Cbw, the Poor Man's Atomic Bomb (National Security Paper, 1)

The danger of a terrorist group manufacturing or stealing lethal chemical or biological weapons poses a far greater threat to American national security, according to the authors of this study, than does the widely feared prospect of terrorists acquiring an atomic bomb. Chemical and biological weapons are remarkably easy to acquire and cheap to produce, and may be far more deadly than small numbers of nuclear weapons. Furthermore, the United States currently possesses no effective defense against this real and present threat. This study examines the nature of C/B weapons; their flexibility as a means of political coercion and revenge, economic warfare, and assassination; and their use by the Soviet Union and transfer by Moscow to third parties. The authors warn that C/B agents are already being employed by terrorists and that the United States, as an open society, is highly vulnerable to this form of terrorism. They urge that the United States take a number of preventive measures, which include improving intelligence and internal security capabilities, training law-enforcement officials, and enforcing stricter controls over the production, sale and transfer of C/B agents. (From the back cover)