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[reminder]

Battlefield of the Future: 21st Century Warfare Issues (Air War College Studies in National Security) 1995

Nature of the Biological Warfare Threat
Harmful bacteria, viruses, rickettsia, or toxins that incapacitate or kill humans, animals, or plants have an unsettling value in waging economic warfare . In 1925 Winston Churchill envisioned a context for BW when he wrote about "pestilences methodically prepared and deliberately launched upon man and beast . . . Blight to destroy crops, Anthrax to slay horses and cattle . . . ."(12)
This discussion narrows the definition of BW to consider only its utility against such economic targets as animals and plants.
(12) Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman, A Higher Form of Killing (New York: Noonday Press, 1982), 70.

Biological Weapons: Cost-effective WMD
Compared to other mass destruction weapons, biological weapons are cheap. A recent Office of Technology Assessment (OTAreport places the cost of a BW large arsenal as low as $10 million. This estimated cost stands in stark contrast to a low-end estimate of $200 million for developing a single nuclear weapon. The high-end cost estimate for a nuclear weapons could be 10 to 50 times higher . 15 Not only is BW more affordable, but militarily significant quantities of BW agents (kilograms) in legitimate biological laboratories make BW production easy to accomplish and conceal. Any nation with a moderately sophisticated pharmaceutical industry can do so. (pg 255)

Twenty-First Century Germ Warfare, Lt Col Robert P. Kadlec, USA
Biological warfare offers an adversary unique and significant advantages because of its ease of production, potential impact of use, and the ability to exploit US vulnerabilities. It is the only weapon of mass destruction which has utility across the spectrum of conflict. Using biological weapons under the cover of an endemic or natural disease occurrence provides an attacker the potential for --plausible denial--. In this context, biological weapons offers greater possibilities for use than do nuclear weapons. (pg 228)

Illustrative Scenarios