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Makes me wonder whether we could have defeated an organization such as Taliban with say COVID. The very unfortunate side effect (understatement) would be all th

by Fnoord 5y ago

Makes me wonder whether we could have defeated an organization such as Taliban with say COVID. The very unfortunate side effect (understatement) would be all the civil casualties, but that is also part of guerilla warfare (e.g. happens in Israel/Palestina conflict as well). But nevertheless, something like COVID could've been used as a biochemical weapon, with the side launching it being vaccinated, or knowing how to deal with it beforehand (the 'SARS experience advantage'). Its not even far fetched (though I am not arguing that was the purpose of!) because that's how the Spanish conquered large parts of America (Re: Aztecs).

wayoutthere 5y ago
Covid isn’t lethal enough to really make much of a dent in their numbers. Even with a collapsed health system, overall mortality from covid is around 1.5%. Significant to be sure, but very far from the 80-90% mortality of European diseases in the native populations of America. Viral warfare is an absolutely stupid idea. It’s almost assured that the weapon would escape containment and find its way into the population, and as we’ve seen vaccines are of limited benefit if enough people won’t take them.
- foobiekr 5y ago
  I support your assertion that viral warfare is a terrible idea. But I wonder, if you pre-announced what you were going to do and then did it, Would you not successfully co-opt the primary vehicles of leakage? I really do suspect that if, for example, some basement biohacker terrorist decided to release an engineered bird flu with high fatality, once having staged their distribution mechanism, they wouldn’t be able to arrange for the other countries to contain it simply by providing input information about what was about to occur. It’s true that they would be small incidents, but essentially if you can disseminate the knowledge widely enough, and the effects are horrific enough, probably you would have de facto containment. I have dreaded the scenario since my 20s, and that was a long time ago, and the scenario is many, many times easier than it was at the time.
Joker_vD 5y ago
Jeez, just drown the land in VX-5 then, seriously, it's faster, probably cheaper, and actually safer. I mean, your goal is already quite clearly "kill the entire country's population" — because you have trouble with guerilla warfare only when the population actually supports them and replenishes their resources, including human resources — so just go with a more optimal tool, would you.
contravariant 5y ago
Perhaps surprisingly the main problem with current warfare isn't the lack of options to kill enough people in some general area. Although if you were to go in that direction COVID-19 would be a minor inconvenience when it comes to warfare so I'm not too sure what you're aiming at there. The Spanish "used" diseases that were a heck of a lot more severe.
- Fnoord 5y ago
  The point is to strike at the enemy the moment they are weakened. Western societies were severely weakened in March 2020 onward to summer 2020. They were on lockdown, there have been logistics problems, which had impact on things like police and secret service. I very much doubt military are exempt from it. Being in a good condition isn't a guarantee you remain unaffected, and the danger of being affected mildly is that you spread it further.
  - nradov 5y ago
    Lockdowns were a political choice to minimize impact on healthcare systems, not something that governments necessarily had to do. Obviously guerilla movements aren't going to suspend operations just because of a respiratory virus. The vast majority of Taliban combatants are young and metabolically healthy enough to be at virtually zero risk from COVID-19. (And it should go without saying, but the concept of biological warfare is so abhorrent that it should never be considered as an option.)
  - samatman 5y ago
    SARS2 made it to Afghanistan, you know. Did the Taliban lock down? Of course not. So we've done this experiment and you're simply wrong.
    - Fnoord 5y ago
      We've done the experiment indeed; see the historical example of the Spanish conquistadors. Other than that I'm not aware of it, so we don't know if such an attack could work. Its a hypothesis. The original SARS and MERS were too deadly to spread widely. In order for the attack to work, you don't need a disease which is lethal. All you need is a disease which makes your enemy ill enough to attack their infra, while you're immune (e.g. via full vaccination, or because of group immunity from antibodies). Right now, Israel is practically immune to COVID (and was the quickest to get vaccinated), while their surrounding regions are not. This could give them an advantage in warfare, should they decide to initiate such (legit or via proxy). Which, incidentally, is also why is was clever of Israel to pay large sums of money for the vaccines.
samatman 5y ago
A disease which mildly inconveniences men of fighting age for at most a couple weeks makes a poor weapon. They would be full of grief and anger at losing some of their grandparents, but that won't affect their ability to fight and would be likely to motivate them to continue. Smallpox had up to 90% mortality in Native American populations, across all demographics. Fair to say it was a different beast.

by Fnoord 5y ago

wayoutthere 5y ago

Covid isn’t lethal enough to really make much of a dent in their numbers. Even with a collapsed health system, overall mortality from covid is around 1.5%. Significant to be sure, but very far from the 80-90% mortality of European diseases in the native populations of America. Viral warfare is an absolutely stupid idea. It’s almost assured that the weapon would escape containment and find its way into the population, and as we’ve seen vaccines are of limited benefit if enough people won’t take them.

foobiekr 5y ago
I support your assertion that viral warfare is a terrible idea. But I wonder, if you pre-announced what you were going to do and then did it, Would you not successfully co-opt the primary vehicles of leakage? I really do suspect that if, for example, some basement biohacker terrorist decided to release an engineered bird flu with high fatality, once having staged their distribution mechanism, they wouldn’t be able to arrange for the other countries to contain it simply by providing input information about what was about to occur. It’s true that they would be small incidents, but essentially if you can disseminate the knowledge widely enough, and the effects are horrific enough, probably you would have de facto containment. I have dreaded the scenario since my 20s, and that was a long time ago, and the scenario is many, many times easier than it was at the time.

Joker_vD 5y ago

Jeez, just drown the land in VX-5 then, seriously, it's faster, probably cheaper, and actually safer. I mean, your goal is already quite clearly "kill the entire country's population" — because you have trouble with guerilla warfare only when the population actually supports them and replenishes their resources, including human resources — so just go with a more optimal tool, would you.

contravariant 5y ago

Perhaps surprisingly the main problem with current warfare isn't the lack of options to kill enough people in some general area. Although if you were to go in that direction COVID-19 would be a minor inconvenience when it comes to warfare so I'm not too sure what you're aiming at there. The Spanish "used" diseases that were a heck of a lot more severe.

Fnoord 5y ago
The point is to strike at the enemy the moment they are weakened. Western societies were severely weakened in March 2020 onward to summer 2020. They were on lockdown, there have been logistics problems, which had impact on things like police and secret service. I very much doubt military are exempt from it. Being in a good condition isn't a guarantee you remain unaffected, and the danger of being affected mildly is that you spread it further.
- nradov 5y ago
  Lockdowns were a political choice to minimize impact on healthcare systems, not something that governments necessarily had to do. Obviously guerilla movements aren't going to suspend operations just because of a respiratory virus. The vast majority of Taliban combatants are young and metabolically healthy enough to be at virtually zero risk from COVID-19. (And it should go without saying, but the concept of biological warfare is so abhorrent that it should never be considered as an option.)
- samatman 5y ago
  SARS2 made it to Afghanistan, you know. Did the Taliban lock down? Of course not. So we've done this experiment and you're simply wrong.
  - Fnoord 5y ago
    We've done the experiment indeed; see the historical example of the Spanish conquistadors. Other than that I'm not aware of it, so we don't know if such an attack could work. Its a hypothesis. The original SARS and MERS were too deadly to spread widely. In order for the attack to work, you don't need a disease which is lethal. All you need is a disease which makes your enemy ill enough to attack their infra, while you're immune (e.g. via full vaccination, or because of group immunity from antibodies). Right now, Israel is practically immune to COVID (and was the quickest to get vaccinated), while their surrounding regions are not. This could give them an advantage in warfare, should they decide to initiate such (legit or via proxy). Which, incidentally, is also why is was clever of Israel to pay large sums of money for the vaccines.

samatman 5y ago

A disease which mildly inconveniences men of fighting age for at most a couple weeks makes a poor weapon. They would be full of grief and anger at losing some of their grandparents, but that won't affect their ability to fight and would be likely to motivate them to continue. Smallpox had up to 90% mortality in Native American populations, across all demographics. Fair to say it was a different beast.