The Changing Biological Warfare Threat: Anti‐Crop and Anti‐Animal Agents

At the mention of the words biological warfare (BW), one immediately visualizes a sweeping pandemic in which a disease such as plague spreads rapidly through a population resulting in mass casualties, panic, and death. In recent decades, the spectrum of chemical and biological warfare has expanded to include microorganisms and toxic substances that never could have been weaponized previously. The boundaries between chemical-biological classifications have become blurred and tools routinely used in legitimate industrial settings have the potential of devastating effects in the wrong hands (FIG. 1). Biotechnological advances have opened new doors and made BW capability even easier to acquire. The Internet abounds with information that could be misused by terrorists and hostile developing countries.1 Bioterrorism is a very real possibility and its potential for mass destruction is the subject of increasing international concern. At least 17 countries are suspected to have active research and development programs for biological weapons. A handful of those have been implicated as sponsors of international terrorism, and some of those have investigated anti-crop and anti-animal agents. In addition, radical groups and individuals with grievances against the government or society in general have discovered the utility of making chemical/biological threats in their attempts to intimidate, coerce, and disrupt.2 Against this backdrop of change in the BW threat, we also have a change in the structure of the world economy and political situation. The pre-eminence of politicomilitary competition and the bipolar U.S.-U.S.S.R. world is giving way to a new international security environment driven by politico-economic competition. It has been predicted by Bergsten that “The Twenty-First Century will be a century of economic warfare.”3 The United States is vitally dependent on its agriculture and livestock. We are dependent on plants for our staple crops (wheat, rice, corn, etc.), for fibers (e.g., cotton and flax), for wood, for vegetables, fruits, and luxury items such as tea and tobacco, and for many materials used in industry. All of these economically important plants are subject to attack by plant disease.4 Plants are susceptible to a variety of microorganisms. Those featured in various military BW development programs are shown in TABLE 1.4 The Iraqis admitted to