Biological Warfare - History

History

Rudimentary forms of biological warfare have been practiced over and over again throughout history. Many examples are recorded from antiquity. During the 6th century BC, the Assyrians poisoned enemy wells with a fungus that would render the enemy delirious.

Historical accounts from medieval Europe detail the use of infected animal carcasses, by Mongols, Turks and other groups, to infect enemy water supplies. Before the bubonic plague epidemic known as the Black Death, Mongol and Turkish armies were reported to have catapulted disease-laden corpses into besieged cities. The last known incident of using plague corpses for BW purposes occurred in 1710, when Russian forces attacked the Swedes by flinging plague-infected corpses over the city walls of Reval (Tallinn).

The British army at least once attempted to use smallpox as a weapon, when they gave contaminated blankets to the Lenape during Pontiac's War (1763–66). It is suspected, but not confirmed, that BW was used against Native Americans at other times as well.

The advent of the germ theory and advances in bacteriology brought a new level of sophistication to the theoretical use of bio-agents in war. Biological sabotage – in the form of anthrax and glanders — was undertaken on behalf of the Imperial German government during World War I (1914–1918), with indifferent results. Use of such bio-weapons was banned in international law by the Geneva Protocol of 1925. (The 1972 Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) extended the ban to almost all production, storage and transport. However, both the Soviet Union and Iraq, at a minimum, secretly defied the treaty and continued research and production of offensive biological weapons, despite being signatories to it. Major public proof of the Soviet program, called Biopreparat, came when Dr. Kanatjan Alibekov, its first deputy director, defected to the U.S. in 1992.)

During the Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II (1939–1945), the Special Research Units of the Imperial Japanese Army, such as Unit 731, conducted human experimentation on thousands of Chinese, among others. In its military campaigns, the Japanese used BW on Chinese soldiers and civilians. This employment has been largely viewed as ineffective due to inefficient delivery systems. However, firsthand accounts testify that the Japanese infected civilians through the distribution of plagued foodstuffs and newer estimates suggest over 580,000 victims, largely due to plague and cholera outbreaks.

In response to suspected BW development in Nazi Germany, the U.S., U.K., and Canada initiated a BW development program in 1941 that resulted in the weaponization of anthrax, brucellosis, and botulism toxin. Fear of the German program turned out to be vastly exaggerated. The center for U.S. military biological warfare research was Fort Detrick, Maryland. The biological and chemical weapons developed during that period were tested at the Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah. Research carried out in the U.K. during World War II left Gruinard Island in Scotland contaminated with anthrax for the next 48 years.

Considerable research into BW was undertaken throughout the Cold War era (1947–1991) by the U.S., U.K. and U.S.S.R., and probably other major nations as well, although it is generally believed that such weapons were never used. This view was challenged by China and North Korea, who accused the U.S. of large-scale field testing of BW against them during the Korean War (1950–1953), but this claim has been disputed. The U.S. maintained a stated national policy of never using BW under any circumstances since an Executive Decision in November 1969, by President Richard Nixon. In 1972, the U.S., U.K., U.S.S.R., and many other nations signed the BWC, which banned "development, production and stockpiling of microbes or their poisonous products except in amounts necessary for protective and peaceful research." By then, the U.S. and U.K. had transparently destroyed all their bio-weapons stockpiles. By 2011, 165 countries had signed the treaty and none are proven—though nine are still suspected—to possess offensive BW programs.