Let me start by expressing my appreciation to the organizers of this conference. For many years, it was difficult to find many people who were interested in biological warfare as anything but a odd pursuit at the fringes of military-political discourse. For various reasons, today biological warfare has become a trendy subject, but one that remains poorly understood.

On my book shelf, I have about a dozen novels written in the past few years, both mystery and adventure stories, that purport to describe plausible scenarios involving criminal, terrorist, or state use of biological weapons. Without exception, all of those books have more to do with science fiction than with the reality of biological warfare. They typically describe agents that exist only in the fevered imagination of the fantasist, and they detail dissemination scenarios that show little or no understanding of the complexities of the art and science of biological warfare.

Sometimes I worry about the current fascination with biological warfare. Is the hype surrounding biological weapons creating the very interest in such technology that will create the threats we hope to avoid? There is some evidence to support that hypothesis. Yet, there is a real threat, not the one conjured up by the writer seeking to get on the best seller list, but rather one created by scientists and technicians in research laboratories around the world. It is a threat that we understand only partially, because we stopped working on offensive biological weapons nearly thirty years ago, and there are few around who remember the complex realities of what biological warfare can and cannot accomplish. If we are to understand the real threat, it is essential that we take a cold, sober look at the issues. Because only if we understand the threat can we take steps that can reduce the dangers to manageable proportions.

My task today is to address one aspect of the problem, namely the global and international dimension of the biological weapons threat. In the next few minutes, I will review what is known about the proliferation of biological weapons, providing some context to the problem and highlighting what seem to be the most important trends in biological warfare proliferation. I will conclude with a few comments about the prospects for acquisition of biological weapons by non-state actors.

Countries of concern

Assessing the geographic extent of biological warfare proliferation poses some serious challenges for the analyst. The amount of information available in open sources is limited. There is no one open source authoritative listing of countries thought to have BW programs. Thus, we must piece together the picture be reviewing the statements of government officials. As a start, we have clear indications that at least 10 countries are believed to possess biological weapons programs. In 1989, a U.S. government intelligence official asserted, "at least 10 countries are working to produce both previously known and futuristic biological agents." Similarly, in 1992, the British government alleged that "about ten countries are assessed as having biological weapons programs."

The most important source of authoritative statements are the annual compliance reports issued by the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA). The most recent reports mention eight countries of concern: China, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Russia, Syria, and Taiwan. The strength of the allegations made in the reports vary considerably from one country to the other. In the case of Syria, the report states that it is "highly probable that Syria is developing an offensive BW capability." In contrast, it indicates that "The evidence indicating a BW program is not sufficient to determine if Taiwan is engaged in activities prohibited by the BWC." Given the nature of the document, it is impossible to determine the significance of the differences: do they reflect important substantive differences, or are the heritage of some long-forgotten bureaucratic struggle?

The ACDA report has some important limitations. Surprisingly, ACDA ignores one country constantly mentioned by other official sources. Since at least 1988, U.S. government officials have identified North Korea as a biological weapons proliferator. In May 1996, the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency said this about North Korea: "It has an active biological weapons program which today is in the early stages of research and development." Late last year, the Department of Defense claimed that "North Korea probably has the ability to produce limited quantities of traditional infectious biological warfare agents or toxins and biological weapons."

The other main limitation on the ACDA data is that it focuses only on countries that are parties to the Biological Weapons Convention. Thus, while Israel is thought to possess a biological weapons program, it is not a signatory to the BWC and ACDA would never include it in its compliance reports.

Finally, there are a number of other countries that never figure in official reports, perhaps because the quality of the information supporting the allegations is weak. Cuba, for example, is sometimes alleged to possess a BW program. Similarly, over the years various sources, often of uncertain reliability, have mentioned Bulgaria, Rhodesia, Romania, and South Africa as proliferators. In the case of South Africa, the claims appear well grounded. Although the Mandela government has limited the amount of information made public on the old biological weapons program, there appears no reason to doubt its existence.

Thus, it appears that at least ten countries currently maintain biological weapons programs, although the complete list might include one or two additional countries as well.

How much confidence should be given to these assessments? Unfortunately, it is impossible to answer this important question. Collecting intelligence about biological warfare is extremely difficult, because our information necessarily comes almost exclusively from human intelligence. There are few overt signatures that can be used by national technical means to identify suspect facilities and determine that such places are indeed engaged in offensive biological weapons research. Moreover, the programs are generally small and well guarded, so they are extremely difficult targets for collection. As a result, we cannot necessarily make assumptions about the quality of the information available on these programs. From this perspective, the gaps in our information about Iraq should be a reminder that surprises in this field of endeavor are almost inevitable.

Assessing program capabilities

Because of the limited amount of information that is publicly available, assessing the size and the capabilities of BW programs is virtually impossible. There is essentially no information about the activities of most of these countries, and what is known about others is limited. Substantial amounts of information have appeared on only two countries, the former Soviet Union and Iraq, and significant gaps appear to exist even in those instances.

There are some statements about the activities of certain proliferators in the ACDA reports and in various Department of Defense publications. While those reports provide some limited insight into the activities of certain proliferators, they are generally too vague to be terribly useful. Rather than review such nebulous data, I will instead focus on two issues that should be considered when thinking about biological weapons programs.

First, not all BW programs are alike in size, sophistication, or operational capability. Sometimes it appears that people view all BW programs as equivalent. This may arise from the misconception that BW is so trivially easy that even the most inept proliferator can master the technology and the techniques. It may also result from a lack of imagination. We know how the United States approached the subject, so we believe that every other program will take a similar stance.

Yet, we know that there have been significant differences in all the programs about which much information is available. The programs have focused on different agents, and they appear to have had different operational concepts. This reflects one significant, but often overlooked, fact: BW can be used to accomplish a variety of alternative objectives. Biological agents have been used for state-sponsored assassinations. Countries have developed programs with economic objectives: few people remember that the United States first turned its attention to anti-crop agents as it developed its biological warfare capabilities. Biological agents can be used tactically, even though the United States rejected such an approach, and they can be employed operationally against troops supporting military infrastructure and strategically against civilian populations. Given how little we appear to know about the operational concepts that guide biological weapons programs, some caution should be exercised in making assessments regarding the intended objectives of a proliferator.

The largest differences between programs, however, are likely to exist in an area that cannot at present be empirically measured: operational competence. Because we believe that few, if indeed any, of the proliferators have used their biological weapons, there is no real world data on which to judge capabilities. Aerosol dissemination of biological agents requires exquisite skill, because of the many factors, many of them poorly understood, that can affect delivery of the agent. Experience tells us that not all countries are likely to be equally adept at mastering the such techniques, even if one assumes that all understand the problem equally well. As a result, there are likely to be vast differences in the capabilities of the different proliferant countries.

Trends

There are some interesting trends in biological weapons proliferation that deserve mention. First, and perhaps foremost, there is no evidence to suggest any growth in the number of countries with biological weapons programs. Significantly, the ten countries most commonly mentioned today as biological weapons proliferators are the same ones discussed nearly a decade ago. It appears that we are faced with a hard core group of BW proliferators. If this is indeed correct, it clearly has significant implications for the policy community in addressing the BW proliferation problem. In many ways it is not a global problem, but one isolated to a set group of countries, and we may need policy responses that are tailored to the individual countries of concern and not primarily global responses.

Second, there has been some progress in constraining the pace of proliferation. Certain programs are clearly significantly smaller or more constrained than they were a decade ago. There are two main cases of rollback. South Africa stopped its program, although the lack of information raises concerns about what has happened to the remains of that efforts. Similarly, the United States continues to have concerns about the Russian biological program. It is clear, however, that the extent of Russian activity, whatever it may be, is far less than a decade ago. This is significant for two reasons. On the positive side, the greatest advances in BW were coming out of the laboratories of the Soviet program, so that the reduction in support for its activities suggests that the global development of advanced biological warfare techniques has probably slowed significantly. On the other hand, the end of the Soviet Union appears to have made its BW technologies accessible to other proliferators. Thus, the end of the Soviet Union has had a mixed impact on global BW proliferation.

The third and last trend that I would like to highlight is also worrisome. There are clear indications that some BW proliferators are attempting to enhance their capabilities. Thus, the dangerousness of the existing programs is growing, perhaps significantly in some cases. We know that some countries are improving their capabilities, and we can assume that others are trying to do so. Iran is clearly taking steps to develop more robust BW capabilities, as are Libya and Syria. Even Iraq remains a source of concern, since it remains possible that it is continuing to work on its BW capabilities despite the best efforts of UNSCOM.

Non-state actors

Finally, let me turn away from state BW programs and make some concluding remarks about non-state actors. There is growing concern that non-state actors could acquire and use biological weapons. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, the threat of bio-terrorism is hard to assess, simply because there has been so little of it. Despite allegations that during the past sixty years more than thirty terrorist groups have acquired, or attempted to acquire, biological agents, there is only one bio-terrorism incident that resulted in illness. In that case, a cult group known as the Rajneeshees spread an organism known as Salmonella typhimurium, which causes ordinary salmonellosis or food poisoning. An estimated 751 people became ill as a result of that attack, including about 45 who were hospitalized. Fortunately, there were no fatalities. Terrorists have made other attempts to employ biological agents, but there is no proof that any of them resulted in casualties.

According to recent testimony of senior U.S. government officials, there is growing evidence that terrorist groups are interested in biological agents. Moreover, we are told that Administration officials predict, "high degree of likelihood that such an attack would occur in 10 years." Fortunately, most of the incidents involving biological agents are hoaxes, and the ones that are not tend to fall far short of the scale that would pose a threat of mass casualties. In addition, some caution must be exercised in interpreting official statements about the threat. Last week, for example, FBI Director Louis Freeh told the Congress that the bureau investigated 114 cases involving chemical, biological, or other weapons of mass destruction during the last year. That is an impressive number, but there is an important problem with definitions. As a defense analyst, when I use WMD, I mean nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons. However, that may not be what Freeh meant. The legal definition of WMD, enacted as part of the "Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994," defines a WMD to include "any destructive device as defined in section 921" of Title 18 of the U.S. Code. What is a destructive device according to section 921? Any gun with a barrel larger than half an inch, any bomb, any grenade, any "rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces." In other words, to the FBI, a weapon of mass destruction is basically any destructive device, including a great many that clearly cannot cause mass destruction and that have nothing to do with nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like to leave you with three main thoughts.

First, for at least a decade we have faced a core group of about ten countries pursuing biological weapons. There is no evidence to suggest any increase in the number of BW proliferators.

Second, we need to view BW proliferation as a differentiated problem, one that is not the same from one country to the next. The capabilities of BW proliferators will vary significantly, both in the technical and operational skills that they can bring to muster. Equally important, the objectives of their BW programs may be radically different from one country to the next.

Finally, there are legitimate concerns that non-state actors will attempt to make use of biological weapons, but there is no evidence to suggest that the threat is imminent or that any group has acquired and mastered the complex technology of biological warfare.

The dangers of biological warfare should be taken seriously. But they do not need to be hyped. While biological weapons can be disseminated to inflict mass casualties, they are not simple to use and they depend on a scientific foundation that sometimes appears to put as much emphasis on technique and art as on pure science. Certainly they are not magical super weapons that will destroy mankind if the wrong pathogen escapes from a containment facility. We need to get away from the hyperbole and focus on the realistic dimensions of the threat, which are sufficiently scary. Only at that point will be able to craft sound policies that can minimize or eliminate the threat of biological warfare.

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