of Maj. Walter Reed, Medical Corps, United States Army, and the Yellow Fever Com-
mission (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1911).
50
Carus, “The History of Biological Warfare”; Paul E. Steiner, Disease in the Civil
War: Natural Biological Warfare in 1861–1865 (Springfield, IL: C.C. Thomas, 1968); Wil-
liam B. Davis, “Report on Vaccination,” in Transactions of the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meet-
ing of the Ohio Medical Society (Columbus, OH: Nevins and Myers, 1870), 131–166.
51
Mark L. Wheelis, “Biological Sabotage in World War I,” in Geissler and Moon,
35–62.
52
Wheelis also claims Norway, but that appears to be confusion over activities that
actually took place in Finland. See Carus, “The History of Biological Warfare.”
53
Microbe-Culture at Bukarest: Discoveries at the German Legation, from the Rumanian
Official Documents (New York: Hodder & Stoughton, 1917).
54
Wheelis, “Biological Sabotage in World War I.”
55
Jules Witcover, Sabotage at Black Tom: Imperial Germany’s Secret War in America,
1914–1917 (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1989).
56
Wheelis, “Biological Sabotage in World War I”; Howard Blum, Dark Invasion:
1915: Germany’s Secret War and the Hunt for the First Terrorist Cell in America, 1st ed. (New
York: Harper, 2014).
57
Martin Furmanski, “Defense Against Biological Warfare in the Great War: The
Victory of Veterinary ‘Public Health,’” PowerPoint presentation, World Association for
the History of Veterinary Medicine, Torino, Italy, September 2004.
58
Wheelis, “Biological Sabotage in World War I,” 59–60.
59
Ann Van Wynen Thomas and A.J. Thomas, Legal Limits on the Use of Chemical and
Biological Weapons (Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1970), 49–57.
54
60
John R. Walker, The 1925 Geneva Protocol: Export Controls, Britain, Poland and Why
the Protocol Came to Include “Bacteriological” Warfare, Harvard Sussex Program Occasional
Paper 05 (Harvard Sussex Program, 2016). A “1932 Special Committee on CBW” report
to the Disarmament Conference described biological weapons as including those that
disseminate “pathogenic microbes in whatever phase they may be (virulent or capable
of becoming so), or of filter-passing viruses, or of infected substances.” See Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), The Problem of Chemical and Biological
Warfare: A Study of the Historical, Technical, Military, Legal and Political Aspects of CBW, and
Possible Disarmament Measures, vol. 4: CB Disarmament Negotiations, 1920–1970 (New
York: Humanities Press, 1971), 116–117.
61
Walker.
62
SIPRI; John Norton Moore, “Ratification of the Geneva Protocol on Gas and
Bacteriological Warfare: A Legal and Political Analysis,” Virginia Law Review 58, no. 3
(1972), 420–509.
63
J.P. Perry Robinson, “Chemical Arms Control and the Assimilation of Chemi-
cal Weapons,” International Journal 36, no. 3 (Summer 1981), 515–534; Frederic Joseph
Brown, Chemical Warfare: A Study in Restraints (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publish-
ers, 2006); John Ellis van Courtland Moon, “Chemical Weapons and Deterrence: The
World War II Experience,” International Security 8, no. 4 (Spring 1984), 3–35; John Ellis
van Courtland Moon, “United States Chemical Warfare Policy in World War II: A Cap-
tive of Coalition Policy?” Journal of Military History 60, no. 3 ( July 1996), 495–511; John
Ellis van Courtland Moon, “Project SPHINX: The Question of the Use of Gas in the
Planned Invasion of Japan,” Journal of Strategic Studies 12, no. 3 (1989), 303–323.
64
Tsuneishi Keiichi, “Unit 731 and the Japanese Imperial Army’s Biological Warfare
Program,” in Japan’s Wartime Medical Atrocities: Comparative Inquiries in Science, History,
and Ethics, ed. Jing-Bao Nie et al., trans. John Junkerman (London: Routledge, 2011),
23–31.
65
Theodor Rosebury, Peace or Pestilence: Biological Warfare and How to Avoid It (New
York: Whittlesey House, 1949).
66
Sheldon Harris, “The Japanese Biological Warfare Programme,” in Geissler and
Moon, 142–146.
67
Xiaofang Li, Blood-weeping Accusations: Records of Anthrax Victims (Beijing: Zhong
yang wen xian chu ban she, 2005); Sheldon H. Harris, Factories of Death: Japanese Biologi-
cal Warfare, 1932–1945, and the American Cover-Up, rev. ed. (New York: Routledge, 2002);
Keiichi.
68
James Yin and Weiwei Fan, The Rape of Biological Warfare (San Francisco: North-
pole Light Publishing House, 2000), 286; Harris, “The Japanese Biological Warfare
Programme.”
69
Hal Gold, Unit 731 Testimony (Boston: Tuttle, 1996), 64–67; Keiichi.
55
70
R. Keith Schoppa, In a Sea of Bitterness: Refugees during the Sino-Japanese War
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011), 285–301.
71
Ibid.
72
Ibid.
73
Martin Furmanski, “An Investigation of the Afflicted Area of Anthrax and Glan-
ders Attacks by Japanese Aggressors,” in Xiaofang Li, 36–42.
74
Tohmatsu Haruo, “The Strategic Correlation between the Sino-Japanese and Pa-
cific Wars,” in The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War
of 1937–1945, ed. Mark Peattie, Edward J. Drea, and Hans van de Ven (Stanford, CA:
Stanford University Press, 2011), 427.
75
Materials on the Trial of Former Servicemen of the Japanese Army Charged with Man-
ufacturing and Employing Bacteriological Weapons (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing
House, 1950), 353–354; Yin and Fan, The Rape of Biological Warfare, 158–160.
76
Materials on the Trial of Former Servicemen of the Japanese Army Charged with
Manufacturing and Employing Bacteriological Weapons, 354–355; Yin and Fan, The Rape of
Biological Warfare, 160, 169, put the number at 6,000.
77
Haruo, 427.
78
Carroll V. Glines, The Doolittle Raid: America’s Daring First Strike against Japan
(New York: Orion Books, 1988), 151.
79
Yin and Fan, 160.
80
Harris, Factories of Death, 148.
81
Martin Furmanski, “E-Mail: Article on Japanese BW Report,” September 20,
2014.
82
Keiichi, 28–29.
83
Gold, 237–238.
84
Yin and Fan, 286.
85
Martin Furmanski, “E-Mail: Article on Japanese BW Report,” October 21, 2011.
86
Leroy D. Fothergill, “The Biological Warfare Threat,” in Nonmilitary Defense:
Chemical and Biological Defenses in Perspective, ed. ACS Applied Publications, Advances in
Chemistry 26 (Washington, DC: American Chemical Society, 1960), 23–33.
87
Jeanne Guillemin, Biological Weapons: From the Invention of State-Sponsored Pro-
grams to Contemporary Bioterrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005), 80;
Materials on the Trial of Former Servicemen of the Japanese Army Charged with Manufactur-
ing and Employing Bacteriological Weapons.
88
John Bryden, Deadly Allies: Canada’s Secret War, 1937–1947 (Toronto: McClelland
& Stewart, 1989); Donald Avery, “Canadian Biological and Toxin Warfare Research,
Development and Planning, 1925–45,” in Geissler and Moon, 190–214.
89
Olivier Lepick, “French Activities Related to Biological Warfare, 1919–45,” in
Geissler and Moon, 70–90.
56
90
W.J. Cromartie, “B.W. Intelligence Report—Paris Area, European Theater of
Operations, United States Army, ALSOS Mission,” September 18, 1944, RG 112, Entry
295A, Records of the Office of the Surgeon General (Army), Records of the Preven-
tive Medicine Division, Biological Warfare Specialized Files, 1941–47, Box 12, National
Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
91
Lepick, “French Activities Related to Biological Warfare, 1919–45.”
92
Ibid., 86, 88–89.
93
Ibid., 70.
94
Erhard Geissler, “Biological Warfare Activities in Germany, 1923–45,” in Geissler
and Moon, 96, 98.
95
Gábor Faludi, “Challenges of BW Control and Defense During Arms Reduction,”
in Conversion of Former BTW Facilities, ed. Erhard Geissler, Lajos Gazsó, and Ernst Buder,
NATO Science Series 21 (Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 1998), 67–70; Lajos Rózsa
and Kathryn Nixdorff, “Biological Weapons in Non-Soviet Pact Countries,” in Deadly
Cultures: Biological Weapons since 1945, ed. Mark L. Wheelis, Lajos Rózsa, and Malcolm
R. Dando (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), 158–160.
96
Milton Leitenberg, “Biological Weapons in the Twentieth Century: A Review and
Analysis,” Critical Reviews in Microbiology 27, no. 4 (December 2001), 270.
97
Alberto Sbacchi, “Legacy of Bitterness: Poison Gas and Atrocities in the Italo-
Ethiopian War 1935–1936,” Genève-Afrique 13, no. 2 (1974), 39, note 54; Rózsa and
Nixdorff, 159; Faludi, 69.
98
Geissler, “Biological Warfare Activities in Germany, 1923–45,” 104–105.
99
“Memorandum to the Chief, MID, War Department, Subject: Biological War-
fare—Col. Ugo Reitano, Director of Italian Army Medical Services, Attn: Col. W.M.
Adams, from Lt. Col. William S. Moore, G.S.C.,” June 29, 1944, RG 112, Entry 295A,
Records of the Office of the Surgeon General (Army), Records of the Preventive Medi-
cine Division, Biological Warfare Specialized Files, 1941–47, Box 12, Current Intel—Ital-
ian, NARA.
100
“Interview with Major Ludwik Kerstyn Krzewinski, Medical Corps, Polish Army,
14 June 1946,” June 14, 1946, RG 112, Entry 295A, Records of the Office of the Surgeon
General (Army), Records of the Preventive Medicine Division, Biological Warfare Spe-
cialized Files, 1941–47, Box 9, NARA; Andrzej Krajewski, “Broń Biologiczna W Polsce,
Czyli Kanapka Ze Śmiercią,” Focus Historia, March 13, 2010, available at <http://historia.
focus.pl/swiat/bron-biologiczna-w-polsce-czyli-kanapka-ze-smiercia-604>.
101
Valentin Bojtzov and Erhard Geissler, “Military Biology in the USSR, 1920–45,”
in Geissler and Moon, 153–167; Walker.
102
Ibid.
103
Milton Leitenberg, Raymond A. Zilinskas, and Jens H. Kuhn, The Soviet Biological
Weapons Program: A History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012).
57
104
Bojtzov and Geissler.
105
Ken Alibek and Stephen Handelman, Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the
Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World, Told from the Inside by the Man
Who Ran It (New York: Random House, 2000), 29–31; Erhard Geissler, “Alibek, Tulare-
mia and the Battle of Stalingrad,” The CBW Conventions Bulletin, no. 69–70 (December
2005), 10–15; Eric Croddy and Sarka Krčálová, “Tularemia, Biological Warfare, and
the Battle for Stalingrad (1942–1943),” Military Medicine 166, no. 10 (October 2001),
837–38.
106
Alibek and Handelman, 36.
107
Bojtzov and Geissler, 163; Alexander Gogun, Stalin’s Commandos: Ukrainian
Partisan Forces on the Eastern Front (London: I.B. Tauris and Co. Ltd., 2015), 141–146;
Geissler, “Biological Warfare Activities in Germany, 1923–45,” 121.
108
Gogun, 240–246.
109
Martin Hugh-Jones, “Wickham Steed and German BW,” Intelligence and National
Security 7, no. 4 (1992), 379–402.
110
Gradon B. Carter and Graham S. Pearson, “British Biological Warfare and Bio-
logical Defence, 1925–45,” in Geissler and Moon, 168–189.
111
G.P. Gladstone, B.C.J.G. Knight, and Graham Wilson, “Paul Gordon Fildes,
1882–1971,” Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 19 (1973), 317–347.
112
Carter and Pearson.
113
Barton J. Bernstein, “America’s Biological Warfare Program in the Second World
War,” Journal of Strategic Studies 11, no. 3 (1988), 292–317.
114
“The Costs of the Manhattan Project,” The Brookings Institution, December 15,
2016, available at <www.brookings.edu/the-costs-of-the-manhattan-project/>.
115
John Ellis van Courtland Moon, “U.S. Biological Warfare Planning and Prepared-
ness: The Dilemmas of Policy,” in Geissler and Moon, 215–254.
116
Ibid.
117
Theodor Rosebury, Experimental Air-Borne Infection (Baltimore: Williams and
Wilkins Co., 1947); Alexander D. Langmuir, “The Potentialities of Biological Warfare
Against Man: An Epidemiological Appraisal,” Public Health Reports 66, no. 13 (1951),
387–399.
118
W. Seth Carus, Bioterrorism and Biocrimes: The Illicit Use of Biological Agents Since
1900, rev. ed. (Washington, DC: Center for Counterproliferation Research, National
Defense University, 2001), 71–73.
119
Ibid., 71. English language newspaper accounts claimed that Hopf employed ty-
phus, but this is probably a mistake. The German for typhoid was typhus, which may have
confused the reporters. See Furmanski, “E-Mail: Article on Japanese BW Report.”
120
Carus, Bioterrorism and Biocrimes, 67–69.
121
Ibid., 66–67.
58
122
123
Bojtzov and Geissler, 163.
124
125
Robert Petersen, “‘When a Nation Is Being Murdered’—The Secret Biological
and Chemical War Against the Third Reich,” PowerPoint presentation, CBW Sympo-
sium, National Defense University, Washington, DC, January 31, 2017; Robert Petersen,
“‘When a Nation Is Being Murdered’—The Secret Biological and Chemical War Against
the Third Reich,” Zeszyty Naukowe Akademii Sztuki Wojennej 103, no. 2 (2016), 158–174.
126
Lévi-Strauss, 51; Wheelis, “Biological Warfare before 1914.”
127
Matthew Meselson, Martin M. Kaplan, and Mark A. Mokulsky, “Verification of
Biological and Toxin Weapons Disarmament,” in Verification: Monitoring Disarmament,
ed. F. Calogero, Marvin L. Goldberger, and Sergei Petrovich Kapitza (Boulder: Westview
Press, 1991), 123–164.
128
Langmuir.
129
W. Seth Carus, “Observations on a Century of Biological Warfare Program
Proliferation (1915–2015),” Nonproliferation Review, forthcoming. For an earlier review,
see Milton Leitenberg, Assessing the Biological Weapons and Bioterrorism Threat (Carlisle
Barracks, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, 2005).
130
Governments in six countries have admitted to past activity, including Canada,
France, Iraq, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Sufficient unof-
ficial information, although sometimes of uncertain reliability, exists to suggest that six
other countries also actively pursued biological and toxin weapons: Egypt, Israel, North
Korea, Rhodesia, the former Soviet Union, and Syria. Russia admitted the existence of the
former Soviet BW program but now denies that there was such a program. Allegations
by U.S. Government officials, repeated periodically over several administrations, suggest
that China, Iran, and Russia (the successor state to the Soviet Union) also may have, or
have had, programs, but there is little or no publicly available information about those
alleged activities. At least two countries, Indonesia and Libya, were interested in acquiring
BW, but there is no evidence that they ever succeeded in doing so. There is some evidence
that Romania had a program during the Cold War, and Czechoslovakia may have been
actively involved with the Soviet BW program, but more evidence is needed to substan-
tiate such claims. In contrast, there is no publicly available information to support the
inclusion of a long list of countries that have been mentioned as possibly possessing BW
programs: Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burma, Chile, Cuba, Georgia, India, Laos,
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Sudan, Taiwan, and Vietnam, although in some
cases there is evidence of interest in pursuing biological weapons. Note that some of these
countries might have had BW programs, but there is no publicly available information
to support such a conclusion. For more information, see Carus, The Proliferation of State
Biological Warfare Capabilities.
59
131
Ibid.
132
Mark L. Wheelis, Lajos Rózsa, and Malcolm R. Dando, eds., Deadly Cultures:
Biological Weapons since 1945 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006).
133
Government of Canada, Confidence Building Measures, Canada: 2011 Annual
Report of Confidence Building Measures Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, 2011;
Donald Avery, “The Canadian Biological Weapons Program and the Tripartite Alli-
ance,” in Wheelis, Rózsa, and Dando, 84–107; Donald Avery, Pathogens for War: Biological
Weapons, Canadian Life Scientists, and North American Biodefence (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 2013).
134
Department of State, Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control and Nonpro-
liferation Agreements and Commitments (Washington, DC: Department of State, 2001), 9,
available at <www.state.gov/documents/organization/22466.pdf>; Department of State,
Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agree-
ments and Commitments (Washington, DC: Department of State, 2015), 14.
135
The best review of what little is known is Eric Croddy, “China’s Role in the
Chemical and Biological Disarmament Regimes,” The Nonproliferation Review 9, no. 1
(Spring 2002), 16–47.
136
SIPRI, The Problem of Chemical and Biological Warfare: A Study of the Historical,
Technical, Military, Legal, and Political Aspects of CBW, and Possible Disarmament Measures,
vol. 2: CB Weapons Today (New York: Humanities Press, 1971), 241–242.
137
Russian Federation Foreign Intelligence Service, A New Challenge After the Cold
War: Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation Issues, JPRS-TND-93-007
(Arlington, VA: Foreign Broadcast Information Service, 1993), 24; United States Arms
Control and Disarmament Agency, Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control and
Nonproliferation Agreements and Commitments (Washington, DC: Department of State,
1998), available at <www.state.gov/1997-2001-NOPDFS/global/arms/reports/annual/
comp98.html>; Department of State, Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control,
Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments (Washington, DC: De-
partment of State, 2016), available at <www.state.gov/t/avc/rls/rpt/2016/>.
138
Department of State, Compliance Report 2016, 12.
139
Olivier Lepick, “The French Biological Weapons Program,” in Wheelis, Rózsa,
and Dando, 108–131.
140
Department of Defense, Proliferation: Threat and Response (Washington, DC: Of-
fice of the Secretary of Defense, 1996), 16.
141
Anthony H. Cordesman and Adam C. Seitz, Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction:
Biological Weapons Programs (Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International
Studies, 2008).
142
United Nations (UN) Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission,
Compendium of Iraq’s Proscribed Weapons Programmes in the Chemical, Biological, and Missile
60
Areas (New York: United Nations, 2007); Charles Duelfer, Comprehensive Report of the
Special Advisor to the DCI on Iraq’s WMD (Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency,
2004), available at <www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/in-
dex.html>.
143
UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission, 1149.
144
Ibid., 1055.
145
Duelfer.
146
Ibid., 10, 45.
147
UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission; Commission on the
Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction,
Report to the President of the United States (Washington, DC: Commission on the Intel-
ligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, 2005),
80–111; Duelfer.
148
UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission, 956–962.
149
Duelfer, 11.
150
Ibid.
151
Ibid., 405–408.
152
Avner Cohen, “Israel and Chemical/Biological Weapons: History, Deterrence, and
Arms Control,” The Nonproliferation Review 8, no. 3 (2001), 27–53.
153
Graham S. Pearson, “The Threat of Deliberate Disease in the 21st Century,” in
Biological Weapons Proliferation: Reasons for Concern, Courses of Action, Report 18 (Wash-
ington, DC: The Henry L. Stimson Center, 1998), 32.
154
Elisa D. Harris, “Threat Reduction and North Korea’s CBW Programs,” The
Nonproliferation Review 11, no. 3 (2004), 89–91; House Armed Services Subcommit-
tee on Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities, testimony presented by Bruce
W. Bennett, “The Challenge of North Korean Biological Weapons,” October 11, 2013,
Washington, DC, available at <www.rand.org/pubs/testimonies/CT401.html>; North
Korean Security Challenges: A Net Assessment (London: International Institute for Strategic
Studies, 2011), 161–169.
155
Department of Defense, Proliferation: Threat and Response (Washington, DC:
Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2001), 10–11; Russian Federation Foreign Intelligence
Service, 30.
156
Bennett, “The Challenge of North Korean Biological Weapons”; Louise Walden-
ström, Lena Norlander, and Gertrud Puu, North Korea’s Chemical and Biological Weapons
Programmes in 2005: Real or Outdated Threats? (Umeå: NBC Defence, Swedish Defence
Research Agency [NBC-skydd, Totalförsvarets forskningsinstitut] (FOI), 2005).
157
Waldenström, Norlander, and Puu, 55–56; Bennett, “The Challenge of North
Korean Biological Weapons.”
61
158
Glenn Cross, Dirty War: Rhodesia and Chemical Biological Warfare 1975–1980 (So-
lihull, England: Helion and Company, 2017); Chandré Gould and Peter I. Folb, Project
Coast: Apartheid’s Chemical and Biological Warfare Programme (Geneva: UN Institute for
Disarmament Research Centre for Conflict Resolution, 2002); Chandré Gould and Peter
I. Folb, “The South African Chemical and Biological Warfare Program: An Overview,”
The Nonproliferation Review 7, no. 3 (Fall–Winter 2000), 10–23.
159
Cross, chapter 3.
160
Gould and Folb, Project Coast.
161
Ibid., 64–65.
162
Leitenberg, Zilinskas, and Kuhn.
163
Anthony Rimmington, “Invisible Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Soviet
Union’s BW Programme and Its Implications for Contemporary Arms Control,” The
Journal of Slavic Military Studies 13, no. 3 (September 2000), 1–46.
164
“Stalin’s Plan to Assassinate Tito,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin,
no. 10 (March 1998), 137.
165
Raymond A Zilinskas, The Soviet Biological Weapons Program and Its Legacy in
Today’s Russia, Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction Occasional Paper
11 (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2016).
166
Michael Gentile, “Former Closed Cities and Urbanisation in the FSU: An Explo-
ration in Kazakhstan,” Europe-Asia Studies 56, no. 2 (2004), 263–278.
167
Leitenberg, Zilinskas, and Kuhn, 160–161.
168
Ibid., 121–136; A possible accident involving open air testing is described in Jona-
than B. Tucker and Raymond A. Zilinskas, eds., The 1971 Smallpox Epidemic in Aralsk,
Kazakhstan, and the Soviet Biological Warfare Program, vol. 9 (Monterey, CA: Center for
Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies, 2002).
169
Christopher J. Davis, “Nuclear Blindness: An Overview of the Biological Weap-
ons Programs of the Former Soviet Union and Iraq,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 5, no. 4
(1999), 510; Leitenberg, Zilinskas, and Kuhn, 293.
170
Leitenberg, Zilinskas, and Kuhn, 178.
171
Ibid., 46, 288.
172
Davis, “Nuclear Blindness,” 511; Leitenberg, Zilinskas, and Kuhn, 282–322.
173
Alibek and Handelman, 99, 111–112.
174
175
Department of State, Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonprolifera-
tion, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments (Washington, DC: Department of
State, 2005), 31.
176
Department of State, Compliance Report 2016, 12–13.
62
177
Vladimir Putin, “Being Strong: National Security Guarantees for Russia,” Ros-
siiskaya Gazeta, February 20, 2012, available at <http://archive.premier.gov.ru/eng/events/
news/18185//>. The full quotation is:
In the more distant future, weapons systems based on new principles (beam, geophysi-
cal, wave, genetic [emphasis added] psychophysical and other technology) will be de-
veloped. All this will, in addition to nuclear weapons, provide entirely new instru-
ments for achieving political and strategic goals. Such hi-tech weapons systems will
be comparable in effect to nuclear weapons but will be more “acceptable” in terms of
political and military ideology. In this sense, the strategic balance of nuclear forces will
play a gradually diminishing role in deterring aggression and chaos.
178
Interfax, Russia to Draft Program of Beam, Genetic, Psychophysical Weapons, 2012,
LexisNexis.
179
Gunnar Jeremias et al., “Guest Post: Spotlight on Syria’s Biological Weapons,”
Arms Control Wonk, February 8, 2016, available at <www.armscontrolwonk.com/ar-
chive/1201010/guest-post-spotlight-on-syrias-biological-weapons/>.
180
Dany Shoham, Chemical and Biological Weapons in the Arab Countries and Iran—An
Existential Threat to Israel? (Shaarei Tikva, Israel: The Ariel Center for Policy Research,
2001), 35–36, 99, available at <www.acpr.org.il/publications/books/Shoham-2001.pdf>.
181
Brian Balmer, “The UK Biological Weapons Program,” in Wheelis, Rózsa, and
Dando, 47–83.
182
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Confidence Building
Measure Return for 2011 (Covering Data for 2010) for the Convention on the Prohibition of
the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons
and Their Destruction, 10 April 1972, for submission to the UN, March 31, 2011, available
at <www.unog.ch/80256EDD006B8954/%28httpAssets%29/009540B24174AC38C125
78930057FF00/$file/BWC_CBM_2011_United+Kingdom.pdf>.
183
Balmer, “Deadly Cultures,” 60.
184
This account draws on the following sources: John Ellis van Courtland Moon,
“The U.S. Biological Weapons Program,” in Wheelis, Rózsa, and Dando, 9–46; Alastair
Hay, “Simulants, Stimulants and Diseases: The Evolution of the United States Biologi-
cal Warfare Programme, 1945–60,” Medicine, Conflict and Survival 15, no. 3 ( July 1999),
198–214; Alastair Hay, “A Magic Sword or a Big Itch: An Historical Look at the United
States Biological Weapons Programme,” Medicine, Conflict and Survival 15, no. 3 ( July
1999), 215–234; Jonathan B. Tucker and Erin R. Mahan, President Nixon’s Decision to
Renounce the U.S. Offensive Biological Weapons Program, Center for the Study of Weapons
of Mass Destruction Case Study 1 (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press,
2009).
185
Moon, “Deadly Cultures.”
63
186
Reid Kirby, “Evolving Role of Biological Weapons,” Army Chemical Review, no.
PB 3-07-02 (December 1997), 22–26.
187
Simon M. Whitby, “Anticrop Biological Weapons Program,” in Wheelis, Rózsa,
and Dando, 213–223.
188
John Ellis van Courtland Moon, “Biological Warfare Allegations: The Korean War
Case,” in The Microbiologist and Biological Defense Research: Ethics, Politics, and Interna-
tional Security, ed. Raymond A. Zilinskas, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences,
v. 666 (New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1992), 53–83.
189
Milton Leitenberg, China’s False Allegations of the Use of Biological Weapons by
the United States during the Korean War, CWIHP Working Paper 78 (Washington, DC:
Wilson Center, 2016), available at <www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/chinas-false-alle-
gations-the-use-biological-weapons-the-united-states-during-the-korean>.
190
Tucker and Mahan.
191
Josef Goldblat, “The Biological Weapons Convention: An Overview,” Interna-
tional Review of the Red Cross, no. 318 (1997), 251–265.
192
Kenneth D. Ward, “The BWC Protocol Mandate for Failure,” The Nonproliferation
Review 11, no. 2 (2004), 183–199; “The United States and the Biological Weapons Con-
vention: An Interview with Donald Mahley,” Stanford Journal of International Relations 3,
no. 2 (Fall–Winter 2002), available at <https://web.stanford.edu/group/sjir/3.2.04_mah-
ley.html>.
193
“Sixth Review Conference of the States Parties to the Convention on the Prohibi-
tion of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and
Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction,” BWC/CONF.VI/6, (Article I, paragraphs 1
and 2), 9, available at <www.opbw.org/>.
194
Jez Littlewood, “Looking for Trouble in All the Right Places,” December 2016.
195
“The Australia Group,” available at <www.australiagroup.net/en/>.
196
Olivia Bosch and Peter van Ham, Global Non-Proliferation and Counter-Terrorism:
The Impact of UNSCR 1540 (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2007).
197
Elisa D. Harris, “Dual-Use Threats: The Case of Biological Technology,” in
Governance of Dual-Use Technologies: Theory and Practice, ed. Elisa D. Harris (Cambridge:
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2016), 100–101.
198
Cohen, “Israel and Chemical/Biological Weapons: History, Deterrence, and Arms
Control.”
199
Central Intelligence Agency, “Quarterly Review of Biological Warfare Intelli-
gence: First Quarter 1949,” May 13, 1949, Harry S. Truman Library.
200
Cross; Gould and Folb, Project Coast, 24–30.
201
Gould and Folb, Project Coast, 24–30.
202
Paul L. Montgomery, “Killing of Indians Charged in Brazil: 134 Are Accused of
Crimes Aimed at Stealing Land Killing of Brazilian Indians for Their Lands Charged to
64
Officials,” New York Times, March 21, 1968; Mark L. Wheelis and Masaaki Sugishima,
“Terrorist Use of Biological Weapons,” in Wheelis, Rózsa, and Dando, 284–303.
203
Leitenberg, Zilinskas, and Kuhn, 407–422; Raymond A. Zilinskas, “Cuban Al-
legations of Biological Warfare by the United States: Assessing the Evidence,” Critical
Reviews in Microbiology 25, no. 3 (1999), 173–227.
204
Jeffrey D. Simon, Terrorists and the Potential Use of Biological Weapons: A Discussion
of Possibilities (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1989).
205
W. Seth Carus, “The Rajneeshees (1984),” in Toxic Terror: Assessing Terrorist Use of
Chemical and Biological Weapons, ed. Jonathan B. Tucker (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000),
115–137.
206
Richard Danzig et al., Aum Shinrikyo: Insights into How Terrorists Develop Biologi-
cal and Chemical Weapons, 2nd ed. (Washington, DC: Center for a New American Security,
2012).
207
Leitenberg, Assessing the Biological Weapons and Bioterrorism Threat; Rolf Mowatt-
Larssen, Al Qaeda Weapons of Mass Destruction Threat: Hype or Reality? (Cambridge: Belfer
Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School, 2010).
208
Stephen Hummel, “The Islamic State and WMD: Assessing the Future Threat,”
CTC Sentinel 9, no. 1 ( January 2016), 18–22.
209
Jeanne Guillemin, American Anthrax: Fear, Crime, and the Investigation of the Na-
tion’s Deadliest Bioterror Attack, 1st ed. (New York: Times Books, 2011); Expert Behav-
ioral Analysis Panel, The Amerithrax Case: Report of the Expert Behavioral Analysis Panel
(Vienna, VA: Research Strategies Network, 2011).
210
Carus, Bioterrorism and Biocrimes.
211
Ibid.
212
Meselson, Kaplan, and Mokulsky, “Verification of Biological and Toxin Weapons
Disarmament.”
213
Committee on Advances in Technology and the Prevention of Their Application
to Next Generation Biowarfare Threats, National Research Council, Globalization, Bios-
ecurity, and the Future of the Life Sciences (Washington, DC: National Academies Press,
2006).
214
John P. Caves, Jr., and W. Seth Carus, The Future of Weapons of Mass Destruction:
Their Nature and Role in 2030, Occasional Paper 10 (Washington, DC: National Defense
University Press, 2014).
215
Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation
and Terrorism, World at Risk: The Report of the Commission on the Prevention of WMD
Proliferation and Terrorism (New York: Vintage Books, 2008); Committee on Advances
in Technology and the Prevention of Their Application to Next Generation Biowarfare
Threats, National Research Council, Globalization, Biosecurity, and the Future of the Life
Sciences.
65
216
Leitenberg, Assessing the Biological Weapons and Bioterrorism Threat; J. Revill
and C. Jefferson, “Tacit Knowledge and the Biological Weapons Regime,” Science and
Public Policy, 2013; Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley and Kathleen M. Vogel, “The Social
Context Shaping Bioweapons (Non)proliferation,” Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense
Strategy, Practice, and Science 8, no. 1 (March 2010), 9–24; Kathleen M. Vogel, Phantom
Menace or Looming Danger? A New Framework for Assessing Bioweapons Threats (Baltimore:
The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013); Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley, Barriers to
Bioweapons: The Challenges of Expertise and Organization for Weapons Development (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2014).
217
Catherine Jefferson, “The Taboo of Chemical and Biological Weapons: Nature,
Norms and International Law,” unpublished dissertation, University of Sussex, 2009.
218
Guillemin, Biological Weapons; Gregory D. Koblentz, Living Weapons: Biological
Warfare and International Security (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009); Leitenberg,
Assessing the Biological Weapons and Bioterrorism Threat.
219
SIPRI, The Problem of Chemical and Biological Warfare: A Study of the Historical,
Technical, Military, Legal and Political Aspects of CBW, and Possible Disarmament Measures,
6 vols. (New York: Humanities Press, 1971); U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assess-
ment, Technologies Underlying Weapons of Mass Destruction, OTA-BP-ISC-115 (Washing-
ton, DC: Office of Technology Assessment, 1993).
220
Dembek.
221
Carus, “The History of Biological Warfare.”
222
Geissler and Moon.
223
Wheelis, Rózsa, and Dando, Deadly Cultures.
224
Wheelis, “Biological Warfare before 1914”; Wheelis, “Biological Sabotage in
World War I.”
225
Wheelis, “Biological Warfare at the 1346 Siege of Caffa.”
226
Fenn; Ranlet.
227
Keiichi.
228
Harris, Factories of Death; Harris, “The Japanese Biological Warfare Programme.”
229
Lepick, “French Activities Related to Biological Warfare, 1919–45”; Geissler,
“Biological Warfare Activities in Germany, 1923–45.”
230
Petersen, “‘When a Nation Is Being Murdered’—The Secret Biological and
Chemical War against the Third Reich.”
231
Geissler, “Biological Warfare Activities in Germany, 1923–45”; Carus, Bioterrorism
and Biocrimes.
232
Leitenberg, Zilinskas, and Kuhn.
233
Moon, “Deadly Cultures”; Moon, “U.S. Biological Warfare Planning and Pre-
paredness: The Dilemmas of Policy.”
66
234
Avery, Pathogens for War; Avery, “Canadian Biological and Toxin Warfare
Research, Development and Planning, 1925–45”; Bryden; Brian Balmer, Britain and
Biological Warfare: Expert Advice and Science Policy, 1930–65 (Basingstoke, Hampshire:
Palgrave, 2001); Balmer, “Deadly Cultures”; Carter and Pearson; Peter M. Hammond and
G.B. Carter, From Biological Warfare to Healthcare: Porton Down 1940–2000 (New York:
Palgrave, 2002).
235
Avner Cohen, “Israel: Reconstructing a Black Box,” in Biological Warfare and
Disarmament: New Problems New Perspectives, ed. Susan Wright (Lanham, MD: Rowman
and Littlefield, 2002), 181–212; Cohen, “Israel and Chemical/Biological Weapons.”
236
Cohen, “Israel and Chemical/Biological Weapons”; Cohen, “Israel: Reconstruct-
ing a Black Box.”
237
Carus, Bioterrorism and Biocrimes; Masaaki Sugishima, “Biocrimes in Japan,” in A
Comprehensive Study on Bioterrorism (English Part), ed. Masaaki Sugishima (Mizuho City,
Japan: Legal Research Institute, Asahi University, 2003), 86–121.
238
Jonathan B. Tucker, ed., Toxic Terror: Assessing Terrorist Use of Chemical and Bio-
logical Weapons (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000).
239
Danzig et al.
240
Milton Leitenberg, “Aum Shinrikyo’s Efforts to Produce Biological Weapons: A
Case Study in the Serial Propagation of Misinformation,” Terrorism and Political Violence
11, no. 4 (1999), 149–158.
241
These distinctions are discussed in Graham S. Pearson, New Scientific and Techno-
logical Developments of Relevance to the Fifth Review Conference, Bradford Briefing Papers,
1st Series 3 (Bradford, UK: Bradford Project on Strengthening the Biological and Toxin
Weapons Convention, University of Bradford, 2001), 6–7, available at <http://hdl.handle.
net/10454/708>.
242
Mark E. Woolhouse and E. Gaunt, “Ecological Origins of Novel Human Patho-
gens,” Critical Reviews in Microbiology 33, no. 4 (2007), 232.
243
Ibid. The list also includes 325 fungi, 285 helminths (parasitic worms), and 2
prions.
244
Mark Woolhouse et al., “Human Viruses: Discovery and Emergence,” Philosophi-
cal Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 367, no. 1604 (October
19, 2012), 2864–2871.
245
Simon I. Hay et al., “Global Mapping of Infectious Disease,” Philosophical Trans-
actions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences 368, no. 1614 (March 19, 2013).
no. 1614 (March 19, 2013
246
Rocco Casagrande and Nickolas Wills, “Bioterrorism Targeted at Agriculture,” in
Encyclopedia of Bioterrorism Defense, ed. Rebecca Katz and Raymond A. Zilinskas, 2nd ed.
(Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 130–137; Simon M. Whitby, Biological Warfare
67
Against Crops (New York: Palgrave, 2002); Whitby, “Deadly Cultures”; Piers Millett, “An-
tianimal Biological Weapons Program,” in Wheelis, Rózsa, and Dando, 224–235.
247
Hay et al., “Global Mapping of Infectious Disease.”
248
L.H. Taylor, S.M. Latham, and Mark E. Woolhouse, “Risk Factors for Human
Disease Emergence,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological
Sciences 356, no. 1411 (2001), 983–989.
249
Margaret E. Kosal, “Anti-Materiel Agents,” in Katz and Zilinskas, 54–57.
250
U.S. Department of the Army, Military Biology and Biological Agents (Washington,
DC: Government Printing Office, 1964), as quoted in SIPRI, The Problem of Chemical and
Biological Warfare, vol. 2, 311.
251
252
Richard F. Pilch and Nazrin Masinova, “Delivery Methodologies,” in Katz and
Zilinskas, 201–204.
253
G.W. Christopher et al., “Biological Warfare: A Historical Perspective,” Journal of
the American Medical Association 278, no. 5 (August 6, 1997), 412–417.
254
W. Seth Carus, Defining “Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Occasional Paper 8,
Revised and Updated (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass
Destruction, National Defense University Press, January 2012).
255
256
Barry Kellman, Bioviolence: Preventing Biological Terror and Crime (New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2007).
257
Carus, “The History of Biological Warfare.
258
68
About the Author
Dr. W. Seth Carus is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the National Defense

University (NDU). His research focuses on issues related to biological warfare, in-
cluding threat assessment, biodefense, and the role of the Department of Defense
in responding to biological agent use. He also studies allegations of biological
agent use and has written a working paper titled “Bioterrorism and Biocrimes:
The Illicit Use of Biological Agents in the 20th Century” and several articles on
that subject. He has been at NDU since 1997. From 2003 to 2013 he also served
as the Center’s Deputy Director. From 2001 to 2003, Dr. Carus was detailed to
the Office of the Vice President, where he was the Senior Advisor to the Vice
President for Biodefense. Before assuming that position, he was on the staff of the
National Preparedness Review commissioned to recommend changes in home-
land security organization and supported the Office of Homeland Security while
it was being established. Prior to joining NDU, Dr. Carus was a research analyst
in the Center for Naval Analyses. From 1991 to 1994, he was a member of the
Policy Planning Staff in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy. Before
joining the government, he was a research fellow at the Washington Institute for
Near East Policy. Dr. Carus has a Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore, Maryland.
69
Occasional Paper Series
11
The Soviet Biological Weapons Program and Its
Legacy in Today’s Russia
Raymond A. Zilinskas
July 2016
10
The Future of Weapons of Mass Destruction:
Their Nature and Role in 2030
John P. Caves and W. Seth Carus
June 2014
9
Proliferation Security Initiative: Origins and Evolution
Susan J. Koch
June 2012
8
Defining “Weapons of Mass Destruction”
(Revised and Updated)
W. Seth Carus
January 2012
7
Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction:
Looking Back, Looking Ahead
Paul I. Bernstein, John P. Caves, Jr., and W. Seth Carus
October 2009
For additional information, including requests for publications,

please visit the Center Web site at <http://wmdcenter.ndu.edu>.

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Occasional Paper 12

MR. CHARLES D. LUTES

MR. JOHN P. CAVES, JR.

Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction

National Defense University Press

Portions of this work may be quoted or reprinted without permis-

First printing, August 2017

Early Use (through 1900)......................................................................... 2

Prehistoric Biological Warfare................................................................. 3

Ancient BW (500 BCE to 1000 AD).......................................................... 4

Medieval and Early Modern BW (1000 AD to 1750 AD)........................ 5

Late Modern BW (1750 AD to 1900 AD)................................................. 7

The Origins of Modern BW (1900–1945).............................................. 12

The Cold War and Beyond (1945–Present)........................................... 27

Biological Warfare’s Future................................................................... 44

Appendix 1. Additional Reading........................................................... 46

Appendix 2. Definitions and Methodology.......................................... 48

About the Author.................................................................................. 69

state BW programs as well as known uses of biological agents by states, terrorists,

Early Use (through 1900)

Prehistoric Biological Warfare

available plants or animals.10 In some cases, however, primitive peoples contami-

Ancient BW (500 BCE to 1000 AD)

Medieval and Early Modern BW (1000 AD to 1750 AD)

Late Modern BW (1750 AD to 1900 AD)

What is incontestable, however, is that some British soldiers deliberately tried

The Origins of Modern BW (1900–1945)

World War I (1915–1918)

BW Arms Control: The 1925 Geneva Protocol

Other State BW Programs

dissemination of animal diseases. They also tried to implement some defensive

The United Kingdom. The British initiated an offensive BW program in 1940.

Nonstate Use (1900–1945)

a victim, making either himself or a confederate the beneficiary. He killed one

The Cold War and Beyond (1945–Present)

It is difficult to definitively determine the extent of biological weapons pro-

Some of these programs were initiated before or during World War II

France. The resumption of BW research, building on the work of the prewar

The Iraqis were well aware of the shortcomings of the Al Husayn

U.S. BW scientists understood the implications of agent aerosolization and

Biological Arms Control and Disarmament

Negotiations to prohibit biological weapons became part of the agenda of

discussions focused on a treaty aimed at both chemical and biological weapons,

Resolution 1540, originally adopted in 2004, requires all UN member states to

contaminated with B. typhimurium at a meeting of the African National Congress.

Biological Warfare’s Future

Appendix 1. Additional Reading

Readers unfamiliar with BW should start with a topical overview. Useful

are no good English-language studies of the Italian program. Recent research by

Appendix 2. Definitions and Methodology

A biological agent is a pathogen, a microorganism capable of causing disease

“Biological Warfare in Eighteenth-Century North America: Beyond Jeffery Amherst,”

About the Author

Dr. W. Seth Carus is a Distinguished Research Fellow at the National Defense

For additional information, including requests for publications,

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