does the US have a secret biological weapons program?

[John Kilduff]

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I would think every major power (US/UK/Russia/China/France) has them. Although lol @ france and UK being major powers.

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That could well be.

[Jamougha]

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They may have anti biowarfare programmes, but weaponization programmes? Unlikely. Biowarfare just isn't useful in practise, that's why no-one uses it.

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Because of the risk of self-destruction? Or because weaponizing the agents is prohibitively difficult?

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Mainly because they're not too useful in a tactical sense. OK so you drop some anthrax munitions on the enemy's army before a battle. Where does that get you? They're going to die a long lingering death days and weeks from now, but in the meantime their combat effectiveness isn't decreased. They're just really pissed off and totally fearless.

Anthrax munitions could be useful in a ground denial capacity; but you have to set up a huge exclusion zone and the area is lethal for a century or so. Not great.

The only real role for them is in attacks against civilian targets to destroy the enemy's industrial base. But if you have nukes...

[CORed]

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They may have anti biowarfare programmes, but weaponization programmes? Unlikely. Biowarfare just isn't useful in practise, that's why no-one uses it.

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If the little green men from outer space ever invade, biological warfare might be very useful, if we could find a bug that killed them and not us. As long as we're fighting against other human beings, biological weapons are going to be useless, or, worse, end up killing the whole species.