The Soviet Biological Weapons Program and Its Legacy in Today's Russia - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Soviet Biological Weapons Program and Its Legacy in Today's Russia write by Raymond A. Zilinskas. This book was released on 2014. The Soviet Biological Weapons Program and Its Legacy in Today's Russia available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
The Soviet Biological Weapons Program and Its Legacy in Today's Russia
The Soviet Biological Weapons Program and Its Legacy in Today's Russia - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Soviet Biological Weapons Program and Its Legacy in Today's Russia write by Raymond A. Zilinskas. This book was released on 2017-02-04. The Soviet Biological Weapons Program and Its Legacy in Today's Russia available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. In its first Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Case Study, the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction (CSWMD) at the National Defense University examined President Richard M. Nixon's decision, on November 25, 1969, to terminate the U.S. offensive biological weapons program. This occasional paper seeks to explain why the Soviet government, at approximately the same time, decided to do essentially the opposite, namely, to establish a large biological warfare (BW) program that would be driven by newly discovered and powerful biotechnologies. By introducing the innovation of recombinant DNA technology - commonly referred to as genetic engineering - the Soviets were attempting to create bacterial and viral strains that were more useful for military purposes than were strains found in nature. In historical terms, the Soviet BW program had two so-called "generations," defined as distinct periods of time during which types of weapons were developed from earlier types. The first generation of the Soviet BW program commenced about 1928 and was based on naturally occurring pathogens that had caused devastating epidemics during World War I and the subsequent Russian Civil War. The second generation began approximately in 1972 when the decision was made at the highest political level to institute a research and development (R&D) system that utilized newly discovered techniques of genetic engineering to create novel or enhanced bacterial and viral strains that were better adapted for BW purposes than strains found in nature. President Boris Yeltsin ordered the cessation of the offensive BW program some months after the Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991 and in 1992 publically stated that it had conducted an offensive BW program in violation of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. However, after Vladimir Putin was elected president, high-level Russian officials have lied about the Soviet BW program, stating that it was strictly a defensive program that had not broken international law. As is discussed later in this paper, elements of the Soviet offensive BW program continue in Russia and may provide the basis for a third-generation BW program supported by the current leadership. The first section of this paper describes the Soviet BW program's first generation, including its establishment, work plan and operations, and accomplishments. The second section focuses on "establishing the conditions" for the Soviet decision that was made sometime during 1969-1971 to establish and operate the second generation BW program. Conditions that are considered include the geopolitical challenges as perceived by the Soviet government, the decision making process for military acquisitions, and the inferior state of the biosciences in the Soviet Union at that time, which stimulated Soviet bioscientists to "play the military card" in order to introduce genetic engineering into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics' (USSR's) bioscience establishment. The final section has two sub-sections. The first summarizes the key factors that drove Soviet decisionmaking in the early 1970s to institute a huge offensive BW program. The second informs readers that even before Vladimir Putin was elected president for the second time, he openly stated that new weapons were to be developed using high technologies including "genetics." Based on this promise, and considering the secrecy that still keeps the military biological institutes and anti-plague institutes closed to outsiders, the paper discusses the possibility that the Putin administration may institute a third generation BW program. The appendix consists of a short biography of the Soviet general Yefim Ivanovich Smirnov who was for many years in charge of the Soviet BW program.
The Soviet Biological Weapons Program
The Soviet Biological Weapons Program - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Soviet Biological Weapons Program write by Milton Leitenberg. This book was released on 2012-06-29. The Soviet Biological Weapons Program available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This is the first attempt to understand the full scope of the USSR’s offensive biological weapons research, from inception in the 1920s. Gorbachev tried to end the program, but the U.S. and U.K. never obtained clear evidence that he succeeded, raising the question whether the means for waging biological warfare could be present in Russia today.
The Soviet Biological Weapons Program and Its Legacy in Today's Russia - Innovation Using Recombinant DNA Technology and Genetic Engineering, the Biopreparat BW Program, Biography of Smirnov
The Soviet Biological Weapons Program and Its Legacy in Today's Russia - Innovation Using Recombinant DNA Technology and Genetic Engineering, the Biopreparat BW Program, Biography of Smirnov - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Soviet Biological Weapons Program and Its Legacy in Today's Russia - Innovation Using Recombinant DNA Technology and Genetic Engineering, the Biopreparat BW Program, Biography of Smirnov write by U. S. Military. This book was released on 2017-01-22. The Soviet Biological Weapons Program and Its Legacy in Today's Russia - Innovation Using Recombinant DNA Technology and Genetic Engineering, the Biopreparat BW Program, Biography of Smirnov available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. President Richard M. Nixon's November 25, 1969, terminated the U.S. offensive biological weapons program on November 25, 1969. This paper seeks to explain why the Soviet government, at approximately the same time, decided to do essentially the opposite, namely, to establish a large biological warfare (BW) program that would be driven by newly discovered and powerful biotechnologies. By introducing the innovation of recombinant DNA technology--commonly referred to as genetic engineering--the Soviets were attempting to create bacterial and viral strains that were more useful for military purposes than were strains found in nature.Nixon's decision was widely publicized and documents revealing the reasons behind it are, in the main, available to the public in the National Archives, the Nixon Presidential Library in San Clemente, California, and publications written by members of the Nixon administration. In sharp contrast, the Soviet decision was highly secret at the time and remains so to this day. All contemporary documents pertaining to the Soviet offensive BW program remain classified and none of the military officers and officials who operated it has spoken or written about it except to deny that it existed or to belie its offensive intent.The information that has become available about the program has been divulged by scientists and administrators who previously worked in the civilian component of the Soviet BW program, called Biopreparat. Some of them had defected to Western countries and there told their stories, while others chose to remain in Russia after the Soviet Union dissolved in December 1991 and later divulged details of their past secret activities in their own publications, or in broadcasts or print interviews. However, Biopreparat employees, even those who held managerial positions, did not have sufficiently high clearances to be informed about high-level BW-related decisionmaking. Decisions such as those that instituted what in effect was a new BW program, and ordered the Soviet Ministry of Defense (MOD) to develop strategies and tactics for the use of biological weapons, were made at the highest levels by members of the Politburo and Central Committee of the Communist Party (CCCP) and the MOD's General Staff (GS).
The Soviet Union’s Invisible Weapons of Mass Destruction
The Soviet Union’s Invisible Weapons of Mass Destruction - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Soviet Union’s Invisible Weapons of Mass Destruction write by Anthony Rimmington. This book was released on 2021-10-12. The Soviet Union’s Invisible Weapons of Mass Destruction available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This book focuses on Biopreparat, the Soviet agency created in 1974, which spearheaded the largest and most sophisticated biological warfare programme the world has ever seen. At its height, Biopreparat employed more than 30,000 personnel and incorporated an enormous network embracing military-focused research institutes, design centres, biowarfare pilot facilities and dual-use production plants. The secret network pursued major offensive R&D programmes, which sought to use genetic engineering techniques to create microbial strains resistant to antibiotics and with wholly new and unexpected pathogenic properties. During the mid-1980s, Biopreparat increased in size and political importance and also emerged as a major civil biopharmaceutical player in the USSR. In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, an acute struggle for control of Biopreparat’s most valuable assets took place and the network was eventually broken-up and control of its facilities transferred to a myriad of state agencies and private companies.
