Barriers to Bioweapons

Ben Ouagrham-Gormley Sonia

Description

In both the popular imagination and among lawmakers and national security experts, there exists the belief that with sufficient motivation and material resources, states or terrorist groups can produce bioweapons easily, cheaply, and successfully. In Barriers to Bioweapons, Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley challenges this perception by showing that bioweapons development is a difficult, protracted, and expensive endeavor, rarely achieving the expected results whatever the magnitude of investment. Her findings are based on extensive interviews she conducted with former U.S. and Soviet-era bioweapons scientists and on careful analysis of archival data and other historical documents related to various state and terrorist bioweapons programs.Bioweapons development relies on living organisms that are sensitive to their environment and handling conditions, and therefore behave unpredictably. These features place a greater premium on specialized knowledge. Ben Ouagrham-Gormley posits that lack of access to such intellectual capital constitutes the greatest barrier to the making of bioweapons. She integrates theories drawn from economics, the sociology of science, organization, and management with her empirical research. The resulting theoretical framework rests on the idea that the pace and success of a bioweapons development program can be measured by its ability to ensure the creation and transfer of scientific and technical knowledge. The specific organizational, managerial, social, political, and economic conditions necessary for success are difficult to achieve, particularly in covert programs where the need to prevent detection imposes managerial and organizational conditions that conflict with knowledge production.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Military engineer

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 06 février 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801471933
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 8 Mo

Extrait

Barriers to Bioweapons

a volum e in th e series

Cornell Studies in Security Affairs

Edited by Robert J. Art, Robert Jervis, and Stephen M. Walt

A list of titles in this series is available at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

Barriers to Bioweapons

The Challenges of Expertise and Organization for Weapons Development

Sonia Ben OuagrhamGormley

Cornell University Press Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2014 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2014 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Ben OuagrhamGormley, Sonia, author.  Barriers to bioweapons : the challenges of expertise and organization for weapons development / Sonia Ben OuagrhamGormley. )fefsacrspaaigroC(—mutsllenniesdityricuse Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 9780801452888 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Biological arms control—Former Soviet republics. 2. Biological arms control— United States. I. Title. II. Series: Cornell studies in security affairs. UG447.8.O93 2014 358'.388—dc23  2014006190

Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetablebased, lowVOC inks and acidfree papers that are recycled, totally chlorinefree, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

Cloth printing

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Cover photograph: H5N1 virus and 1960s-era photograph of Soviet anti-plague scientists, displayed at the anti-plague institute in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, 2002.

To my loving husband, Dennis

1. 2. 3.

4.

5. 6.

7.

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

The Bioproliferation Puzzle

The Acquisition and Use of Specialized Knowledge

Impediments and Facilitators of Bioweapons Development

The American Bioweapons Program:Struggling with a Split Personality Disorder

The Soviet Bioweapons Program:Failed Integration

Small Bioweapons Programs and the Constraints of Covertness

Preventing Bioweapons Developments:Policy Implications

Appendix 1: American Bioweapons Program: Contractors Appendix 2: American Bioweapons Program: Approximate Budget Figures Notes Index

vii

ix

1 17

37

64 91

122

144

169

175 179 213

Preface and Acknowledgments

When the Soviet Union broke up and revealed the enormity and desperate state of its former bioweapons complex, like many researchers and policy analysts then, I was convinced that a state or terrorist group could readily exploit the expertise available at these former facilities and use it to produce a bioweapon. But after spending extensive time in the former Soviet Union, interacting with former bioweapons scientists supported by government or privately funded research, I found that my assessment of the threat began to change. Several themes started to emerge from my discussions with these individuals about their past bioweapons work and their current civil ian work. A key observation—the importance of which I came to appreciate only later—is that working with live organisms is not easy. Live agents are capricious, and modifying or controlling their behavior to achieve specific objectives requires special knowledge and skills. Second, it was clear that the economic, political, and social environment in which people worked affected their results. Being an economist and a student of industrialization, particularly in the Soviet context, I was not surprised by this finding. But not until September 11, 2001, and the anthrax letters did I start to link these two themes and examine their role in shaping the threat of bioweapons proliferation. Although the 2001 events seemed to corroborate the imminence of the bioweapons threat, contemporary assessments seemed to ignore three im portant questions: What is bioweapons knowledge? How can it be acquired and transferred? What facilitates or impedes bioweapons developments? These questions spurred the start of a research project, conducted in coop eration with Kathleen Vogel at Cornell University, with support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The project aimed to produce an oral

ix