Preventing a biochemical arms race / Alexander Kelle, Kathryn Nixdorff, and Malcolm Dando.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kelle, Alexander, author.

Nixdorff, Kathryn, author.

Dando, Malcolm, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Chemical arms control.

Biological arms control.

Physical Description:

viii, 247 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Stanford, California : Stanford Security Studies, an imprint of Stanford University Press, 2012.

Summary:

Preventing a Biochemical Arms Race responds to a growing concern that changes in the life sciences and the nature of warfare could lead to a resurgent interest in chemical and biological weapons (CBW) capabilities. By bringing together a wide range of historical material and current literature in the field of CBW arms control, the book reveals how these two disparate fields might be integrated to precipitate a destabilizing biochemical arms race among major powers, rogue states, and even non-state actors, offering them offense dominance in the twenty-first century. It seeks to raise awareness among policy practitioners, the academic community, and the media that such an arms race may be looming if developments are left unattended, and to provide policy options on how it-and its devastating consequences-could be avoided. After identifying weaknesses in the international regime structures revolving around the Biological Weapons and Chemical Weapons Conventions, it provides policy proposals to deal with gaps and shortcomings in each prohibition regime individually, and then addresses the widening gap between them. Book jacket.

Contents:

Arms dynamics, the changing threat environment and the chemical and biological weapons prohibition regimes

Threats to the CBW prohibition regimes : the changing nature of warfare

Threats to the CBW prohibition regimes : the revolution in the life sciences

Threats to the CBW prohibition regimes : advances in neuroscience

Threats to the CBW prohibition regimes : biodefense pushed too far

Embedding the CBW prohibition regimes in the web of responses

Evolution of the BW prohibition regime : assessing achievements and weaknesses

Evolution of the CW prohibition regime : assessing achievements and weaknesses.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 199- 227) and index.

ISBN:

9780804782753

080478275X

OCLC:

778074942