AHC: have biological weapons be the scariest, primary deterrent

Nuclear weapons have been considered the mightiest, and scariest of the three WMD types. Whole doctrines on their use exist, countries have ben put under sanctions or gotten attacked because of a potential acquisition of nuclear weapon assets. It is strange though, that bioweapons aren't even more of a red-alert/scare. They need less resources to produce than a massive nuclear/CW arsenal does, and their effect once deployed, is widest geographically, since a contagion spreads itself.

What would it take for biological weapons to be the crown of any country's military arsenal, in particular that of the superpowers?
 
pound for pound they pretty much are, just people don't talk about them like they do bombs as the thought is too scary to fight against something you cant see or are even sure if anyone designed a cure for
 
Nuclear weapons have been considered the mightiest, and scariest of the three WMD types. Whole doctrines on their use exist, countries have ben put under sanctions or gotten attacked because of a potential acquisition of nuclear weapon assets. It is strange though, that bioweapons aren't even more of a red-alert/scare. They need less resources to produce than a massive nuclear/CW arsenal does, and their effect once deployed, is widest geographically, since a contagion spreads itself.

What would it take for biological weapons to be the crown of any country's military arsenal, in particular that of the superpowers?

To make them more "scariest" the psychological impact must be greater that others. I suggest that they were used more recently. But it is still not widespread that much. Like only five states have them.
 
Nuclear weapons have been considered the mightiest, and scariest of the three WMD types. Whole doctrines on their use exist, countries have ben put under sanctions or gotten attacked because of a potential acquisition of nuclear weapon assets. It is strange though, that bioweapons aren't even more of a red-alert/scare. They need less resources to produce than a massive nuclear/CW arsenal does, and their effect once deployed, is widest geographically, since a contagion spreads itself.

What would it take for biological weapons to be the crown of any country's military arsenal, in particular that of the superpowers?
No nukes

Bioweapons kill people, but nuclear weapons kill people and break things, and do it instantly too, while bioweapons take time. Nukes or gas can stop an incoming army right there, bioweapons would mean they still have days of fighting left in them before they are sufficiently sick, and the shorter this period the less effective the bioweapon is at spreading. Plus as you said bioweapons spread themselves, they could easily infect your own citizens or neutral citizens as well as the enemy. To protect your own citizens you would need mass vaccination, but that means your enemy can protect themselves as well. Bioweapons can also be protected against by fairly simple means, vaccination, quarantine and CBRN sealing, one can get around that by releasing an agent before these efforts begin, but that is a first strike not a deterrent and an invitation to get done unto first

Nukes are just more versatile, responsive, predictable and controllable, as long as nukes are available no one is going to chose bioweapons save as a backup or because they cannot get nukes. Heck you might have to get rid of nerve agents as well, as they are great at killing, do so fast and are controllable and easier to disperse than bioweapons and not all that difficult to acquire
 
A big problem with Biological weapons is that arn't really strategically deployable in the same way a nuke is, or even chemicals. You can't really mount a dispersion system to an ICBM and rain smallpox down on a city. Really the only way to deploy them is by covert insertion with special operations teams under cover.
They also take a long time to impact the target population compared to other WMDs, and as such are not viable a first strike weapons. Attacking an enemy with biological weapons will leave them significant time to retaliate, even if the end result of our attack is that their nations eventually collapses.

The big one is however controlability. The bio weapons are a double edged sword, once released it is very possible that they will eventually infect your populace, no matter what counter measures you design into them.

It is possible than they could be used a a second strike asset, and feature as a deterrent that way. Basically telling your foes that if they attack you, you will release a plague that will destroy civilization. However this is likely to get everyone in the world nervous about you, not just your geo-political opponent. Additionally nukes are simply a better way of ensuring the same effect, and without the possibility (however slim) that your enemy might develop a cure.

However I could see a situation where a rogue state that did not have the money or infrastructure to to develop nukes, might goes this route. Announcing to the world that if their glorious regime goes down, so does the rest of the world. Eventually.

For great powers however, the only real way to go is nuclear.
 
A big problem with Biological weapons is that arn't really strategically deployable in the same way a nuke is, or even chemicals. You can't really mount a dispersion system to an ICBM and rain smallpox down on a city. Really the only way to deploy them is by covert insertion with special operations teams under cover.
They also take a long time to impact the target population compared to other WMDs, and as such are not viable a first strike weapons. Attacking an enemy with biological weapons will leave them significant time to retaliate, even if the end result of our attack is that their nations eventually collapses.

The big one is however controlability. The bio weapons are a double edged sword, once released it is very possible that they will eventually infect your populace, no matter what counter measures you design into them.

It is possible than they could be used a a second strike asset, and feature as a deterrent that way. Basically telling your foes that if they attack you, you will release a plague that will destroy civilization. However this is likely to get everyone in the world nervous about you, not just your geo-political opponent. Additionally nukes are simply a better way of ensuring the same effect, and without the possibility (however slim) that your enemy might develop a cure.

However I could see a situation where a rogue state that did not have the money or infrastructure to to develop nukes, might goes this route. Announcing to the world that if their glorious regime goes down, so does the rest of the world. Eventually.

For great powers however, the only real way to go is nuclear.
AFAIK you could mount a dispersion system on an ICBM, it just required a lot of complicated extra engineering that heavily reduced payload and could easily fail and was not all that effective in dispersal

US found the best solution was with sprayer tanks fitted to aircraft, but only at night as UV from sunlight killed the agent fairly quick
 

missouribob

Banned
Have an ATL Iraq develop a robust biological weapons program that continues until 2003. When the ATL U.S. invades Saddam releases ALL of his biological agents killing millions.

That should do it.
 
Have Unit 731 mess around with Spanish Flu variants and one break containment causing a Pandemic. That or have them deploy Pneumonic plague bombs, preferably somewhere it cannot be covered up after the war. For instance instead of the Rape of Nanjing have the city, and especially its western population, wiped out by plague bombs. The thing about bio agents is that while they aren't well known in the public consciousness they scare the piss out of anyone who knows about them, so they haven't been deployed for a very good reason. If someone like Unit 731 did successfully deploy them... then the public becomes aware of just how scary they are and they top nukes by a good bit.
 
Here on AH the problem is folks don't have a good medical understanding of the medicine/biology behind these sorts of things. For example, pneumonic plague is the same as bubonic plague, just a different form (both caused by Yersinia Pestis). Because bioweapons can spread rather widely and uncontrollably, in most cases you need to make sure you have appropriate vaccinations and/or medications for your own forces/population before you deploy them. Note that this was not necessary for VEGETARIAN because anthrax is not transmitted human to human so as long as you avoid contaminated areas, eating contaminated food you are safe.

Aside from the issues of being relatively slow acting, the problem of uncontrolled spread is the biggest problem. Delivering biologicals (whether bacteria or viruses) by missile is a real problem. Between the problems of keeping most such agents viable in a warhead (which means you can't have them preloaded easily) and the issues of heating during the flight, there is the fact that any sort of bursting charge to spread them will end up destroying a significant percentage of the agent and dispersal may be minimal.

As a strategic weapon, whether against populations or food sources (livestock or crops) biological weapons can be used, however getting them where and when desired is difficult. Tactically they have limited value and are dangerous to your own forces. In theory, given current or near term technology, tailored viruses as possible. If you can find a genetic marker on cell walls or similar that is specific to your "enemy" you could make a virus that would only be effective against folks with that marker as long as your population does not have that marker.

For a country like the USA, where you have an increasingly genetically mixed population this is problematic for both you and your enemies. For enemies, you can't be sure about the desired marker will be on US troops/population you target. For the USA this means the "enemy" marker you use may be present in some of your population. A relatively homogeneous population, like Korea, China, Vietnam, or various African states would be most vulnerable to this sort of attack and therefore hopefully less likely to use them.

In short biological weapons are very scary and dangerous, but IMHO are only good as terror weapons against a population, and very limited in use tactically.
 
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