How to deter your adversary Cold War style

How to deter your adversary Cold War style

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9467691_mBiological and nuclear weapons are both considered weapons of mass destruction, but only nuclear weapons are currently used to serve as deterrence. Some experts now claim that security authorities should consider the idea of using non-contagious biological weapons as a form of deterrence.

The new model “could work well if deterrence required threatening large human populations,” without posing the risk of a global catastrophe, writes Seth Baum, executive director of the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute (GCRI). The GCRI is a Think Tank partly funded by the US Department of Homeland Security.

Not all experts agree, however. According to Gregory Koblentz, associate professor at George Mason University, biological weapons take time to germinate and their effects can be unpredictable, due to their sensitivity to environmental conditions and the importance of pathogens-host interactions. Furthermore, the unavailability of tests regarding the real life effects of biological weapons, prevent states from fully understanding the effects biological weaponry might have.

Another aspect of biological warfare is the ability to counteract an attack. There are no known practical defenses against the effects of a nuclear attack but a biological attack can be dealt with measures taken before, during, and after the attack.

Yet a third aspect of this discussion is offered by Home Land Security News Wire which explains that deterrence cannot work here, since in order for biological weaponry to work, it needs to be secret prior to use. The news site gives the Cold War as an example.

During the Cold War period the superpowers were able to flaunt their nuclear capabilities for deterrence purposes, because doing so did not provide adversaries with improved means of defending against them. Biological weapons, on the other hand, need to be kept secret, because adversaries can develop the appropriate defenses if they know of the specific weapon in advance. And keeping your arsenal secret counteracts the goals of deterrence.