Translated from GegenStandpunkt 1-2002

“Washington lets bioweapons conference fail – the EU is appalled”:

A dispute over banning the wrong weapons in the wrong hands

In Geneva, 144 signatory states to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxin Weapons and on their Destruction, which came into force in 1975, have gathered for their 5th Review Conference to adopt a “protocol for an effective international control mechanism.” The “uniquely comprehensive and unambiguous ban on an entire type of weapon” (The Sunshine Project) does not yet provide for such a mechanism. Particular attention is being paid to the USA, which is opposed to the planned “system of mutual disclosure and control.” “After the anthrax attacks in America, however, there is hope that Washington will once again be more interested in international action against bioweapons due to the threat of terrorism.” (FAZ, 5.12.01) This hope is groundless in a number of ways.

The praxis of a “comprehensive ban”

A quarter of a century ago, the signatory states made a clear commitment: “All development, production, stockpiling or procurement of biological or toxin weapons is prohibited.” (Article 1 of the Convention) The praxis of this ban is different. This is brought to light not least by the unauthorized use of products from a national weapons lab made by a misguided American patriot. The anthrax spores used in the anthrax attacks in the USA originated – it’s now well known – from domestic culturing. Apparently, things can be done there that have not been mastered “in any other country outside of American weapons laboratories” (FAZ, 12.14), namely, the processes for “agglutinating” and “refining” anthrax pathogens to make them suitable for use as weapons. According to the NZZ (12.14), this is not the first time that the “anthrax powder used in the letters” has been “sent back and forth between military research facilities in the utmost secrecy” through the postal service. Apart from anthrax, the USA possesses the “world’s largest collection of bacterial and viral strains,” from which, according to the FAZ (12.3), it knows how to create “another 234 weaponized biological warfare agents.” American researchers are not only specialists in plague, cholera and Ebola, but are also researching how “previously unknown viral and bacterial crossbreeds” (NZZ, 11.29) can be made into weapons.

Other honorable members of the international ban are researching and cultivating microorganisms that can be used as weapons in the name of defense against biological weapons, as this is permitted by the Convention. Germany stands out in this field with its Fuchs armored reconnaissance vehicle, a mobile A, B and C-weapons laboratory that is unique in the world. Other states are suspected of operating secret biological weapons programs. This is no surprise, given the practices of the militarily superior leading nations, but, on the other hand, it is not a big problem either. The “dual use” that can be made of genetic engineering processes and productive resources, and even of certain bacteria and their properties, makes this weapon accessible to any state that is capable of exploiting the modern biological sciences.

Why ban weapons that every state has and wants to keep anyway?

Apparently, no signatory is willing to be prohibited from doing anything by the Convention’s “comprehensive and unequivocal prohibition.” But why are states that do not want to abolish their bioweapons prepared to “ban” them? After all, it is not a given that weapons are declared to be the work of the devil and banned as soon as they are created – and that this is done in agreement with potential enemies, which they were acquired against. Assault rifles and tanks, bomber fleets and battleships are not condemned by the respective defense ministers as forbidden means of killing – and they do not try to persuade their enemies to do the same with these means of war. The banning of weapons which states go to some lengths to procure is reserved for so-called nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons of mass destruction. The name given to them disguises the real reason for their special treatment. First, the highly efficient killing of large numbers of the enemy population is certainly one of the militarily expedient and desired acts of war in the context of defeating an enemy state; secondly, the effectiveness of mass bombings with conventional explosive and incendiary bombs is not necessarily inferior to non-conventional techniques in terms of destructive power. Another argument that is repeatedly put forward against these weapons, one that is less about humanitarianism than war strategy, is also not the real reason for the special status that they have been given by bans and arms diplomacy with the enemy: the view that nuclear weapons are militarily impractical because they make the terrain to be conquered uninhabitable for decades and prevent the victorious troops from occupying or even marching through them, that chemical and biological weapons are hard to limit in their impacts on the enemy, and that the latter might even be completely uncontrollable in their further effects – these views are all refuted in practice by the states that do not want to give up the impractical stuff under any circumstances.

The reason for the diplomatic efforts to reach an understanding with the enemy via, of all things, war equipment is that there is – so far – no defense against attacks with these weapons of total war. They are aimed directly at the national substance and viability of the enemy state – its people – and are therefore wonderful weapons as long as one state has a monopoly on them and can blackmail others with them. They become a problem for the calculability of war as soon as the enemy also possesses them. Because an escalation to the point of both sides being annihilated, something neither side can defend itself against, a mutual destruction of the national substance – that’s seen by the military as pointless. The criticism on which states agree about weapons of mass destruction is almost the opposite of the horror that normal people feel at the prospect of millions of deaths, even if public debates tend to confuse the two. States are concerned with the security of their warfare; they are careful to ensure that war can prove to be a valid policy tool for them and that the work of destruction they are preparing does not get out of their control. Out of sheer interest in war, they engage in an absurd diplomacy with the enemy who their arms efforts are directed against about the modalities of the use of their total weapons and sometimes on the ban of certain types.

In their decades-long arms diplomacy, the USA and the former Soviet Union never fell for the idea of a general ban on nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. They were annoyed by each other, by the stalemate that had arisen with the ability of each side to completely destroy the other. Their unconditional interest in the controlled use of their nuclear weapons created the perverse need to reach an agreement with the enemy on the use of nuclear weapons. In order to make the other side predictable for themselves, they conceded the same need to the other side, inquired about the other side’s nuclear war strategies, and explained their own. In recognition of the other side’s temporary invincibility, the potential world war opponents agreed that they would not seek defensive weapons against nuclear missiles in order to “stabilize the strategic situation”; they agreed on maximum limits for the number and explosive power of their respective nuclear missiles – and at the same time put all their energy into procuring superior nuclear weapons for the final battle and freeing themselves from the annoying stalemate. Their enmity also gave them something in common with the rest of the world: in the interest of the predictability of their mutual threats, they tried to exclude their respective allies and all other states from possessing this type of weapon – unless they were already part of the circle of recognized nuclear powers. Ever since the abdication of the Soviet Union, the enemy with an equal nuclear war capability, and ever since the emergence of defensive techniques against this means of war – keyword: “national missile defense” – the USA has lost any interest in bilateral arms control treaties. If it can defend itself – even if only to a limited extent – against nuclear missiles, then these can once again become normal weapons, and it will be a matter of who can deliver them to their target and how unstoppably, and who can defend themselves against them and how well. As long as the USA is the only state able to intercept missiles, it can even achieve a new monopoly on the use of nuclear weapons. However, the USA has not lost interest in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty – it has only changed its substance. It was always an unequal treaty in the sense that the nuclear have-nots promised the nuclear-armed states that they would refrain from pursuing these weapons. In the meantime, it is no longer a state’s voluntary decision whether to join this treaty, or not to and then suffer the sanctions provided for: being excluded from the scientific knowledge and supplies related to the peaceful use of nuclear energy. Promising not to seek nuclear weapons and a willingness to make every nuclear facility accessible to international supervision have become an obligation that all states have to the USA; refuseniks are declared outlaws of the American world order and threatened with war. The remaining superpower demands that the world of non-nuclear-armed states recognizes its superiority in terms of military technology and thus enshrines it. It ensures that most states are defenseless against nuclear weapons and thus susceptible to nuclear blackmail. That’s why a universal ban on nuclear weapons has always been out of the question.

Things are different with biological and chemical weapons, the “nuclear bombs of the poor man”: thanks to their low-tech production and the spread of the “dual use” technologies required for them, they are accessible to many states. An American monopoly, or a monopoly shared between a few major powers, has never been within reach. Here, on the contrary, the annoyance is that otherwise poor, powerless states, i.e. states that have no right to such things, have a certain deterrent capability. The old League of Nations ideal of a universal moral ostracism comes into play against them. The offer to agree with the great powers to renounce these weapons was intended to replace the recognition that lesser powers hoped to gain from them.

Of course, the ideal of talking other states out of using these weapons while keeping it in one’s own hands as a final insurance against unfavorable fortunes in war and as an absolute deterrent remains an ideal, even in relation to powers like these. After all, diplomacy isn’t suitable for disarming potential enemies. However, condemning the weapons someone has and keeps has a chance. 144 contracting parties have agreed that they view the use of these perilous means of war against one another as undesirable and that they intend to refrain from using them in war and from threatening to use them in diplomacy. Until further notice! It isn’t possible to achieve ultimate certainty in this way, and even an unreliable declaration of intent needs to be periodically renewed: regularly scheduled “review conferences” ask whether the signatory parties, who might change, still see the situation in the same way as when the treaty was originally signed. Are there still no defensive versus biological and chemical weapons? Are particular partners who could only base their global political weight on the threat of such weapons still willing to renounce them? Do they recognize their own impotence and the superiority of the partly conventionally-armed, partly nuclear-armed world powers as a binding legal situation on the globe? Are those who are capable of extortion in every sense still prepared to exclude chemical and biological weapons? A treaty system that formulates a comprehensive ban on these weapons but “contains no provisions for verifying compliance with the treaty” (FAZ, 12.10.2001) is suitable and appropriate for this diplomatic inquiry and free self-commitment.

A European project: getting serious about verification

Ever since the Eastern Bloc, a hostile power that was definitely uncontrollable, left the scene, the West’s fanaticism for disarmament has become increasingly radical. The EU powers in particular are now taking the ban on biological weapons very literally and can no longer understand how anyone could have ever agreed to a ban without effective controls. They are following the example of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and want to develop the Biological Weapons Convention into a similarly binding and effective instrument for controlling foreign arms and interfering in other states’ use of force – and they are doing this with regard to weapons of mass destruction which are much more likely to be within the reach of unreliable states than nuclear weapons. Of course, in their commitment to banning these types of weapon, the Europeans also have in mind those states that could pose a threat with biological weapons, and they know the names of some of them. However, they want to disarm them by establishing an international regime supported by the consensus of the members of the family of nations.

Since 1994, an “ad hoc group” has been making proposals for a control regime with disclosure obligations, routine and suspicion-based checks, surprise and random visits to declared and undeclared laboratories. According to these proposals, all signatory states are to be both inspectors and inspected; every state that allows itself to be inspected also has the right to ensure that other states also refrain from possessing biological weapons. Of course, the Europeans are also prepared to submit to the control regime they have proposed. For it is precisely under equal and universal controls that an interesting difference becomes apparent: states that advance genetic engineering research in thousands of laboratories do not lose the ability to obtain microbes for military use at any time, even if they verifiably renounce the cultivation and storage of such microbes. This is not the case for the objects of their control, which have to pool their national resources in order to keep a few anthrax strains under control. With an internationally supervised renunciation of this military research, they really lose the ability to produce biological weapons. Furthermore, a general and supervised renunciation of the “nuclear weapons of the poor man” would only stabilize the “natural” hierarchy of military powers determined by money and level of capitalist development, i.e. the imperialist relations of superiority and subordination, and would end any immunity (so to speak) to extortion that has been unfairly acquired through weapons that are too cheap.

The European efforts to establish a control regime over the arms of “problem states” is clashing with the USA’s very different position: first, the world power is no longer interested in working toward a voluntary renunciation of weapons by the enemies it has identified. Secondly, it considers agreements on a mutual control regime, to which it would also have to submit, to be an attack on its political freedom of action. Thirdly, and more generally, the USA does not want any interference in its sovereignty to define as “problem states” those it already has in its sights as cases that need to be disarmed. For this reason, the typically European attempt to offer to participate in an international control regime and at the same time to object to the unilateralism that the USA is certain to display here doesn’t catch on.

The USA: Abolish bioweapons – that’s what we’re doing with those of our enemies!

From the outset, the US delegation snubs the conference and even undermines its basis: the representative of the state that the whole world knowns, not just since the anthrax attacks, to be the largest producer of biological weapons “directly denounced states for treaty violations in his speech, against all custom.” (Die Welt, 12.11.2001) – Which states? Of course, the old familiar nuisances of the American world order: Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria and Sudan. It’s a conference at which the signatory states are diplomatically wrestling to establish mutually acceptable control mechanisms, which takes it for granted that no signatory has so far allowed itself to be deterred from anything, but doesn’t talk about it. And now the biggest violator of the treaty appears before the assembly of those interested in biological weapons and openly demands the unequal treatment of the signatory states: it is entitled to the weapons, it is entitled to the role of prosecutor; other states are rogues who break their promises, lie, and are unworthy of demanding trust from the others. Treaty relations with them are impossible.

In this sense, the American negotiator declares the concept of mutual controls to be “dead as a doornail,” an “out dated idea” that is incapable of solving the “problems of the present.” The diplomat calls for the dissolution of the ad hoc group – which for “Die Welt” was “tantamount to a deliberate provocation” after years of work. He proposes instead that the member states should enact national criminal laws to ensure that unauthorized persons can never tamper with this sector. In addition, he wants “inspections by UN inspectors in cases of suspicion, to be appointed by the Security Council” (FAZ, 12.10) – and the USA assumes that the Security Council is its instrument. It has nothing against an international treaty banning bioweapons if it can be used to justify wars against those that the USA accuses of treaty violations and if it obligates the rest of the world to consent and cooperation in punitive actions. The “rogues” should only be criminalized under the national laws of as many states as possible; the Security Council can then order that they are monitored and the US army can be deployed to dismantle the unlawful weaponry. Resigned and still euphemistic, conference president Toth sums it up at the end:

“A large number of countries are relying on a multinational framework agreement in order to reach a comprehensive agreement with legally binding force. The USA, on the other hand, wants a targeted approach in order to obtain approval for specific measures.”

The superpower has no need for secrecy. It rejects treaties that would bind it as well. It not only acts in secret, but makes it clear to the whole world through diplomacy that it is above the rules of the world order that it prescribes and imposes on the states of the globe. It is entitled to A, B and C weapons. Other states are guilty of aggression and endangering peace when they attempt to procure such weapons without a license from the USA. The world power needs its weapons of mass destruction in order to be able to take them away from others – and in this nice way “to free the world from the apocalyptic threat!” The European allies must learn that the US regards its dictatorial unilateralism as the basis of the Atlantic alliance – and sees any attempt by the Europeans to bind it to rules and controls as an attack on America’s prerogatives that will likely undermine the alliance.