SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Use of Science and Technology Warfare

Use of Science and Technology Warfare

Introduction

There are records that state during the civil war enemy forces tried to spread small pox once again to spread the disease to the opposing forces. But in more modern times the uses of warfare got much more complex, during World War I the German army developed Anthrax, cholera, and glanders for weapons using these weapons on their enemies' livestock and horses to spread the diseases to their enemies in a way that was undetectable until it was too late. Then in World War II the Japanese developed, a secret testing facility in Manchuria named unit 713 where they tested different weapons on prisoners of war. They exposed these POW's to Anthrax, the plague, syphilis, and other agents to, better understand there effects and learn how to use them more efficiently.

Discussion

“The use of weapons has occurred sporadically for centuries, culminating in sophisticated research and testing programs run by several countries.” Then in 1942 the United States opened their particular facility for warfare testing and research called the research service, where they stockpiled large amounts of Anthrax and the botulinum toxin for research and weapon testing of the agents. The stockpiling was sufficient enough that we allowed strong retaliation if the Germans used weapons on us in June of 1944. Shortly after the British and Scotland followed the United States lead and began to stockpile and begin testing, as well. “Since the US bioterrorism attacks of 2001 involving dried Bacillus anthracis spores, the world has changed and the nature of human conflict has dramatically shifted to lessen the distinction between soldiers, and noncombatants.”

This is where we see the start of terrorism. The United States defines a Bio terrorist as someone or a group of people intentionally releasing germs, bacteria, and or a virus with the intent of killing people, wildlife, and or plant life. These agents naturally occurring or human engineered to be made stronger and immune to medicine and vaccines. Terrorist favor using weapons because they can be easily spread through the air, water, and or food and they are very hard to detect. They also favored by them because the agents used are easy to obtain because they occur naturally and they are relativity inexpensive to get.

The uses of weapons split into two categories, anti-personnel and anti-agriculture. Anti-personnel is the targeting of harming humans with agents. The problem with this type, is that even though it is cheap to get these agents and they can be turned or added to weapons very quickly, they must be at the appropriate state, to be effective in battle. For example, if an agent is not a proper consistency and meant to be spread through the air it may be too dense and not become air born or too small and enter and quickly exit when it inhaled and not stay in the targets system. The other problem is that when transporting these items it is easy to ...