CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
Forthcoming June 2008
Terrorism, War, or Disease? Unraveling the Use of Biological Weapons
Book
By Anne L. Clunan, Peter R. Lavoy and Susan B. Martin
The use of biological warfare (BW) agents by states or terrorists is one of the world's most frightening security threats but, thus far, little attention has been devoted to understanding how to improve policies and procedures to identify and attribute BW events. Terrorism, War, or Disease? is the first book to examine the complex political, military, legal, and scientific challenges involved in determining when BW have been used and who has used them.
June 2008
"The Yellow Rain Affair: Lessons from a Discredited Allegation"
Book Chapter
By Matthew Meselson, Co-director, Harvard Sussex Program on Chemical and Biological Weapons and Julian Perry Robinson, Co-director, Harvard Sussex Program on Chemical and Biological Weapons
"U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig, in a speech in West Berlin in September 1981 and in a detailed report to the Congress the following March, charged Soviet-backed Laotian and Vietnamese forces with waging toxin warfare against Hmong resistance fighters and their villages in Laos and against Khmer Rouge soldiers and villages in Cambodia. The charges were repeated with additional details in a further report to the Congress and to the member states of the United Nations in November 1982 by Haig's successor, Secretary of State George Shultz.
The investigation on which the allegation was based, however, failed to employ reliable methods of witness interrogation or of forensic laboratory investigation; it was further marred by the dismissal and withholding of contrary evidence and a lack of independent review. When the evidence for toxin attacks or any other form of chemical/biological warfare (CBW) was subjected to more careful examination, it could not be confirmed or was discredited. In what became known as the "Yellow Rain" affair, these charges — that toxic substances called trichothecenes were used in CBW — were initially pressed vigorously by the U.S. government and, even when the allegations proved unsustainable, they were not withdrawn...."
Autumn 2007
The Day After: Action Following a Nuclear Blast in a U.S. City
Journal Article, The Washington Quarterly, issue 4, volume 30
By Dr. Ashton B. Carter, Co-Director, Preventive Defense Project, Harvard & Stanford Universities, Dr. William J. Perry, Co-Director, Preventive Defense Project and Dr. Michael M. May
Failure to develop a comprehensive contingency plan, such as the one proposed here, and inform the American public, where appropriate, about its particulars will only serve to amplify the devastating impact of any nuclear attack on a U.S. city
April 2007
How to Counter WMD
Book Chapter
By Dr. Ashton B. Carter, Co-Director, Preventive Defense Project, Harvard & Stanford Universities
Ashton B. Carter contributes a chapter to McGraw-Hill's new volume on Weapons of Mass Destruction and Terrorism.
March 2007
"The Belfer Center and Nuclear Weapons Policy: Security in the Post-Cold War Era"
Summary, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
By Steven E. Miller, Director, International Security Program; Editor-in-Chief, International Security; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom
"The efforts that the Center has made in addressing the nuclear challenges of the post-Cold War era are anchored in the books that it has produced on the major dimensions of the problem."
March 2007
"Decontamination and Remediation after a Dirty Bomb Attack"
Journal Article, The Nonproliferation Review, issue 1, volume 14
By Jennifer C. Bulkeley, Research Fellow, International Security Program
Article in The Nonproliferation Review
Winter 2007
"The Iraq Experiment and US National Security"
Journal Article, Survival, issue 4, volume 48
By Steven E. Miller, Director, International Security Program; Editor-in-Chief, International Security; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom
This article was prepared for a Council on Foreign Relations/International Institute for Strategic Studies Symposium on Iraq's Impact on the Future of US Foreign and Defence Policy, with generous support from Rita E. Hauser.
January / February 2007
"Weapons Lab"
Journal Article, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, (Special Issue: Five Minutes to Midnight), issue 1, volume 63
By Matthew Meselson, Co-director, Harvard Sussex Program on Chemical and Biological Weapons
"The lack of transparency in U.S. biodefense work is fostering a widespread perception that we are secretly developing novel threat agents and exploring novel bioweapons concepts. This constitutes a kind of psychological proliferation that risks eroding the constraints against military and paramilitary use of biological weapons. And aside from security considerations, secrecy in biological research will impede rather than foster the discovery and development of practical methods of prophylaxis and therapy of infective disease."
January, 2007
The Greek Paradox: Promise vs. Performance
Book
By Graham Allison, Director, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs; Douglas Dillon Professor of Government; Faculty Chair, Dubai Initiative, Harvard Kennedy School and Kalypso Nicolaidis
As a bridge between the East and West, a pole of stability in the Balkans, and a Mediterranean crossroads, Greece could play a significant role in the post-Cold War world. But Greece's performance in domestic and international policy falls short of this promise. The essays in The Greek Paradox look at some of the reasons for this gap and suggest possible political and economic reforms.
Fall 2006
"Preventing the Misuse of Biology: Lessons from the Oversight of Smallpox Virus Research"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 2, volume 31
A delicate balance exists between the benefits of biotechnology research and the downside of making it widely available. If the international community does not establish a better system of governance to oversee and protect the research process, determined terrorist groups could exploit this research to develop their own biological weapons. The successes and failures of the World Health Organization's supervision of all research done with the live smallpox virus provide valuable lessons for future cooperative international governance.
