This is the fourth post in a sequence of blog posts on state biological weapons programs. Others will be linked here as they come out:

1.0 Introduction
2.1 The empty sky: A history of state biological weapons programs
2.2 The empty sky: How close did we get to BW usage?
3.1 Filters: Hard and soft skills
3.2 Filters: A taboo
3.3 Filters: The shadow of nuclear weapons
4.0 Conclusion: Open questions and the future of state BW 

Welcome to the second half of our series. (This is post 3.1.) I’ve established that despite extensive historical weapons programs, biological weapons haven’t really been used in a major way since WWII. We don’t ever seem to have been a “close call” away from biological warfare. Why not?

I don’t have a complete answer. I have some pieces of the answer, though. The first piece, and one very good answer, is that BW are not as cheap and deadly as commonly thought, and that substantial resources and expertise are needed to successfully create biological weapons. This argument is well-made by Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley in her book Barriers to Bioweapons – a combination between hard technical skills and soft skills like poor management. I’ve written a summary of the book on this blog before.

That post will act as Part 1 of this section.

References

Ben Ouagrham-Gormley, Sonia. Barriers to Bioweapons: The Challenges of Expertise and Organization for Weapons Development. Cornell University Press, 2014.