The chemical and biological nonproliferation regime after the Covid-19 Pandemic: Dealing with the scientific revolution in the life sciences

This book offers an analysis of how the Chemical and Biological Weapons (CBW) regime has responded in the immediate aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. Coronavirus has highlighted the need to better protect modern societies from natural, accidental and deliberate disease affecting humans, animals and plants. Within that context preventing the deliberate hostile use of biological and chemical agents will be of increasing importance. Dando asks to what extent there has been a significant strengthening to the CBW non-proliferation regime in the immediate aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic using an analysis focused on two proposals to strengthen the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention which aim to constrain advances in science and technology developments that could be misused. On this basis he concludes that it would be hard to argue that to date there has been a significant strengthening of the CBW regime. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023. All rights reserved.

Multiple Streams, Open Windows, and yet No Solution

Article VII of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) requires states to provide emergency assistance in the case of a deliberate bioweapons attack on any state party to the convention. Since no operational mechanism defining how to request or provide such assistance has yet been established, the painful lessons of the 2014-2016 West African Ebola crisis returned this topic to the agenda of the BWC. This study uses multiple streams analysis to investigate the impact of the Ebola crisis on the considerations of Article VII. While it revived the three streams of the debate - problem, policy, and politics - and opened a policy window, nevertheless, no political entrepreneur was able to couple the streams to produce policy output. As this window of opportunity begins to close, the Covid-19 pandemic seems to be the next focusing event shaping the BWC discourse on emergency assistance. © 2022 Copyright 2022 by Helge Schumacher.

The Technologies and International Politics of Genetic Warfare: SSQ

This article considers the prospect and potential of genetic warfare. Drawing on expert interviews and fieldwork, it begins by detailing how the recent and anticipated innovations in synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology solve the weaponization, delivery, and precision problems that had previously made biological weapons impractical. The article then considers how states and non-state actors may develop and use genetic weapons, with a focus on the problem of secrecy. Underlying whether to reveal or conceal genetic war capability is a trade-off between strategic surprise and deterrence. Actors requiring deterrence are likely to reveal genetic military capability. With the only rivaling source of deterrence being nuclear weapons, nonnuclear states and non-state actors are more likely to make public their genetic weapons capability than nuclear states. The question of whether to use genetic weapons covertly or openly also entails a trade-off. Covert use confers strategic and tactical benefits, whereas the benefits of unrestricted use are primarily psychological. Terroristic, genocidal, and apocalyptic regimes and non-state actors may use genetic weapons openly, but most would likely opt for covert genetic warfare.

CONTEMPORARY BIOSAFETY CHALLENGES AND PERSPECTIVES OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

Biological safety is one of the most important components of the overall security system of both individual states and the entire world community. Today it has become quite obvious that the problems of biosafety are more urgent than ever and require the maximum attention of the world community. Against the background of the emergence and spread of diseases caused, as a rule, by dangerous and especially dangerous microorganisms, a number of problems arise in the world not only in the field of health care, but also of a political, social and economic nature. A striking example of this is the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic that has continued since the end of 2019. The issues related to biosafety in the agricultural sector and ecology are considered. It is obvious that constant monitoring and analysis of a wide range of biosafety problems, early development of measures to minimize the threats of exposure to already known dangerous pathogens not only on human health, but also on the environment, agricultural and food sectors are necessary. The issues related to the development of new research directions that can lead to the creation of biological systems with specified properties and functions that have no analogues in nature are discussed. In research aimed at the development of new biological technologies, to one degree or another related to the production of biological warfare, the primary and mandatory requirement is to ensure the safety of all personnel involved in these works and the availability of well- trained qualified scientists, as well as certified laboratory facilities in which these works are carried out. It is important to constantly pursue the purposeful development of multilateral international cooperation in the field of biosafety, and make creative decisions to ensure it on the territory of the Russian Federation. The importance of Russia's active international participation in solving existing and potential biological threats within the framework of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) and the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is noted. © 2022, Russian Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.

Optimizing the Sensitivity of Biological Particle Detectors through Atmospheric Particle Analysis According to Climatic Characteristics in South Korea

Biological agents used in biological warfare or bioterrorism are also present in bioaerosols. Prompt identification of a biological weapon and its characteristics is necessary. Herein, we optimized an environmentally adaptive detection algorithm that can better reflect changes in the complex South Korean environment than the current models. The algorithm distinguished between normal and biological particles using a laser-induced fluorescence-based biological particle detector capable of real-time measurements and size classification. We ensured that the algorithm operated with minimal false alarms in any environment by training based on experimental data acquired from an area where rainfall, snow, fog and mist, Asian dust, and water waves on the beach occur. To prevent time and money wastage due to false alarms, the detection performance for each level of sensitivity was examined to enable the selection of multiple sensitivities according to the background, and the appropriate level of sensitivity for the climate was determined. The basic sensitivity was set more conservatively than before, with a 3% alarm rate at 20 agent-containing particles per liter of air (ACPLA) and a 100% alarm rate at 63 ACPLA. The reliability was increased by optimizing five variables. False alarms did not occur in situations where no alarm was unnecessary.