Exploiting the Challenges to Bioweapons Development

ABSTRACT

Widespread and often exaggerated generalizations about the global spread weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) have proven to be not only misleading and technologically naïve, but also unhelpful in formulating effective policies to counter their threat. The new book by George Mason University's Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley dispels the popular narrative that governments and terror groups can easily—and inevitably will—develop WMDs, particularly biological weapons, by exploring the complex external and internal conditions that such programs require, as demonstrated by the Cold War-era biological weapon programs of the superpowers. This empirically grounded and realistic assessment of how states try—and often fail—to develop such programs offers a more reliable basis to craft realistic counterproliferation policies that can elicit international support.     

MIDDLE EAST NONPROLIFERATION

The Middle East is a crucial region for the global nonproliferation regime. In 2010, the state parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons proposed a conference on a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction-Free Zone. The nuclear weapon-free zone model, on which this idea builds, has achieved important results in other regions, but faces especially stark challenges in the Middle East. However, the attempt to apply the boldly imaginative zone approach to the Middle East holds promise for building a more inclusive dialogue on nonproliferation and regional security.     

Deterrence in the Gulf War

A recently published collection of captured Iraqi records offers an opportunity to better understand Saddam Hussein's perception of US and Israeli deterrence signals, affording innovative insights into the reasons behind Iraq's restraint from using weapons of mass destruction against Israeli targets during the 1991 Gulf War. This article tests a wide range of suggested hypotheses, and suggests that US and Israeli deterrence played only a minimal role in dissuading Iraqi use of WMD. The article concludes with some thoughts on the practical implications, particularly on the effectiveness of a “no-first-use” nuclear policy.     

THE G8 GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP

ABSTRACT

Since the 1990s, the group of stakeholders working to combat biological weapons (BW) proliferation has broadened to include new actors who have not traditionally focused on security issues, including organizations from the public health sector, researchers in the life sciences, and the biosafety community. This has had significant benefits for the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) and the arms control establishment more broadly. However, the BWC's agenda has become increasingly dominated by issues of international health and global health security. By focusing solely on response strategies, the United States and other interested parties risk losing sight of other important elements of a counter-BW strategy, including deterrence and prevention. Focusing on public health-related issues to the exclusion of more traditional security matters puts the nonproliferation regime at risk, because it limits the amount of time that stakeholders have available to grapple with the critical questions facing the BWC and the biological weapons nonproliferation establishment—questions that must be answered if the regime is to survive.     

THE NUCLEAR TABOO: THE UNITED STATES AND THE NON-USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS SINCE 1945

Uranium: War, Energy and the Rock That Shaped the World, by Tom Zoellner. VikingPenguin, 2009. 337 pages, $26.95.

Plutonium: A History of the World's Most Dangerous Element, by Jeremy Bernstein.Joseph Henry Press, 2007. 194 pages, $27.95.     

NUCLEAR WEAPONS AS THE CURRENCY OF POWER

There are important similarities between the pattern of behavior Karl Marx identified with respect to commodities—a pattern he called “fetishism”—and the pattern of behavior identified in this article with respect to military force. Marx identified money as the mature expression of commodity fetishism; the author identifies nuclear weapons as the mature expression of the fetishism of force. As such, nuclear weapons function as the currency of power in the international system. This article lays out a theory of nuclear fetishism by adapting four themes that are characteristic of the pattern of behavior known as fetishism: materiality, historicality, efficacy, and reification. By applying these categories to the fetishism of nuclear weapons, the author shows that nuclear weapons represent a new social form consistent with, yet distinct from, other fetish objects.     

NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION

As the potential for the involvement of corporations in the manufacture of nuclear weapons has increased, particularly through dual-use technology, global regulation has failed to keep pace. Where regulation of private corporations does exist, in the form of treaties, UN resolutions, or more informal arrangements, the obligations fall only on states. This state of affairs is a result of international law's traditional deference to state sovereignty; yet, it has led to significant shortcomings in the global regulatory regime, where states are unwilling or unable to meet their obligations. While radical departures from the traditional model of international law might remove the regulatory gaps caused by noncompliant states, such changes are unrealistic in the current political climate. More realistic changes must be focused on, offering greater recognition of the role of private corporations in nuclear proliferation and increasing state compliance with existing regulation.     

GREAT POWER RESPONSIBILITY AND NUCLEAR ORDER

A Perpetual Menace: Nuclear Weapons and International Order, by William Walker. Routledge, 2012. 247 pages, $42.95.     

ESCAPE FROM NUCLEAR DETERRENCE

Since the post-World War II genesis of nuclear deterrence, two presidential initiatives have been presented to deliver humanity from the threat of its failure. The first was the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a constellation of space- and ground-based systems that President Ronald Reagan envisioned would render nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete.” The second is President Barack Obama's roadmap to “a world without nuclear weapons,” commonly referred to as “Global Zero.” While these proposals appear to have little in common, deeper investigation reveals a number of provocative similarities in motivation and presentation. Moreover, both generated fierce debate, often with ideological overtones, about their strategic desirability and technical feasibility. We use these parallels, as well as prominent dissimilarities, to draw lessons from the SDI experience that can be applied to the debate over Global Zero.     

DIVERGING NUCLEAR PATHWAYS IN SOUTH ASIA

Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb, by Feroz Hassan Khan. Stanford University Press, 2012. 544 pages, $29.95.

Managing India's Nuclear Forces, by Verghese Koithara. Brookings Institution Press, 2012. 304 pages, $59.95.