The Threat, Part III: Negligence and Ongoing Research

Preventing proliferation becomes increasingly difficult in light of the fact that

The Soviet Union never instituted a comprehensive control and accounting system for these materials, relying instead on physical security and isolated facilities to protect against attacks from the outside and the control of the Communist regime to protect against subversion or theft from the inside. (See CRS)

As a result, Russian authorities often do not even know if weapons are missing, in what quantities, or when they disappeared. Furthermore, the ability of the current Russian regime to provide physical security is considerably less than that of its Soviet predecessor.

Ongoing Russian research efforts, ostensibly to develop defenses against C/BW, pose an additional threat. Even if these defensive claims are true and the Russians are acting in good faith, such research remains outside controls of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and poses a proliferation threat, since both the materials and the knowledge learned could find their way to the black market and – by virtue of their dual-use nature – be put to work creating offensive weapons, as Former Assistant Secretary of State Carl W. Ford has testified.

The Threat, Part II: The Nature of C/BW

Several attributes of biological and chemical weapons (C/BW) complicate the threat posed by non-state transfers of Russian weapons. C/BW are of an extremely dual-use nature, with many of the technologies and materials used in a variety of legitimate medicinal, agricultural and industrial processes, making these components easier to produce and proliferate than corresponding nuclear technologies and materials. Furthermore, while some C/BW are very complex, experts point out that on the whole they are simpler than nuclear weapons. Michael Moodie explains that

This problem is exacerbated by the very small quantities that may be transferred to bolster a weapons capability. When snippets of protein are all that you need, the notion of controlling transfers of such materials becomes a less attractive option.

Moreover, the means of delivering chemical and biological weapons can be quite simple, including public transportation networks or the postal system. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) reported that

Compared with most conventional weapons, C/B weapons are less well understood and have the potential to cause mass casualties. Even if used in smaller attacks, C/B weapons have the potential to cause mass terror.