Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945

Front Cover
Harvard University Press, Jan 30, 2006 - History - 479 pages

The threat of biological weapons has never attracted as much public attention as in the past five years. Current concerns largely relate to the threat of weapons acquisition and use by rogue states or by terrorists. But the threat has deeper roots—it has been evident for fifty years that biological agents could be used to cause mass casualties and large-scale economic damage. Yet there has been little historical analysis of such weapons over the past half-century.

Deadly Cultures sets out to fill this gap by analyzing the historical developments since 1945 and addressing three central issues: Why have states continued or begun programs for acquiring biological weapons? Why have states terminated biological weapons programs? How have states demonstrated that they have truly terminated their biological weapons programs?

We now live in a world in which the basic knowledge needed to develop biological weapons is more widely available than ever before. Deadly Cultures provides the lessons from history that we urgently need in order to strengthen the long-standing prohibition of biological weapons.

 

Contents

Historical Context and Overview
1
The US Biological Weapons Program
9
The UK Biological Weapons Program
47
The Canadian Biological Weapons Program and the Tripartite Alliance
84
The French Biological Weapons Program
108
The Soviet Biological Weapons Program
132
Biological Weapons in NonSoviet Warsaw Pact Countries
157
The Iraqi Biological Weapons Program
169
Midspectrum Incapacitant Programs
236
Allegations of Biological Weapons Use
252
Terrorist Use of Biological Weapons
284
The Politics of Biological Disarmament
304
Legal Constraints on Biological Weapons
329
Analysis and Implications
355
The Biological Weapons Convention
375
Notes
381

The South African Biological Weapons Program
191
Anticrop Biological Weapons Programs
213
Antianimal Biological Weapons Programs
224
Contributors
463
Index
465
Copyright

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About the author (2006)

Mark Wheelis is Senior Lecturer in the Section of Microbiology at the University of California, Davis. Lajos Rózsa is senior researcher, Animal Ecology Group of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary. Malcolm Dando is Professor of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, England.

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