Recent advancements in biotechnology and AI have resulted in a reawakening of fears of biological warfare, ranging from new deadly viruses engineered as weapons of mass destruction in shady labs to conspiracy theories about ”ethnic bioweapons” which according to these narratives would target exclusively Russians or Han Chinese individuals (depending on the origin). The creative minds behind these latter scenarios seem to be unconcerned by the fact that ethnic bioweapons on this scale are extremely improbable, due to the genetic diversity of large human populations. Fears of a non-discriminating lab-engineered bioweapon virus may not seem as obviously far-fetched, but fail to take into account the practical (or rather, impractical) aspects of biological warfare.
A key obstacle to overcome is to create a stable organism. A pathogen can be expected to mutate and change as a result of different environmental pressures. A disease that is extremely lethal tends to burn itself out quickly, since killing off the host population is a poor strategy for long-term survival. Some of the most lethal diseases known to mankind, such as Ebola or its close relative Marburg virus, tend to cause far lower casualty numbers than more mundane diseases like malaria or cholera. The regular influenza cycles regularly kill twenty to sixty times more people every year than even the worst multi-year Ebola outbreak ever documented.
Despite the inherent difficulties in deploying biological organisms for warfare purposes, there is a long tradition of attempts to weaponize viruses and bacteria for warfare purposes. It was a major focus of research in several countries during the previous century. Ultimately, biological warfare had little to show for all these efforts. While the Japanese military was able to kill large numbers of civilians in China during World War II, they did so by using a natural pathogen (plague) and in the end the excessive casualties among the Japanese themselves demonstrated the impractical nature of large-scale biological warfare. Later, during the Cold War, the Soviets discovered that their attempts to engineer new and more deadly variants of anthrax resulted in organisms that were actually less capable than their natural predecessors. As it turns out, natural selection over thousands of years is actually quite hard to beat when it comes to pathogens.
Another obstacle to large-scale biological warfare is the difficulty in controlling biological weapons. As the Japanese learned the hard way, those who are unable to control their pathogens are quite likely to suffer the same fate as their intended victims. As a result, most of the pathogens selected for biological warfare tend to either be treatable using antibiotics (such as anthrax or plague) or to have a fairly limited capacity for spreading quickly and uncontrollably as long as basic health and safety protocols are implemented (Ebola and Marburg virus fall into this category).
The only real advantages associated with biological warfare tend to favor covert deployment, such as sabotage or disruption. Naturally occurring pathogens can be difficult to trace to deliberate use, delayed action makes it easier to exfiltrate operatives before anyone notices anything, and the ability of pathogens to reproduce enables them to in a sense operate autonomously. Operations of this kind have happened before. German agents in the United States, before it entered World War I, used glanders and anthrax to infect horses intended for the Western front. Similar operations were staged by agents operating on behalf of Germany in Finland against Russia during the same time period (1915-1916).
While modern technology opens up new possibilities, the organisms that have already been fine-tuned by natural selection over the course of millennia are already perfectly adequate for hybrid warfare purposes. Rather than causing mass casualties through disease, their real potential is for sabotage and disruption. Contaminating a water supply can be accomplished with typically non-lethal organisms like salmonella or cholera. Even if this has relatively limited potential to cause disease, the cost of decontamination and the resulting societal disruption can easily be significant. Livestock or plants used for food production can also be targeted. Coordinated campaigns using multiple attack vectors simultaneously could potentially become a huge burden, in particular if synchronized with other forms of attack.
Contemporary narratives tend to be focused on the risks associated with new technologies, but when it comes to biological warfare, we should not forget the lessons from the past. Talking about how to protect our water and food supplies may not be as appealing as discussing sci-fi scenarios involving AI and genetic engineering, but it is arguably far more important.
Department of Political Science
Lund University
Sweden
