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John D. Holum, Senior Adviser for Arms Control and International Security, U.S. Department of State
Carnegie Moscow Center
February 1999
I am in Moscow as part of the Strategic Stability Group led by Strobe Talbott. We have had two full days of consultations, which did not addresss the Biological Weapons Convention, although I am happy to discuss it here. In a broad sense, we see this as an opportunity to fill a gap in the arms control and nonproliferation architecture. In the BW area we clearly have a strong prohibition on possession and use in the 1972 Convention, but it has no real enforcement mechanism. Since the 1972 Protocol was adopted, there have been both technical and methodological developments for dealing with arms control. In 1972 an on-site inspection was a rarity, now it’s a routine. In 1972 we had very few portable techniques that were useful for detecting biological agents or compounds. So it has become both technically and politically feasible to do a better job enforcing this long-standing regime. We always need to keep in mind that it deals with a particularly outrageous concept: that of taking diseases, organisms that mankind has laboured centuries to abolish, and deliberately nurturing them and designing new ones for the purpose of spreading disease to our fellow human beings.
Chemical and biological weapons are very often considered together, as part of the same phenomena, but in terms of their destructive potential, I think BW are more similar to nuclear weapons - a very small quantity can cause enormous damage. Another basis for distinguishing CW and BW is that this convention is different, will have to be different. There are vastly more innocent sites that one might be concerned about, such as breweries. There are fewer dependable signatures of biological agents, so we have given the negotiators in Geneva a particularly large challenge: to come up with a set of filters that will focus declarations and inspections of the most likely sources and of militarily significant quantities. What we see as the basic ingredients of the compliance protocol include mandatory declarations of relevant facilities and provision for on-site activity, including challenge inspections. We also would require a small efficient organization to carry out these inspections. In contrast to CWC, we don’t in this case consider routine or random inspections to be a useful concept.
Therefore, the organization should be considerably smaller that the OPCW. There are still many open issues, including what would trigger inspections. Allegations of use would be one trigger; another, more controversial one would be suspicious outbreaks of disease. Definitions will be an issue. From the U.S. standpoint, we are very resistant to coming up with a list of agents and saying "that’s what the Convention covers," because the potential for transforming microorganisms into weapons is limitless. So we have to focus, both on the character of the commodity and the intent. There will be a lot of controversy from the non-aligned countries that they should receive biotechnology assistance in exchange for their agreement to the Convention. I think one of the hopeful signs is that the delegations in Geneva have agreed to more weeks of negotiations. What we hope is that the negotiations can be completed by the end of this year or early next year, so the Convention can be open for signature.
I’d like to conclude with one response to the question of cost. For both Russia and the United States the main cost of the CWC has been that of destroying huge stockpiles. I anticipate, since both countries are members of the BW Convention, that there will not be such costs associated with BWC. I think we have a common interest in effectively closing the remaining loophole in the nonproliferation and arms control regime and I hope that we can work together. Thank you.
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One of the greatest challenges in coming up with a compliance protocol is having a significantly effective enforcement mechanism. It has to give us confidence that the treaty is stronger but will at the same time avoid too much intrusiveness, since there are concerns about trade secrets or interference with legitimate activity. I think it’s possible to do that. The end result will be that we are less confident than we are in the case of CWC, where we are significantly comprehensive in inspections. But I think it will be a measurable increase from the current situation, where we really have a ban on use. But, given the point you made about growth in the biotechnology field, I think it’s extremely important that we not limit the scope of agreement to currently identified lists of agents.
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Those kinds of issues (Khromov question - sanctions) were included in the agenda of some of the smaller groups. The main focus of the Strategic Stability Group is to anticipate issues that might affect particularly the security relations between the United States and Russia. So we try to look ahead and not to focus on issues of immediate relevance. The agenda was very comprehensive, but the main topics were START, NMD relationship, generally strategic arms control and a heavy focus on CFE, as well as our aspirations of having the treaty adopted. We have talked about my coming back to Carnegie to talk about the NMD-START relationship at a future date, which I am interested in doing. I’d rather not talk about it now because it would detract from the topic of your discussion, which is very important.
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(Belous. ABM adaptation question) In very general terms, but remember the United States has not made any decision in terms of our interest in proceeding with NMD that might require modification of the treaty. What we did make clear is that if we decide it’s important to proceed, then we would want to do so in the context of the treaty. We would come to our Russian colleagues and bring some specific ideas. I’d say it is a general proposition, and is a topic for a separate session. But is possible, in our judgement, to modify the treaty to allow limited missile defense and still preserve the basic purpose of the treaty to advance strategic stability between the U.S. and Russia.
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(Khimbiokom question on how to tell what the intentions are) You determine intentions by behavior. For example, to take an extreme case, if you find a large quantity of Anthrax loaded in artillery shells then you have a pretty good demonstration that it is intended for military rather than for peaceful purposes. Then you come back down the scale: if there is production of quantities that are large enough for military use but have not been loaded, and there’s no rational alternative explanation for having that quantity, then you’d derive conclusions from that.
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I placed too much emphasis on the term "intention." Behavior is what counts, but you cannot rule out development of small quantities.