Weapons under the ban. Part of 4. Biological weapons
Biological weapon - It is a weapon of mass destruction, its damaging effect is based on the use of various pathogens that are able to cause mass diseases and lead to the death of people, plants and animals. Some classifications refer to biological weapons and insect pests that can cause serious damage to crops of the enemy state (locust, Colorado potato beetle, etc.). Previously, the term “bacteriological weapons” was often found, but it did not fully reflect the essence of this type of weapon, since the bacteria themselves constituted only one of the groups of living creatures that could be used to wage biological warfare.
Ban
Biological weapons were banned on the basis of a document that entered into force on March 26 of 1975.
As of January 2012, the parties to the convention banning biological weapons are 165 states.
The main banning document: “Convention on the prohibition of the development, production and stockpiling of bacteriological (biological) weapons, as well as toxins and their destruction (Geneva, 1972 year). The first attempt to ban was made in 1925 year, it is about the "Geneva Protocol", which entered into force on February 8 1928 year.
The subject of the ban: microbes and other biological agents, as well as toxins, regardless of their origin or production methods, types and quantities that are not intended for prevention, protection and other peaceful purposes, as well as ammunition that are intended to deliver these agents or toxins to the enemy during armed conflicts.
Biological weapons
Biological weapons are dangerous to humans, animals, and plants. Bacteria, viruses, fungi, rickettsia, and bacterial toxins can be used as pathogens or toxins. There is the possibility of using prions (as a genetic weapon). At the same time, if we consider war as a set of actions aimed at suppressing the economy of the enemy, then insects that are able to effectively and quickly destroy agricultural crops can also be attributed to the types of biological weapons.
Biological weapons are inextricably linked to technical means of use and delivery vehicles. Technical means of application include such means that allow for the safe transportation, storage and transfer of biological weapons (destructible containers, capsules, cartridges, aerial bombs, sprays and spills) aviation appliances). The means of delivery of biological weapons include military vehicles that ensure the delivery of technical equipment to the targets of the enemy’s destruction (ballistic and cruise missiles, aviation, shells). This also includes groups of saboteurs who can deliver containers with biological weapons to the area of use.
Biological weapons have the following features of the damaging effect:
- high efficiency of application of biological agents;
- the difficulty of timely detection of biological contamination;
- the presence of a hidden (incubation) period of action, which leads to an increase in the secrecy of the use of biological weapons, but at the same time reduces its tactical effectiveness, since it does not allow for the immediate decommissioning;
- a large variety of biological agents (BS);
- the duration of the damaging effect, due to the resistance of some types of BS to the external environment;
- flexibility of the damaging effect (the presence of pathogens temporarily incapacitating and lethal action);
- the ability of some types of BS to the epidemic spread that occurs as a result of the use of pathogens that are able to be transmitted from a sick person to a healthy one;
- selectivity of action, which is manifested in the fact that some types of BS affect only people, others - animals, and still others - people and animals (glanders, anthrax, brucellosis);
- the ability of biological weapons in the form of aerosols to penetrate into unsealed premises, engineering structures and objects of military equipment.
The advantages of biological weapons specialists usually include the availability and cheapness of production, as well as the possibility of large-scale epidemics of dangerous infectious diseases in the army of the enemy and its civilian population, which can everywhere sow panic, fear, and reduce the combat capability of army units and disrupt the work of the rear.
The use of biological weapons is usually attributed to the ancient world. So, in 1500 year BC. er The Hittites in Asia Minor assessed the power of a contagious disease and began to send plague onto enemy lands. In those years, the pattern of infection was very simple: they took sick people and sent them to the camp of the enemy. The Hittites used people who had tularemia for this purpose. In the Middle Ages, technology received some improvement: the corpses of dead people or animals from some terrible disease (usually from the plague) with the help of various throwing guns were thrown through the walls in the besieged city. An epidemic could flare up inside the city, in which the defenders died in batches, and the survivors were covered by a real panic.
Controversial is one fairly well-known incident that occurred in the 1763 year. According to one version, the British handed over a tribe of American Indians scarves and blankets, which were previously used by patients with smallpox. It is not known whether this attack was planned in advance (then this is a real case of using BO), or it happened by chance. In any case, according to one of the versions, a real epidemic arose among the Indians, which claimed hundreds of lives and almost completely undermined the fighting capacity of the tribe.
Some historians even believe that the famous 10 biblical ulcers that Moses called against the Egyptians could have been campaigns of a certain biological war, and not at all divine attacks. Many years have passed since then, and the achievements of people in the field of medicine have led to a significant improvement in the understanding of the actions of harmful pathogens and how the human immune system is able to fight them. However, it was a double-edged sword. Science has given us modern methods of treatment and vaccination, but also led to the further militarization of a number of the most destructive biological “agents” on Earth.
The first half of the 20th century was marked by the use of biological weapons by both Germans and Japanese, and both countries used anthrax. Subsequently, it began to be used in the US, Russia and the UK. During the First World War, the Germans tried to provoke an epizootic episode of anthrax among the horses of their opponents, but they did not succeed. After signing the so-called Geneva Protocol in 1925, it became more difficult to develop biological weapons.
However, the protocol did not stop everyone. Thus, in Japan, a whole special unit experimented with biological weapons during the Second World War — the secret squad 731. It is reliably known that during the war the specialists of this part purposefully and quite successfully infected the population of China with bubonic plague, which killed a total of about 400 thousands of people. And Nazi Germany was engaged in the mass distribution of malaria vectors in the Pontic marshes in Italy, the losses of the allies from malaria reached about 100 thousand people.
From all this it follows that biological weapons are a simple, effective and ancient way of destroying broad masses of people. However, such weapons have very serious flaws, which significantly limit the possibilities of combat use. A very big minus of such weapons is that the causative agents of dangerous diseases defy any "training". Bacteria and viruses can not be made to distinguish their from others. Breaking free, they harm all living things on their way without any particular analysis. Moreover, they can start the process of mutation, and it is very difficult and sometimes impossible to predict these changes. Therefore, even pre-prepared antidotes can become ineffective against mutated samples. Viruses are most susceptible to mutations, it is enough to remember that HIV vaccines have not yet been created, not to mention that from time to time mankind has problems with the treatment of ordinary flu.
Currently, protection against biological weapons is reduced to two large groups of special events. The first of them are prophylactic. To preventive actions include vaccinations for servicemen, the population and farm animals, the development of means of early detection of BW and sanitary and epidemiological surveillance. The second activities are medical. These include emergency prophylaxis after the discovery of the use of biological weapons, specialized assistance to the sick and their isolation.
Simulation of situations and teachings have repeatedly proven the fact that states with more or less developed medicine can cope with the effects of currently known types of BO. But story every year with the same flu proves the opposite. In the event that someone manages to create a weapon based on this very common virus, the end of the world may become a much more realistic event than many people think.
Today, as a biological weapon can be used:
- bacteria - causative agents of anthrax, plague, cholera, brucellosis, tularemia, etc .;
- viruses - causative agents of tick-borne encephalitis, smallpox, Ebola and Marburg fever, etc .;
- rickettsia - causative agents of fever of the Rocky Mountains, typhus, Q fever, etc .;
- fungi - causative agents of histoplasmosis and nocardiosis;
- botulinum toxin and other bacterial toxins.
For the successful spread of biological weapons can be used:
- artillery shells and mines, aerial bombs and aerosol generators, long-range and short-range missiles, as well as any unmanned attack vehicles carrying biological weapons;
- aerial bombs or special containers filled with infected arthropods;
- a variety of ground vehicles and equipment for air pollution;
- special equipment and various devices for sabotage contamination of air, indoor water, food, as well as for the distribution of infected rodents and arthropods.
It is the use of artificially infected with bacteria and viruses, mosquitoes, flies, fleas, ticks, lice is almost a win-win option. At the same time, these carriers can retain the ability to transmit the pathogen to people for virtually their entire life. And their lifespan can range from several days or weeks (flies, mosquitoes, louses) to several years (ticks, fleas).
Biological terrorism
In the postwar period, biological weapons were not used during large-scale conflicts. But at the same time, terrorist organizations began to be very actively interested in them. So, since 1916, a minimum of 11 cases of planning or committing terrorist attacks using biological weapons have been documented. The most famous example is the story of sending letters with anthrax spores in the USA in 2001, when 5 people died from letters.
Today, biological weapons are most reminiscent of a genie from a fairy tale that was locked in a bottle. However, sooner or later, the simplification of technologies for the production of biological weapons can lead to a loss of control on them and will put humanity in the face of yet another threat to its security. The development of chemical and, later, nuclear weapons has led to the fact that almost all countries of the world have refused to continue to finance the development of new types of biological weapons, which have continued for decades. Thus, technological developments and scientific data that have been accumulated during this time turned out to be "suspended in the air."
On the other hand, works that are aimed at creating means of protection against dangerous infections have never stopped. They are conducted at the global level, while research centers receive decent amounts of funding for these purposes. The epidemiological threat persists today around the world, which means that even in underdeveloped and poor countries there are always sanitary-epidemiological laboratories that are equipped with everything necessary for carrying out microbiological work. Today, even ordinary breweries can be fairly easily repurposed for the production of any biological formulations. Such objects along with laboratories may be of interest to biological terrorists.
The most likely candidate for use in sabotage and terrorist purposes is called smallpox virus. At present, collections of variola virus on the recommendation of the World Health Organization are safely stored in Russia and in the United States. At the same time, there is information that the virus can be stored uncontrollably in a number of states and can spontaneously (and, possibly, intentionally) leave the storage sites.
It is necessary to understand that terrorists do not pay any attention to international conventions, and they are not at all concerned about the indiscriminacy of pathogen microorganisms. The main task of terrorists is to sow fear and achieve this by the desired goals. For these purposes, biological weapons seem almost ideal. Little can be compared with the panic that the use of biological weapons can cause. Of course, this was not done without the influence of cinema, literature and the media, which surrounded this possibility with an aura of a certain inevitability.
However, even without mass media, there are prerequisites for the possible use of such weapons for terrorist purposes. For example, taking into account the mistakes made by their predecessors by potential bioterrorists. Attempts to create portable nuclear charges and a chemical attack that was carried out in the Tokyo metro due to the lack of high technology and a competent approach among terrorists turned out to be failures. At the same time, if the attack is carried out correctly, the biological weapon will continue its action without the participation of the performers, reproducing itself.
Due to this, according to the totality of parameters, we can confidently say that it is precisely biological weapons that may be chosen by terrorists in the future as the most appropriate means to achieve their goals.
Information sources:
http://www.popmech.ru/technologies/13660-oruzhie-vne-zakona-10-zapreshchennykh-vooruzheniy/#full
http://www.lki.ru/text.php?id=6295
http://www.infoniac.ru/news/10-samyh-strashnyh-vidov-biologicheskogo-oruzhiya.html
http://www.rhbz.info/rhbz3.2.1.html
Ban
Biological weapons were banned on the basis of a document that entered into force on March 26 of 1975.
As of January 2012, the parties to the convention banning biological weapons are 165 states.
The main banning document: “Convention on the prohibition of the development, production and stockpiling of bacteriological (biological) weapons, as well as toxins and their destruction (Geneva, 1972 year). The first attempt to ban was made in 1925 year, it is about the "Geneva Protocol", which entered into force on February 8 1928 year.
The subject of the ban: microbes and other biological agents, as well as toxins, regardless of their origin or production methods, types and quantities that are not intended for prevention, protection and other peaceful purposes, as well as ammunition that are intended to deliver these agents or toxins to the enemy during armed conflicts.
Biological weapons
Biological weapons are dangerous to humans, animals, and plants. Bacteria, viruses, fungi, rickettsia, and bacterial toxins can be used as pathogens or toxins. There is the possibility of using prions (as a genetic weapon). At the same time, if we consider war as a set of actions aimed at suppressing the economy of the enemy, then insects that are able to effectively and quickly destroy agricultural crops can also be attributed to the types of biological weapons.
Biological weapons are inextricably linked to technical means of use and delivery vehicles. Technical means of application include such means that allow for the safe transportation, storage and transfer of biological weapons (destructible containers, capsules, cartridges, aerial bombs, sprays and spills) aviation appliances). The means of delivery of biological weapons include military vehicles that ensure the delivery of technical equipment to the targets of the enemy’s destruction (ballistic and cruise missiles, aviation, shells). This also includes groups of saboteurs who can deliver containers with biological weapons to the area of use.
Biological weapons have the following features of the damaging effect:
- high efficiency of application of biological agents;
- the difficulty of timely detection of biological contamination;
- the presence of a hidden (incubation) period of action, which leads to an increase in the secrecy of the use of biological weapons, but at the same time reduces its tactical effectiveness, since it does not allow for the immediate decommissioning;
- a large variety of biological agents (BS);
- the duration of the damaging effect, due to the resistance of some types of BS to the external environment;
- flexibility of the damaging effect (the presence of pathogens temporarily incapacitating and lethal action);
- the ability of some types of BS to the epidemic spread that occurs as a result of the use of pathogens that are able to be transmitted from a sick person to a healthy one;
- selectivity of action, which is manifested in the fact that some types of BS affect only people, others - animals, and still others - people and animals (glanders, anthrax, brucellosis);
- the ability of biological weapons in the form of aerosols to penetrate into unsealed premises, engineering structures and objects of military equipment.
The advantages of biological weapons specialists usually include the availability and cheapness of production, as well as the possibility of large-scale epidemics of dangerous infectious diseases in the army of the enemy and its civilian population, which can everywhere sow panic, fear, and reduce the combat capability of army units and disrupt the work of the rear.
The use of biological weapons is usually attributed to the ancient world. So, in 1500 year BC. er The Hittites in Asia Minor assessed the power of a contagious disease and began to send plague onto enemy lands. In those years, the pattern of infection was very simple: they took sick people and sent them to the camp of the enemy. The Hittites used people who had tularemia for this purpose. In the Middle Ages, technology received some improvement: the corpses of dead people or animals from some terrible disease (usually from the plague) with the help of various throwing guns were thrown through the walls in the besieged city. An epidemic could flare up inside the city, in which the defenders died in batches, and the survivors were covered by a real panic.
Controversial is one fairly well-known incident that occurred in the 1763 year. According to one version, the British handed over a tribe of American Indians scarves and blankets, which were previously used by patients with smallpox. It is not known whether this attack was planned in advance (then this is a real case of using BO), or it happened by chance. In any case, according to one of the versions, a real epidemic arose among the Indians, which claimed hundreds of lives and almost completely undermined the fighting capacity of the tribe.
Some historians even believe that the famous 10 biblical ulcers that Moses called against the Egyptians could have been campaigns of a certain biological war, and not at all divine attacks. Many years have passed since then, and the achievements of people in the field of medicine have led to a significant improvement in the understanding of the actions of harmful pathogens and how the human immune system is able to fight them. However, it was a double-edged sword. Science has given us modern methods of treatment and vaccination, but also led to the further militarization of a number of the most destructive biological “agents” on Earth.
The first half of the 20th century was marked by the use of biological weapons by both Germans and Japanese, and both countries used anthrax. Subsequently, it began to be used in the US, Russia and the UK. During the First World War, the Germans tried to provoke an epizootic episode of anthrax among the horses of their opponents, but they did not succeed. After signing the so-called Geneva Protocol in 1925, it became more difficult to develop biological weapons.
However, the protocol did not stop everyone. Thus, in Japan, a whole special unit experimented with biological weapons during the Second World War — the secret squad 731. It is reliably known that during the war the specialists of this part purposefully and quite successfully infected the population of China with bubonic plague, which killed a total of about 400 thousands of people. And Nazi Germany was engaged in the mass distribution of malaria vectors in the Pontic marshes in Italy, the losses of the allies from malaria reached about 100 thousand people.
From all this it follows that biological weapons are a simple, effective and ancient way of destroying broad masses of people. However, such weapons have very serious flaws, which significantly limit the possibilities of combat use. A very big minus of such weapons is that the causative agents of dangerous diseases defy any "training". Bacteria and viruses can not be made to distinguish their from others. Breaking free, they harm all living things on their way without any particular analysis. Moreover, they can start the process of mutation, and it is very difficult and sometimes impossible to predict these changes. Therefore, even pre-prepared antidotes can become ineffective against mutated samples. Viruses are most susceptible to mutations, it is enough to remember that HIV vaccines have not yet been created, not to mention that from time to time mankind has problems with the treatment of ordinary flu.
Currently, protection against biological weapons is reduced to two large groups of special events. The first of them are prophylactic. To preventive actions include vaccinations for servicemen, the population and farm animals, the development of means of early detection of BW and sanitary and epidemiological surveillance. The second activities are medical. These include emergency prophylaxis after the discovery of the use of biological weapons, specialized assistance to the sick and their isolation.
Simulation of situations and teachings have repeatedly proven the fact that states with more or less developed medicine can cope with the effects of currently known types of BO. But story every year with the same flu proves the opposite. In the event that someone manages to create a weapon based on this very common virus, the end of the world may become a much more realistic event than many people think.
Today, as a biological weapon can be used:
- bacteria - causative agents of anthrax, plague, cholera, brucellosis, tularemia, etc .;
- viruses - causative agents of tick-borne encephalitis, smallpox, Ebola and Marburg fever, etc .;
- rickettsia - causative agents of fever of the Rocky Mountains, typhus, Q fever, etc .;
- fungi - causative agents of histoplasmosis and nocardiosis;
- botulinum toxin and other bacterial toxins.
For the successful spread of biological weapons can be used:
- artillery shells and mines, aerial bombs and aerosol generators, long-range and short-range missiles, as well as any unmanned attack vehicles carrying biological weapons;
- aerial bombs or special containers filled with infected arthropods;
- a variety of ground vehicles and equipment for air pollution;
- special equipment and various devices for sabotage contamination of air, indoor water, food, as well as for the distribution of infected rodents and arthropods.
It is the use of artificially infected with bacteria and viruses, mosquitoes, flies, fleas, ticks, lice is almost a win-win option. At the same time, these carriers can retain the ability to transmit the pathogen to people for virtually their entire life. And their lifespan can range from several days or weeks (flies, mosquitoes, louses) to several years (ticks, fleas).
Biological terrorism
In the postwar period, biological weapons were not used during large-scale conflicts. But at the same time, terrorist organizations began to be very actively interested in them. So, since 1916, a minimum of 11 cases of planning or committing terrorist attacks using biological weapons have been documented. The most famous example is the story of sending letters with anthrax spores in the USA in 2001, when 5 people died from letters.
Today, biological weapons are most reminiscent of a genie from a fairy tale that was locked in a bottle. However, sooner or later, the simplification of technologies for the production of biological weapons can lead to a loss of control on them and will put humanity in the face of yet another threat to its security. The development of chemical and, later, nuclear weapons has led to the fact that almost all countries of the world have refused to continue to finance the development of new types of biological weapons, which have continued for decades. Thus, technological developments and scientific data that have been accumulated during this time turned out to be "suspended in the air."
On the other hand, works that are aimed at creating means of protection against dangerous infections have never stopped. They are conducted at the global level, while research centers receive decent amounts of funding for these purposes. The epidemiological threat persists today around the world, which means that even in underdeveloped and poor countries there are always sanitary-epidemiological laboratories that are equipped with everything necessary for carrying out microbiological work. Today, even ordinary breweries can be fairly easily repurposed for the production of any biological formulations. Such objects along with laboratories may be of interest to biological terrorists.
The most likely candidate for use in sabotage and terrorist purposes is called smallpox virus. At present, collections of variola virus on the recommendation of the World Health Organization are safely stored in Russia and in the United States. At the same time, there is information that the virus can be stored uncontrollably in a number of states and can spontaneously (and, possibly, intentionally) leave the storage sites.
It is necessary to understand that terrorists do not pay any attention to international conventions, and they are not at all concerned about the indiscriminacy of pathogen microorganisms. The main task of terrorists is to sow fear and achieve this by the desired goals. For these purposes, biological weapons seem almost ideal. Little can be compared with the panic that the use of biological weapons can cause. Of course, this was not done without the influence of cinema, literature and the media, which surrounded this possibility with an aura of a certain inevitability.
However, even without mass media, there are prerequisites for the possible use of such weapons for terrorist purposes. For example, taking into account the mistakes made by their predecessors by potential bioterrorists. Attempts to create portable nuclear charges and a chemical attack that was carried out in the Tokyo metro due to the lack of high technology and a competent approach among terrorists turned out to be failures. At the same time, if the attack is carried out correctly, the biological weapon will continue its action without the participation of the performers, reproducing itself.
Due to this, according to the totality of parameters, we can confidently say that it is precisely biological weapons that may be chosen by terrorists in the future as the most appropriate means to achieve their goals.
Information sources:
http://www.popmech.ru/technologies/13660-oruzhie-vne-zakona-10-zapreshchennykh-vooruzheniy/#full
http://www.lki.ru/text.php?id=6295
http://www.infoniac.ru/news/10-samyh-strashnyh-vidov-biologicheskogo-oruzhiya.html
http://www.rhbz.info/rhbz3.2.1.html
Information