COVID-19 shows diseases ideal weapons

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This article was published 01/12/2020 (1949 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The devastation COVID-19 has wrought is staggering. Yet the risks it poses to national security are also chilling: diseases are, in many terrible ways, ideal weapons.

Many high-level national U.S. security leaders have contracted the virus, including the U.S. president. In October most of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and two other high-level military leaders were in quarantine after coming in contact with the vice commandant of the Coast Guard, who tested positive for the disease. A number of White House aides have been infected.

COVID-19 has struck more than 90,000 Department of Defense personnel and their dependents.

The world has a centuries-long and sad history of deliberate use of diseases in conflict that reaches back to at least 14th century B.C. when the Hittites sent poisoned animals to their enemies. From the first century onward, many militaries tried to spread diseases during conflict using corpses and infected materials such as blankets.

The Cold War saw new and frightening feats in the development of biological weapons, including by the United States. One major Soviet site could produce 300 metric tons of anthrax agent for use in conflict — more than enough to kill everyone on the planet if deployed effectively.

In the late 20th century, the tide turned, for a time. The Biological Weapons Convention extended international law against bioweapons beginning in the 1970s. Countries co-operated to dismantle Cold War bioweapons programs, including the U.S. collaborating with independent Kazakhstan beginning in the 1990s to eliminate the Soviet anthrax weapons facility.

Yet even before the COVID-19 pandemic, progress against such weapons had eroded. Norms against weapons of mass destruction — usually classified to include nuclear, chemical, biological and radiological weapons — were already growing weaker. In the last decade, Syria, Russia and North Korea repeatedly used chemical weapons. Last summer, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned with a Soviet-era nerve agent. North Korea’s nuclear weapons testing has driven further proliferation concerns. The United States and Russia are fueling a new nuclear arms race with their respective investments in new nuclear capabilities, and China, India and Pakistan are expanding their arsenals.

These trends could be eclipsed if COVID-19 teaches the world the dangerous lesson that biological weapons are worthy investments.

Here’s what leaders of nations considering biological weapons could be learning. Weaponizing disease could allow them to infiltrate military assets and infect the highest-level leaders of powerful nations. They could cripple economies in a matter of months. They could drive significant disinformation and confusion if countries have to worry that every new outbreak could be an intentional attack.

Diseases also make for cheaper weapons of mass effect than nuclear weapons. There is great fear that post-pandemic, bad actors will view biological weapons as a cost-effective path to disruption and power. U.S. national security agencies are already studying this concern.

While getting the current pandemic under control, the Biden administration should aim to deter biological weapons by stripping them of their potential for causing such devastating damage. The United States could do this by creating a system of enhanced preparedness, early warning and rapid response so strong that any infectious diseases that emerge — regardless of whether they stem from nature or a deliberate attack — can be detected and stopped before triggering large-scale outbreaks.

Such a system is technologically feasible. It also could drive significant economic growth if the U.S. devises a strong disease-defence system before other countries do.

Wherever possible, the billions of dollars the country invests in COVID-19 responses should be designed to become part of this preparedness and rapid-response ecosystem.

There are simple truths that must guide the Biden team in the months ahead. Even if the administration does all it can to end the pandemic, COVID-19 will make biological weapons seem more attractive than they have been in decades. And the nation will not be secure without creating early warning and rapid-response systems that halt all biological threats early and effectively.

Christine Parthemore is chief executive officer of the U.S. Council on Strategic Risks. Previously, she was a senior adviser for countering weapons of mass destruction at the Pentagon. Andy Weber is a senior fellow at the Council on Strategic Risks and a former assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs.

— Los Angeles Times