CNS Occasional Papers: #3

Nonproliferation Regimes At Risk

BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS: NEW CHALLENGES, NEW STRATEGIES?

by Brad Roberts

For decades, the effort to combat the problem of biological weapons (BW) has been at the margins of the global nonproliferation and disarmament effort. This reflected a widespread notion that the problem they posed was not particularly severe, as well as confidence that the strategy in place to address the problem was, by and large, effective. Looking ahead, we should not be nearly so confident in either our understanding of the problem or the effectiveness of the current solution. The cornerstone of the effort to combat biological weapons remains the global treaty regime, and strengthening this regime remains essential. But the addition of a monitoring protocol to the regime, as valuable as that would be, will carry us only a limited distance towards the ultimate goal of a fully effective global ban on biological weapons.

BACKGROUND

Negotiations to eliminate biological (and chemical) weapons date back a century, to the Hague conferences. In 1925, negotiators agreed to a ban on the use, but not possession, of chemical and biological weapons (CBW) in the context of the Geneva Protocol (for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous, and Other Gases and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare). This protocol remains in force today, with over 130 signatories. A more comprehensive agreement was under negotiation at the failed Disarmament Conference in the 1930s. This was also a time when most of the major powers prepared for the possible employment of biological weapons. Both Japan and the Soviet Union actually engaged in such attacks.

The Cold War saw a continuation of offensive preparations by some, especially the Soviet Union and the United States. Under the auspices of the Eighteen-Nation Disarmament Conference and its successor entities, diplomats returned to negotiations aimed at banning such weapons. Following conclusion of the NPT in 1968, the UN disarmament community and the arms control community more broadly turned again to the CBW topic. At that time, a long-standing stalemate was broken with the decision to separate the problems of chemical and biological weapons, in the belief that the biological problem was more susceptible to rapid negotiation. Facilitated significantly by a Nixon administration decision that the United States should disarm unilaterally in this area, a bilateral agreement with the Soviet Union was rapidly concluded, which was adopted as the framework for the multilateral Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention that entered into force in 1975.

Already at the first review conference in 1980, doubts were expressed about the efficacy of the regime. News of the 1979 accidental release of anthrax at Sverdlovsk reached the conference and the media, fueling reservations about Soviet compliance. Those reservations did not ease even with the advent of Mikhail Gorbachev, and it was revealed after the USSR’s collapse that a massive program of BWC cheating had in fact been conducted throughout the life of the treaty—indeed, a significant component of the Soviet BW program (Biopreparat) began precisely with Moscow’s signature of the treaty. Throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, there were also rising concerns about the proliferation of biological weapons. At the treaty’s entry into force, it was generally assumed that only one or two countries other than the superpowers had developed biological weapons. Today, it is often reported that a dozen or more countries possess biological weapons, or are actively seeking to acquire them.

The Persian Gulf War brought matters to a political head. The near-brush with Iraq’s unconventional weapons led to a major international effort to strengthen the global treaty regime by expanding the authority of the IAEA, bringing to rapid conclusion negotiation of the CWC, and by strengthening the BWC through the addition of a monitoring protocol. An ad hoc group of states parties to the BWC was thus formed and charged with elaborating a draft protocol for consideration by states parties, work in which it is currently engaged.

At the end of the decade, we can observe a further evolution in the nature of the BW problem. There is rising concern about the impact of technological change on the problem, as the diffusion of advanced technologies empowers new BW actors, creates new BW possibilities, and undermines the viability of traditional arms control approaches. There is also rising concern about non-state actors, as the Aum Shinrikyo cult in Japan and a host of militia-related activities in the United States have signaled rising terrorist interest in BW.

STRENGTHENING THE REGIME

The effort to strengthen the regime has encountered a number of obstacles. Negotiation of the provisions of the protocol has fueled serious disputes about (1) the degree to which verification measures can detect militarily significant cheating in a timely fashion and with a high enough degree of certainty to deter proscribed activities; (2) the degree to which effective verification will require a measure of openness in industry that will lead to the loss of proprietary commercial information, especially in the rapidly growing and increasingly vital biotechnologies; and (3) how to balance the Article III obligation not to assist proliferators with the Article X obligation to promote the peaceful use and exchange of the technologies of concern to the convention. These disputes reflect the relatively low measure of consensus among the various domestic and international constituencies involved in the BWC process, and the failure of process leaders to find the basis for consensus. Despite the presidential commitment by Bill Clinton to push for rapid conclusion, the process drags on.

Sooner or later, however, conclusion of the protocol appears certain. It will then require signature by states parties, as well as ratification, as it will entail new obligations. This process is likely to be delayed and fractious, especially if the support of commercial interests has not been won in advance. US ratification is by no means certain if the current constellation of arms control forces remains. At best, a two-tiered system, in which some states are signed up to accept intrusive inspections and others are not, will prevail for a long time.

Whatever the ultimate success of the effort to add a monitoring and compliance protocol, we should understand that this alone will not turn the BWC into a fully effective global ban on biological weapons. The strengthening of the regime requires other steps as well, including full implementation of the measures agreed at various review conferences (such as confidence-building measures) as well as a press to increase global adherence from the current 140-plus to the full international community.

More importantly, however, regime supporters must ensure that the regime comes to terms with extant problems of noncompliance. Iraq remains a glaring example of the failure to achieve BWC compliance by a renegade state, even despite the expressed will of the UN Security Council to achieve that end. Russia’s ongoing BW activities are a growing source of international concern, and a major irritant to the long-term viability of the regime. If Russia cannot be brought back into compliance with the regime despite the express will of its elected leadership, why should others follow suit? China, too, is understood not to be in compliance with its BWC treaty obligations. Dealing with flagrant violations is at least as important to the long-term viability of the regime as adding monitoring provisions, especially as violators, such as Iraq, have proven so astute at working around monitoring efforts.

NOT BY ARMS CONTROL ALONE

Although few in the arms control community would claim that arms control is a panacea, arms controllers must be particularly direct on this point when it comes to biological weapons. Arms control is essential to the global effort to rid the world of biological weapons, as an embodiment of the norm against this mode of warfare and as an institution to give that norm expression. But if arms control is to succeed, it must be as part of a strategy integrating various elements addressing the multifaceted components of the problem. These include:

  • A UN Security Council willing and able to fulfill its responsibilities as an enforcer of the global arms control regime and, more generally, as a guarantor of the security of UN member states.

  • The effective functioning of the other components of the arms control regime, particularly the CWC, the NPT, and the various regional mechanisms that have been agreed upon. Synergistic effects are essential. States must perceive benefits in these arms control initiatives, with success in one area spilling over into another. For example, successful CWC inspections and/or resolution of nuclear safeguards questions in the DPRK will play a critical role in states’ willingness to permit greater transparency and access for BWC enhanced compliance measures. Such successes both build confidence in multilateral treaties and reduce security concerns.

  • An effective export licensing regime among the exporters of materials and technologies sensitive from the point of view of the BWC. In this regard, the Australia Group (AG) is a valuable forum where states engaged in trade in technologies and materials sensitive from the point of view of CBW proliferation can meet to share information and coordinate their licensing procedures and polices. The AG must not be sacrificed in the endgame of the BWC negotiations to try to buy consensus on the monitoring protocol.

  • Military counters (passive defenses, active defenses, counterforce attack capabilities, etc.) for those who face BW threats. Without them, BW-armed adversaries may use BW to secure aggression (or in ways that generate a nuclear response), with disastrous consequences for the treaty regime. Such counters are particularly important for security guarantors; without them, biological weapons could be used to call into question the credibility of those guarantees and of a world based on WMD restraint.

  • Counterterrorism capabilities encompassing prevention, deterrence, and consequence management. Without these, it is possible that biological weapons could become a customary mode of violence for non-state actors.


Go to the next page.
Return to the Occasional Paper #3 index.

Return to Top