Biological Warfare and Disarmament: New Problems/ New Perspectives

Biological Warfare and Disarmament takes an original look at the problem of biological warfare and the challenge of achieving biological disarmament. Approaches to the issue have been overwhelmingly dominated by a Western--and particularly U.S.--perspective that reduces the question to the spread of these weapons among non-Western countries and non-state actors. Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, this position has hardened, giving rise to a strongly polarized discourse that embraces nuclear weapons as the ultimate key to security.

In view of this increasing polarization and the reliance of the United States on military power as the basis for security, it is vital to reassess Western policies on biological warfare and to seek alternatives that support international cooperation in reaffirming the norm of biological disarmament. This volume brings together a group of distinguished authors with a broad diversity of geographical and professional backgrounds to take up this challenge.

The book emphasizes placing post-Cold War concerns about biological warfare in context: the legacy of the vast biological weapons program pursued by the Soviet Union; the Middle East as a crucible of conflict over which looms weapons of mass destruction; the dramatic expansion of U.S. biological defense activities; and the new threat of asymmetrical warfare, including bioterrorism. Highlighting the importance of understanding often-marginalized non-Western perspectives, the book proposes fresh approaches and concrete proposals to overcome one of the most intractable security problems of the twenty-first century.

Susan Wright, a historian of science at the University of Michigan, is research scientist in the University's Institute for Research on Women and Gender.