Biological Weapons and Nuclear Deterrence in the Pandemic Era

Biological weapons are easier to develop than nuclear weapons. In an age of pandemics, this poses a dilemma for asiapacific nuclear-weapons states.

Biological weapons are banned under international law, but they are also less costly and less difficult to develop than nuclear weapons. In an age of rising pandemics, this poses a dilemma for nuclear-weapons states in the Asia-pacific.

Given that these two types of weapons of mass destruction are of rising concern, and that the possibility of more natural outbreaks is a real threat, countries in the region must be vigilant in determining the precise cause of natural outbreaks and restrained in responding to perceived biological attacks with nuclear escalation, write Richard Pilch and Miles Pomper.

THIS ARTICLE provides an asia-pacific perspective on biological weapons and their relevance to nuclear deterrence in the pandemic era. While the entire class of biological weapons is banned by international law, such weapons are generally less costly and less technically challenging to develop than nuclear weapons. conversely, nuclear weapons are openly possessed by several asia-pacific nations despite their cost and complexity. These two types of weapons of mass destruction — biological and nuclear — do not exist in isolation but in a multifactorial geopolitical environment where the threat and control of one impacts that of the other.

a third factor that may influence this dynamic is the increasing likelihood of more natural outbreaks and pandemics. The asia-pacific has been the source of the majority of recent natural outbreaks with global impact including covid-19, a trend that is expected to continue as surging population growth and industrial expansion brings humans into closer contact with novel disease agents and their animal reservoirs. such natural events might be misinterpreted as deliberate biological attacks or used to mask them, with the potential for nuclear escalation in the balance.

In the following sections, we explore potential intersections of biological and nuclear weapons in the pandemic context. First, we describe the threat of biological weapons in the asia-pacific region. Next, we discuss regional nuclear deterrence and escalation in the context of both natural and deliberate biological events. We conclude with a summary of key points and recommendations for regional security and stability.

THE THREAT OF BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS

CHINA: The modern era of biological warfare is rooted in the interwar period but arrived with Japanese actions during the second World War when Japan extensively employed biological weapons against chinese soldiers and civilians both in captivity and in the field.1 While china thus played a central role in the historical context of biological warfare, there is no corroborated evidence in the open source domain that the People’s Republic of china maintains an offensive biological weapons program of its own.

china’s unwavering formal position is that it has never engaged in offensive biological warfare activities, though for the sake of completeness it should be noted that some chinese authors of unknown influence have suggested that china should consider such weapons as a viable and perhaps even more humane alternative to other forms of war. For example, a 2006 paper by Guo Ji-wei of the department of Medical affairs, southwest hospital, Third Military Medical University, chongqing, argued that:

Modern biotechnology … can be used to bring damages and injuries to individuals in war in a more accurate and effective fashion. different military biotechnologies can be chosen in accordance with different pathogenic factors to meet different military goals. The attack, therefore, will wound different levels of specific gene, protein, cell, tissue, and organ. It no doubt will be more effective to cause damages than conventional weapons, yet the nonlethal effect will remain to be civilized in terms of post-war reconstruction and hatred control.2

china signed the Biological Weapons convention (BWC), which bans the development, production and stockpiling of biological weapons, in 1984.3 china has submitted annual confidencebuilding measure (CBM) reports, which aim to improve co-operation of states parties under the convention, since 1989. It has restricted these submissions to states parties only, and thus their contents are not publicly available.4

a 2019 Us state department compliance report stated that “information indicates that the People’s Republic of china (china) engaged during the reporting period in biological activities with potential dual-use applications, which raises concerns regarding its compliance with the BWC,” and “the United states does not have sufficient information to determine whether china eliminated its assessed biological warfare program, as required under article II of the convention.”

5

While it is unclear what information led the Us to cite an “assessed” chinese biological warfare program, the Us position on china’s dual-use capabilities is certainly accurate: Many countries possess the building blocks for biological weapons, and as a global technology leader china’s corresponding capabilities are more advanced than most.

North Korea: The democratic People’s Republic of Korea acceded to the BWC in 1987 but has submitted no annual CBM reports since 1990.6 The Us state department’s 2019 compliance report stated that “the United states assesses that the democratic People’s Republic of Korea has an offensive biological warfare program and is in violation of its obligations under articles I and II of the BWC,” but little open-source information

7 is available to support or refute the Us position.8 despite public denials of the existence of an offensive biological warfare program, which the Us claims has been in existence since the 1960s, North Korea’s strategic need to “counter Us and south Korean military superiority” (according to the Us compliance report) might provide the necessary motivation to pursue biological weapons, and North Korea’s open breach of international law in the nuclear sphere may lend some credence to this notion.

a 2015 media event by leader Kim Jong Un provided some insight into North Korea’s dual-use capabilities. Kim toured the Pyongyang Biotechnical Institute, a pesticide facility that publicly

shared photographs revealed to be well-equipped for the production of B. thuringiensis, a biopesticide that is related to B. anthracis.9 Research collaborations between North Korean and foreign scientists that might advance dual-use biological capabilities have also been well documented, including work on Bacillus species related to B. anthracis.10 These open-source data points, while establishing that North Korea (like most countries) possesses the building blocks for a biological weapon, provide no definite evidence that it either possesses or is in pursuit of such weapons. india, pakistan, and other nations of the asia pacific: Both India and Pakistan are original signatories of the BWC and ratified the convention in 1974.11 despite their status as nuclear powers, neither country has been assessed as possessing an offensive biological warfare program, though both maintain extensive dual-use capabilities within their burgeoning tech sectors. likewise, no other asia-pacific countries are believed to have an offensive biological warfare program despite widespread dual-use capabilities.

NUCLEAR DOCTRINE AND PANDEMIC CONTEXT

The threat of biological weapons does not exist in a vacuum. With the asia-pacific home to multiple nuclear-weapon states, how does their nuclear deterrent capability impact the threat and control of biological weapons? Furthermore, natural disease outbreaks and pandemics might be misinterpreted as deliberate attacks, or used to mask them. In this context, how do we avoid nuclear escalation and potential brinksmanship when we are unable to discern an outbreak’s origin? In this section, we grapple with some of these real-world challenges with the goal of making practical recommendations for regional stability and security.

The pandemic context carries the risk that nuclear-weapon states in the region could not

only mistake a natural pandemic or accidental biological release for an intentional biological weapons attack but compound this error by responding with a nuclear attack. after all, many of these states have published nuclear doctrines that declare that they are prepared to respond to biological weapons attacks with nuclear ones, leaving open the question of how and when such attacks would be attributed. These doctrines are primarily intended to communicate to potential adversaries as a form of deterrence; in the end, policymakers will decide, in the moment of crisis, how to respond to an outbreak that might stem from the use of biological weapons.

China: china has said that it will not engage in the first use of nuclear weapons and has not carved out any exceptions.12 In the past, this policy was buttressed by china’s small and largely un-mated arsenal. however, china has moved to a larger, more diverse arsenal, including naval systems where operational warheads are not separated from missiles. concurrently, chinese military experts are engaged in a growing debate about either abandoning the no-first-use doctrine or carving out exceptions. outsiders, meanwhile, increasingly question the credibility of Beijing’s no-first-use declaration.

North Korea: North Korean suspicions of the Us and south Korea could lead it to mistake a natural outbreak/pandemic or laboratory accident for a deliberate attack. ever since the Korean War, when it falsely accused the Us of employing biological warfare,13 Pyongyang has been primed for a biological attack from the Us or south Korea. Therefore, a natural outbreak (particularly if it appears first in North Korea) is likely to be viewed as a deliberate attack until proven otherwise. and Pyongyang also is primed to believe that even in the case of a natural outbreak, the Us or south Korea can be expected to exploit the crisis as an opportunity to subvert the regime.

india: India has long proclaimed that it will not engage in the first use of nuclear weapons. however, for two decades this policy has included a significant caveat when it comes to biological weapons. India’s 2003 nuclear doctrine states that “in the event of a major attack against India, or Indian forces anywhere, by biological or chemical weapons, India will retain the option of retaliating with nuclear weapons.”14 Interestingly, this caveat was not included in the initial draft doctrine India released after its 1998 nuclear tests.15

pakistan: Given India’s overwhelming conventional arms advantage, Pakistan has refused to renounce the first use of nuclear weapons. Government officials, however, have not spoken specifically on how Pakistan might respond to a chemical or biological attack.

Natural outbreaks, deliberate attacks and bioterrorism

It may not be possible to definitively determine the origin of a particular outbreak, potentially sparking an unfounded nuclear escalation. similarly, imprecise analysis has commonly occurred with fielded biological detection devices and might inadvertently lead to an asymmetric response.16 The risk of misattributing a natural event as a biological warfare attack necessitates a deliberate, data-to-decisions approach that emphasizes degrees of certainty when determining proportional response. at a minimum, nuclear-weapon states must carefully consider how they operationalize doctrines that leave open the possibility of a nuclear response to a perceived biological warfare attack.

This same attribution challenge could be intentionally or unintentionally exacerbated by nonstate actors to leverage nuclear escalation for their own purposes. For example, a millennial terrorist group such as al Qaeda or Isis could launch a biological attack against countries such as the Us,

The pandemic context carries the risk that nuclear-weapon states in the region could not only mistake a natural pandemic or accidental biological release for an intentional biological weapons attack but compound this error by responding with a nuclear attack.

North Korea or Russia with hopes that it would be perceived as an attack by that country’s adversary, with consequent retaliation. or Kashmiri militants with links to Pakistan could launch such an attack against India with or without support from Islamabad and with or without publicly acknowledging their responsibility. alternatively, such militants could claim that what was in fact a natural outbreak on either side of the line of control was a biological warfare attack, bringing nuclear escalation dynamics into play. The potential for the latter is illustrated by a 1994 plague outbreak in Western India that was initially suspected to be a bioterrorist attack.17

Conclusion

The asia-pacific has witnessed biological warfare attacks on military and civilian populations, the first and only use of nuclear weapons, and now the emergence of sars-cov-2 and the global covid-19 pandemic. The region is home to three historical nuclear powers — china, India and Pakistan — and one emerging nuclear power, North Korea. like most countries around the world, countries of the asia-pacific possess dual-use biological capabilities that could be diverted to an offensive biological warfare program, though no such program exists based on available information in the public domain.

The region comprises more than half of the world’s population and is projected to amass more than half of the world’s GDP in the next 20 years. such unchecked population growth, industrial expansion and corresponding ecological disruption increases the likelihood that novel disease agents will come into contact with naïve human populations, leading to infectious disease outbreaks and pandemics. Because biological events of both natural and deliberate origin may be met with nuclear deterrence, escalation, or even use, effective attribution is paramount. at the same time, given the risks of unclear or incorrect attribution, countries should, at a minimum, reconsider how they operationalize doctrines that leave open the possibility of a nuclear attack in response to a perceived biological warfare attack.

Ultimately, the asia Pacific’s unique combination of nuclear-weapon states, dual-use biotechnological advance and ecological disruption warrant the highest level of vigilance on the part of regional stakeholders and their allies.

richard pilch directs the Chemical and biological weapons Nonproliferation program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation studies (CNS), Middlebury institute of international studies at Monterey, California.

Miles pomper is senior fellow of the washington dc office of CNS and the former editor of Arms Control Today.

1 For a detailed account of Japanese biological warfare activities, see J. Guillemin, Hidden Atrocities (New York: Columbia University Press, 2017).

2 Ji-wei Guo, “The Command of Biotechnology and Merciful Conquest in Military Opposition,” Military Medicine, Vol. 171 (2006), pp. 1150-1154.

3 See treaties.unoda.org/t/bwc

4 See bwc-ecbm.unog.ch/state/china

5 Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments, US Department of State, 2019, pp. 45-46, www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/ 05/Avc-2019-compliance-report.pdf

6 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on Their Destruction, treaties.unoda.org/t/bwc; BWC Confidence Building Measures, bwc-ecbm.unog.ch/?field_form_year_tid=555

7 US State Department, op. cit., pp. 47-48.

8 For various open-source assessments and commentary on

North Korea and biological weapons, see, e.g. John V. Parachini, “Assessing North Korea’s Chemical and Biological Weapons Capabilities and Prioritizing Countermeasures,” Testimony to House Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittees on Terrorism, Nonproliferation and Trade, and on Asia and the Pacific, Jan. 17, 2018, www.rand.org/pubs/testimonies/ct486.html; Hyun-kyung Kim, Elizabeth Philipp and Hattie Chung, North Korea’s Biological

Weapons Program: The Known and Unknown (Cambridge, MA: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, 2017), www. belfercenter.org/publication/north-koreas-biological-weaponsprogram-known-and-unknown; Emily Baumgaertner and William J. Broad, “North Korea’s Less-known Military Threat: Biological

Weapons,” The New York Times, Jan. 15, 2019, www.nytimes. com/2019/01/15/science/north-korea-biological-weapons.html; John V. Parachini, “Why We Should be Skeptical About Recent Reports on North Korea’s Biological Weapons Programs,” 38 North, Jan. 30, 2019, www.38north.org/2019/01/jparachini013019/;

Sonia Ben Ouagrham-gormley, “Potemkin or real? North Korea’s biological weapons program,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July 18, 2017, thebulletin.org/2017/07/potemkin-or-real-north-koreasbiological-weapons-program/

9 See Melissa Hanham, “Kim Jong Un Tours Pesticide Facility Capable

of Producing Biological Weapons: A 38 North Special Report,” 38 North, July 9, 2015, www.38north.org/2015/07/mhanham070915/

10 See Joshua H. Pollack and Scott Lafoy, North Korea’s International Scientific Collaborations: Their Scope, Scale, and Potential Dual-use and Military Significance, CNS Occasional paper No. 43, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, 2018, www.nonproliferation.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/ op43-dprk-international-scientific-collaborations.pdf

11 See treaties.unoda.org/t/bwc

12 China’s Military Strategy, Information Office of the State Council of China, 2015, english.www.gov.cn/archive/white_ paper/2015/05/27/content_281475115610833.htm

13 See Milton Leitenberg, “False Allegations of U.S. Biological

Weapons Use during the Korean War,” Terrorism, War, or Disease? Unraveling the Use of Biological Weapons, edited by Anne L. Clunan, Peter R. Lavoy, and Susan B. Martin (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008), pp. 120-143.

14 Cabinet Committee on Security Reviews Progress in Operationalizing India’s Nuclear Doctrine, Prime Minister’s

Office, Government of India, 2003.

15 See Kumar Sundaram and M.V. Ramana, “India and the Policy of No First Use of Nuclear Weapons,” Journal for Peace and

Nuclear Disarmament, Vol. 1 No. 1 (2018), pp. 152-168.

16 See Biowatch and Public Health Surveillance: Evaluating

Systems for the Early Detection of Biological Threats, Institute of Medicine (US) and National Research Council (US) Committee on Effectiveness of National Biosurveillance Systems (Washington DC: National Academies Press, 2011), p. 50, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ books/nbk219708/

17 See Ron Barrett, “The 1994 Plague in Western India: Human Ecology and The Risks of Misattribution,” in Clunan, Lavoy and Martin (eds.), op. cit., pp. 49-71.