Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons since 1945 (review)

This collection of essays unfolds around the conflicted history of biological warfare (BW) development after World War II and disarmament efforts leading to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) of 1972—its promise, shortcomings, and aftermath. The essays cover the history of known BW programs so far as they can be seen through the veil of secrecy, while bringing a range of perspectives to bear on the pushes and pulls that drive the development and limitation of biological warfare.

While both sides of the story are told, the balance between expansion and limitation would benefit in some instances from more analysis of how in times of perceived crisis military decisions historically have pushed against limits. For instance, the general essay on the U.S. program skirts deceptively over the crisis of the early Cold War years. An alternate analysis concludes that the United States, faced with the growing risk of war with the Soviet Union and China during the early 1950s, pushed a crash program to build BW into the emergency plan for general war. This program invested heavily in research and development, incorporated BW into military doctrine, and developed an extensive covert infrastructure. Deciding that the policy that limited chemical warfare to retaliation did not apply to BW, where there was no policy, military decision makers secretly adopted a strategy following the atomic-warfare precedent of first use with presidential approval. Reference to this analysis, even in disagreement, would inform the historical debate. It would also contribute to the historical transparency that the summary analysis to the volume considers essential for all adherents to the BWC.

The authors dwell on the issues of transparency that have befallen the BWC. With the failure to establish a verification system, and with real and suspected circumvention of the Convention, they conclude that the world of BW remains a dangerous place. Without an international political consensus that alleviates the fears, suspicions, and scramble for military advantage that push BW development, transparency and international law will fall victim to crisis and conflict.

The more than twenty contributors provide a sample of what various disciplines can contribute to the complex history of BW. A good example is the necessary contribution by scientists to complement students of policy, strategy, tactics, and organization. The essay by the pathologist Martin Furmanski and the microbiologist Mark Wheelis on alleged BW use will attract some attention in this respect. Their most interesting example is the most controversial—the alleged use of biological weapons by the United States in the Korean War. Focusing on the Chinese claim that the United States used anthrax, they turn to the changing historical understanding of anthrax to attest, on the one hand, to the feasibility of Chinese medical evidence and the report based on it by the International Scientific Commission of that time, associated with Joseph Needham. On the other hand, however, they dispute these findings as evidence of BW through contemporary genomic analysis of Chinese anthrax from 1952, evidence that leads to the circumstantial conclusion that the source probably was Chinese and not American. The reference to the genomic analysis, regrettably, is limited to a personal communication in need of elaboration. Their proposal to test other Chinese evidence of BW through genomic analysis also raises the problem of the compromise of data in such a politically sensitive area.

This essay and others demonstrate the strengths and limitations of multidisciplinary collections. While such collections are invaluable gathering places for knowledge, this knowledge ultimately needs to be pulled together into an integrated and interdisciplinary historical analysis of what happened, why, and how; this collection contributes valuable material in its own right and toward such a synthesis.