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The real concern here is the people dying right now. The "future of warfare" is no warfare - it's exactly this kind of thinking that drives "well we should rese

The real concern here is the people dying right now. The "future of warfare" is no warfare - it's exactly this kind of thinking that drives "well we should research it because someone else most definitely is" type of scenario's, which is what got us into the nuclear mess.

jeffreyrogers 8y ago
I don't think nuclear weapons and biological warfare are comparable. Nuclear weapons give a country that has them a near total advantage over a country that doesn't in conventional warfare. That's the whole reason countries want nuclear programs: to prevent other countries from using nukes on them. Biological warfare seems less likely to be used by a stable country because its consequences are so hard to predict and it isn't very targeted. And the future of warfare isn't no warfare unfortunately. War and violence are human universals. We can definitely do things to make it occur less frequently, but one of those things is having strong deterrents to war in the form of a strong military.
- Symmetry 8y ago
  They're hard to predict if you're using something contagious like Influenza. For non-contagious agents like Anthrax (lethal) or Tularemia (mostly just incapacitating) they function more as extra-potent versions of chemical weapons. The Soviets had Anthrax warheads on a number of their ICBMs aimed at US cities back in the day[1], they weren't considered good counterforce weapons but they made good countervalue weapons so if a country's doctrine isn't oriented around a first strike like the US's was they make sense. And given the possibility of nuclear winter you could argue that non-contagious biological weapons are a lot less likely to get out of control. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak
- Retric 8y ago
  That's actually why Anthrax was researched as a bio-warfare agent. Goes airborne spores to human so collect the spores and you get an airborne agent, but it's very bad at Human to Human transmission basically requiring direct contact with open spores.

jeffreyrogers 8y ago

I don't think nuclear weapons and biological warfare are comparable. Nuclear weapons give a country that has them a near total advantage over a country that doesn't in conventional warfare. That's the whole reason countries want nuclear programs: to prevent other countries from using nukes on them. Biological warfare seems less likely to be used by a stable country because its consequences are so hard to predict and it isn't very targeted. And the future of warfare isn't no warfare unfortunately. War and violence are human universals. We can definitely do things to make it occur less frequently, but one of those things is having strong deterrents to war in the form of a strong military.

Symmetry 8y ago
They're hard to predict if you're using something contagious like Influenza. For non-contagious agents like Anthrax (lethal) or Tularemia (mostly just incapacitating) they function more as extra-potent versions of chemical weapons. The Soviets had Anthrax warheads on a number of their ICBMs aimed at US cities back in the day[1], they weren't considered good counterforce weapons but they made good countervalue weapons so if a country's doctrine isn't oriented around a first strike like the US's was they make sense. And given the possibility of nuclear winter you could argue that non-contagious biological weapons are a lot less likely to get out of control. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sverdlovsk_anthrax_leak
Retric 8y ago
That's actually why Anthrax was researched as a bio-warfare agent. Goes airborne spores to human so collect the spores and you get an airborne agent, but it's very bad at Human to Human transmission basically requiring direct contact with open spores.