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"Biological weapons Soviet Union History."
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The Soviet biological weapons program : a history
This is the first attempt to understand the broad scope of the USSR's offensive biological weapons research from its inception in the 1920s. Gorbachev tried to end the program, but the US and UK never obtained clear evidence he succeeded, raising the question whether the means for waging biological warfare could be revived in Russia in the future.
eBook
Barriers to Bioweapons
In both the popular imagination and among lawmakers and national security experts, there exists the belief that with sufficient motivation and material resources, states or terrorist groups can produce bioweapons easily, cheaply, and successfully. InBarriers to Bioweapons, Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley challenges this perception by showing that bioweapons development is a difficult, protracted, and expensive endeavor, rarely achieving the expected results whatever the magnitude of investment. Her findings are based on extensive interviews she conducted with former U.S. and Soviet-era bioweapons scientists and on careful analysis of archival data and other historical documents related to various state and terrorist bioweapons programs.
Bioweapons development relies on living organisms that are sensitive to their environment and handling conditions, and therefore behave unpredictably. These features place a greater premium on specialized knowledge. Ben Ouagrham-Gormley posits that lack of access to such intellectual capital constitutes the greatest barrier to the making of bioweapons. She integrates theories drawn from economics, the sociology of science, organization, and management with her empirical research. The resulting theoretical framework rests on the idea that the pace and success of a bioweapons development program can be measured by its ability to ensure the creation and transfer of scientific and technical knowledge. The specific organizational, managerial, social, political, and economic conditions necessary for success are difficult to achieve, particularly in covert programs where the need to prevent detection imposes managerial and organizational conditions that conflict with knowledge production.
eBook
An Assessment of the International Science and Technology Center
This report reviews the ISTC's objectives and plans, discussed its activities with U.S. and FSU officials, and met with FSU grant recipients and institute directors. The committee concludes that during its first two years the ISTC was successful and effective in meeting its primary objective, which, in turn, has contributed to the larger goal of diminishing the risk of weapons proliferation. Moreover, the opportunities provided to FSU scientists and engineers do indeed offer meaningful nonweapons-related work, which helps address the demoralization that may otherwise contribute to scientists' being lured into work for unfriendly governments. The committee believes the ISTC has also been successful in addressing its secondary objectives-namely, the solution of national and international technical problems; the support of basic and applied research and technology development for peaceful purposes; and, to a lesser degree, reinforcement of the transition of the FSU to a market-driven economy.
eBook
Bioweapons Proliferation: Where Science Studies and Public Policy Collide
Post 9/11 concerns about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction have highlighted the importance of understanding the fundamental nature of tacit weapons knowledge and its transfer mechanisms. Existing conceptualizations of tacit knowledge, however, are insufficient to assess the proliferation threat and the development of specific nonproliferation policies. Some would argue that this is particularly true of biological weapons, which involve dualuse technologies that are continually advancing and diffusing. This paper will illustrate the difficulties in applying notions of tacit knowledge to real-world policymaking by examining the development of Soviet biological weapons and the subsequent proliferation threat posed by scientists from a Kazakh bioweapons facility. With the collapse of the former Soviet Union and the subsequent establishment of US nonproliferation assistance programs, new metrics are needed to assess how tacit knowledge possessed by these weapons scientists may erode over time and what implications that may have for proliferation and the development of effective nonproliferation and counterterrorism policies.
Journal Article
The Sverdlovsk anthrax outbreak of 1979
In April and May 1979, an unusual anthrax epidemic occurred in Sverdlovsk, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Soviet officials attributed it to consumption of contaminated meat. U.S. agencies attributed it to inhalation of spores accidentally released at a military microbiology facility in the city. Epidemiological data show that most victims worked or lived in a narrow zone extending from the military facility to the southern city limit. Farther south, livestock died of anthrax along the zone's extended axis. The zone paralleled the northerly wind that prevailed shortly before the outbreak. It is concluded that the escape of an aerosol of anthrax pathogen at the military facility caused the outbreak
Journal Article
The Soviet Biological Weapons Program
This is the first attempt to understand the full scope of the USSR’s offensive biological weapons research, from inception in the 1920s. Gorbachev tried to end the program, but the U.S. and U.K. never obtained clear evidence that he succeeded, raising the question whether the means for waging biological warfare could be present in Russia today.
eBook
The Anti-Plague System and the Soviet Biological Warfare Program
The USSR possessed a unique national public health system that included an agency named \"anti-plague system.\" Its mission was to protect the country from highly dangerous diseases of either natural or laboratory etiology. During the 1960s, the anti-plague system became the lead agency of a program to defend against biological warfare, codenamed Project 5. This responsibility grew and by the middle 1970s came to include undertaking tasks for the offensive biological warfare program, codenamed Ferment. This article describes the anti-plague system's activities relevant to both aspects of the Soviet Union's biological warfare program, offense and defense, and analyzes its contributions to each.
Journal Article
Pathogen Proliferation: Threats from the Former Soviet Bioweapons Complex
This article outlines the proliferation threats of pathogen collections from the former Soviet biological weapons (BW) program and the inherent difficulties in safeguarding sensitive biological materials. It describes new U.S. government efforts to improve security conditions of these collections through the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. Finally, the article analyzes these U.S. programs and offers additional policy recommendations to reduce the proliferation threat from these dangerous pathogens.
Journal Article
THE KOREAN WAR BIOLOGICAL WEAPON ALLEGATIONS: ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND DISCLOSURES
Leitenberg discusses the charges of biological weapons use made by the People's Republic of China, North Korea, & the USSR against the US during the Korean War. He outlines the history of the allegations & concludes that they are contrived & fraudulent. The author uses excerpts from 12 internal documents (1998) obtained from the archives of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) to make his case. More documentation of communication between Moscow & Beijing are presumed to exist for the period between Feb 1952 & Apr 1952, the span of time that includes the peak period of the charges. Leitenberg proposes that the allegations are false also because the biological munition that the Chinese & North Koreans accused the US of dispersing was not produced until the end of 1954, long after the Korean War was over. He also includes quotes from the memoir of Tibor Meray, a Hungarian journalist, who wrote a great deal about the accusation & concluded that it was the USSR, under Stalin, which originated the biological warfare allegations, not the Chinese nor the North Koreans, although they collaborated. Leitenberg concludes that it would be a significant victory for arms control if all the circumstances surrounding this historical case could be completely disclosed. G. Gifford
Journal Article