The international regime to control biological and toxin weapons: Is it the best way to minimize the threat

Thesis/Dissertation · Tue Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1991

OSTI ID:7271816

Chevrier, M I

The prospect that a nation or subnational group would acquire and use biological or toxin weapons (BTW) remains a serious international problem despite the 1972 Biological Weapons convention (BWC) that bans their very possession. It is argued here that the circumstances in which a country would prefer using BTW to using any other weapons and, consequently, would choose to acquire BTW to prepare for just such circumstances are rare and generally confined to non-nuclear nations without powerful or reliable allies who consider themselves under a relatively constant threat from a larger, better-armed foe. Moreover, because BTW attack people but have no effect on industrial or war-making capacity, they would rarely be weapons of choice for retaliation. Consequently, their effectiveness as a weapon of deterrence is limited. The thesis discusses the history of the arms control regime that governs these weapons and uses decision analysis to examine how that regime affects the decision to acquire a BTW capability. It concludes that a nation is less likely to choose to acquire BTW with the current regime in effect than without is because the political consequences or acquiring BTW are less desirable under the treaty regime.

• Research Organization: Harvard Univ., Boston, MA (United States)
• OSTI ID: 7271816
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

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