The Germy Paradox – The empty sky: A history of state biological weapons programs

This is Post 2.1 in a series. The previous post is here.

A lot of ink has been consecrated in describing the history of modern BW programs. Martin et al’s “Chapter 1: History of Biological Weapons: From Poisoned Darts to Intentional Epidemics.” In Medical Aspects of Biological Warfare (2018) [PDF] is a superb short summary with a focus on the agents and weapons explored by these programs. It’s far better than I could write, and relevant to the rest of this sequence. I recommend reading it.

I present a condensed timeline of state BW programs within the last century here as well:

(for this table as text rather than an image, see the version on my website.)

References

The reference mentioned in the first paragraph is: Martin, James W, George W Christopher, and Edward M Eitzen. “Chapter 1: History of Biological Weapons: From Poisoned Darts to Intentional Epidemics.” In Medical Aspects of Biological Warfare, 20. Textbooks of Military Medicine. Fort Sam Houston: Office of the Surgeon General, Borden Institute, 2018.

Iraq: See the 2004 US Iraq Survey Group Final Report. (Available here.)

Israel: See the Nuclear Threat Initiative’s summary (available here.)

Other country’s details are either in the Martin et al piece linked above, or may be cross-pollinated from other sources.