however am still puzzled why folks believe a 'dirty' bio weapon is harder to create than a 'dirty' nuke, by any non-state actor
Depends somewhat on the nature of your entering assumptions about the nature of the non-state actor ?
As a technical matter... any biological weapon is going to be harder to create than a "dirty nuke"... simply as a matter of the nature of the knowledge required, on the one hand, and the nature of the logistics on the other.
All you need to make a dirty bomb... is a bomb... and the dirt. You don't really need any white lab coats. Beyond the logistics in the bomb making and the dirt procurement... there's not much to it. And, of course, as all the world's security services are aware enough of the risks posed, its not very likely anyone would be able to obtain the necessary capacity without being detected... Not likely such an effort would succeed without at least some state support... and if that did exist, it would tend to leave signatures that wouldn't be hard to address forensically.
As is true in many such things... the public perception is probably significantly different enough from the reality of the risks, that the fear is likely a far greater inducement to the terrorists interest than would be the practical utility of any such thing even were it to succeed in being created and used as a weapon.
The Japanese cult sarin attack on the subway... probably the case in point. Clearly leaves you wondering why it wasn't prevented given knowledge... their prior attempts... and the "known" in their tendencies. Made big headlines, but killed 13 people... which proved insufficient either to bring Japan to its knees, to induce the apocalypse, or to trigger WW III... as they had hoped it might.
Bio-weapons, on the other hand, are a lot more complex... as you'd perhaps expect any time you're working with living things, instead of rocks and things made from rocks. In the instances where that complexity is lacking, as where history provides examples, the circumstances tend to dictate the employment. If you're already under attack by a bug... sharing it with others you consider enemies by lobbing your dead bodies at them is a known response to try to counter the singular disadvantage the exogenous source imposes on one side. How much does that thinking inform China's recent choices ? A huge risk for them, if that's what's been happening, along with other lack of cooperation. Otherwise, as in deliberate uses of smallpox in the America's, the historical expectation of success was based in both pre-existing social distance, and a differential in inherited resistance.
Otherwise, even the simplest bio-weapons will impose significant risks on those creating them, that are far more likely to be realized by them, than is any success in development, much less successful deployment.
As you wander from the rudimentary toward the more sophisticated, the difficulties and the risks only grow ? My understanding is those few terrorists who've tried... didn't survive their own efforts long enough to make themselves a threat to others. We see obvious enough evidence that even state actors, who shouldn't have that as a problem, do still have significantly greater than non-zero risks tied to the potential for accidents, much less insider subversion or insider attacks. The very public but apparently still unresolved anthrax attacks following 9/11 probably the case in point, there ?
That's without even addressing the fundamental stupidity of undertaking to engage in modern biological warfare... with more virulent and deadly synthetic biological agents ?
But, obviously, if the current virus outbreak was intended as an intentional attack ?
How's that working out ?
And, at that point, again, you have fewer concerns with the difficulties in the logistics, significant as they may be, than you have with considering the nature and the source of the risk... and all that inherent in your assumptions about the nature of risks posed by the potential attackers willing to use such things.
If you're assuming they're rational... that might be wrong ? But, mostly, rational actors aren't going to choose to use biological warfare, not only because the risks aren't easily contained to focus them on a chosen target, but also because there is a parallel risk in retaliation that might be "more" and "better" than you expect ? But the logic of mutually assured destruction in biological warfare... isn't even dependent on some response in a retaliation ? The initiating event, all by itself... <as clearly would be true if this event were an attack>... is a one-sided imposition of that mutual assurance ? Clearly, this coronavirus doesn't respect borders, and, in spite of what we were told initially, beyond age and co-morbidities, it doesn't appear overly selective in who it hurts ?
What a stupid weapon that would be, for anyone to think to use... unless they were intending it to target everyone... and didn't care who it hurts, or how much it hurts them ? I suppose you can't discount that someone might have opted to try culling all the old people, using the virus as a tool to alter demographics ?
Again, who would be most likely to have that as an interest ?
Most terrorists likely will demure, if you ask them if the cause they champion is important enough to them to genuinely want to kill everyone, to give God the opportunity to sort them out. Most are active advocates for empowering some at others expense, with few concerns about killing those they oppose, by whatever means... but while supporting even suicide bombings... they are not yet that far gone that they'll kill their entire religion, people and culture, in an symbolic act of violent protest ? The exceptions would be on the irrational political left, among those :environmentalist" who consider humans to be a disease infecting the planet.
Who would have, both, that potential in capability, with that enabling political leaning... and that much of a nihilistic view of the world... that reason would allow them to proceed in employing such a weapon ?
Who is out there talking about the need for population reduction ?
State actors... also have to address those sorts of non-state actor risks... emerging from that tiny cadre of those private actors with the capacity, who might also believe their unique access, and simply having the capacities, qualifies them to make decisions for the world... and impose them... without others concern even being considered, even including deciding about things like how many people there should be ?
Who out there has been involved already in "population control" efforts... as Planned Parenthood supporters who might share the more radical eugenics-focused thinking like that of the founders of that group ? That might evidence an interest by some, predisposing them as at risk of potentially veering off into that brand of error in thinking ?
The history of eugenics is one that shows its proponents seem uniquely unaware of the nature and scope of the evil they embrace. That was true in the eugenics movement in the prior century, which found its ultimate political expression in the German National Socialist Party... the NAZIs. That movement also had found early support among a number of wealthy American financiers... enthralled with the idea of "fixing" the world for us... including doing that through the means and under the rubric of providing "health care"... of the sort that Dr. Mengele provided at Auschwitz. Germany's excesses weren't the only ones. Here in the U.S. there was parallel support for similar action. Search "U.S. eugenics forced sterilization".
China, too, of course, with its "one child" policy has shown no reluctance to try to control the population, and today, China has unquestioningly expropriated, along with other western ideas and technology, much of the failed western intellectual legacy behind eugenicist thought.
But, as the above should make clear, while I think it remains true that the most rational actors in public life are unlikely to make mistakes of that sort being considered here, I still have very little confidence that we can expect leaders will always and naturally be either rational, or ethical.
I still judge the current event is most likely the result of an accidental release caused by a laboratory failure in handling something that should never have been there to be mishandled...
But, if it was a deliberate employment of a weapon, intending it to reduce the population, the most probable source, whether state or non-state actors, would be those engaged in parallel undertakings of the same sort, of the same nature... focused on "improving our health" by "enabling others death"... to reduce the population.
The current virus still has unknown long term impacts resulting from its attacking multiple body systems... including that it attacks the testes... so too early to rule it out... that it maybe be purposed for that...
The modern western intellectual understanding of eugenics as abhorrent... and the reasons for that understanding... not only may not translate well into different cultures, but, as the quality of western education remains in steep decline, it may well not take too long before ignorance overwhelms the residual value of that legacy.
George Santayana's quote: "Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it." is probably no where more relevant, than in addressing those who repeat past mistakes while claiming they are right to insist "everything is different this time". That argument works no better in non-market context than it does in markets.
So, in that context, consider this obvious bit of academic ignorance on full display, unfortunately too common now among a subset of ill educated American technologists, many of whom are intent on a utilitarian reformulation of ethics to ensure its limits will conform to enable the technologically possible:
Do You Fear Eugenics ? China Does Not and that's a Problem - Interview with Chad White
This article, written in 2016, is now ancient history: China May Be the Future of Genetic Enhancement
Because since then: China’s CRISPR twins might have had their brains inadvertently enhanced
Perhaps most worthy of note, in that last article, in context here... is not that the experiment was done and in fact resulted in unintended consequences. Rather, it was that the experiment was done... intending to genetically engineer resistance to a virus... the extended implications of which should be obvious ? |
