Name: A higher form of killing
ISBN: 9780701125851

A higher form of killing

A higher form of killing begins with the First World War, when poison gas killed or maimed one and a half million men in the mud of Flanders. It tells of the Japanese use of mustard gas and biological weapons in the 1930s, the Nazis' discovery of nerve gas in 1937, and the huge arsenal of chemical weapons which Hitler, who used gas to kill millions in concentration camps, several times came close to using in battle. It tells of horrifying secret experiments with anthrax (in Great Britain in the 1940s), the development of the plague bacillus, and futuristic attempts to tinker with the genetic code. A higher form of killing reveals that Churchill planned to use gas in 1940; that the British stored two million cattle cakes impregnated with anthrax for dropping on Germany; that the Americans made millions of biological bombs and debated plans to drench German cities with germs; and that anti-crop agents were used against Germany and Japan, causing widespread starvation. The United States used tons of chemical defoliants in Vietnam; there is strong evidence that has been widely debated that the Russians used chemical warfare in Laos, Afghanistan, and Eritrea. Drawing extensively on American, British, European, and (where possible) Russian sources -- most of them previously classified or unavailable -- this timely book tells the secret history of chemical and germ warfare. Today the United States leads in the development of these weapons.

What Hacker News says

philipkglassOct 2018

The same capabilities that are necessary to test defenses against chemical and biological attacks also prepare the way for offensive applications. If party A doesn't trust B, they are naturally wary of B's calls for A to halt defensive research. If B doesn't trust A, they are naturally wary that said "defensive" research is merely a precursor to or cover for weaponization. Party Z may later come along and use the research of parties A-Y to their own ends (e.g. Aum Shinrikyo cribbing the chemistry of nerve agents from open chemistry literature, poisoning people for their own weird reasons.)

I personally don't think that DARPA actually wants famine-causing bioweapons. The US has a large nuclear arsenal should it ever want to inflict mass destruction on the world, and its incentives align against making mass destruction cheaper or more accessible. But I can also understand why countries the US is hostile to may be less assured than I am. I can also understand the point of critics who worry that if this sort of research becomes normal and openly published, results may be later weaponized by some group, maybe a group that's not even a nation state.

If you're interested in issues like this, I can recommend the book "A Higher Form of Killing: The Secret History of Chemical and Biological Warfare" by Robert Harris and Jeremy Paxman. Caveats: I found some technical errors in areas where I have knowledge (chemistry). It goes beyond documented history into speculation in places. But it's what first introduced me to the complicated issues around trust and Janus-like defensive-offensive R&D in this area; those have remained useful insights.

thread

thisisforyouDec 2016

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