[xcvbxzas]

I don't think we can confidently say that chemical and biological weapons have seen almost zero development in the last 100 years. We can say as far as we know that's the case, but we also don't have a very compelling reason for knowing.

The development of these types of weapons is going to be highly secretive, and not just because of the Geneva convention. Absolutely nothing has gone on in the world in the last 100 years that might tempt the deployment of advanced chemical or biological weapons on any sort of scale. Naturally we haven't seen them used.

I also don't see how burying our head in the sand is going to help on this one. At least compared to nuclear weapons, projects on these weapons could be useful for defensive purposes. Everybody is working more or less within the same confines and rules, and I wouldn't be surprised if relatively similar developments were the result. Even if they aren't, the characterization of these weapons can be used to inform and guide the response plans to try to minimize damage in the case of an attack.

[John_KZ]

I have no doubt that biological weapons have been developed to some degree, somewhere, in a well-funded government lab, in complete secrecy. But that is not a problem. This secrecy is what saves us from a race to the bottom. Some government will develop a limited capability of biological warfare. They probably already have. With no information about what their adversaries are doing, they will simply stop. As far as they know, they have developed a state-of-the art biological weapon system, and they are probably correct.

One of the reasons that the nuclear arms race happened, was the "openness" of the competition. You can't hide a nuclear explosion. Your adversary knows how sophisticated you are, and they now have to push 1 step further.

Biological warfare doesn't have to be like this. Be sure that some Darpa or DoD funded secret project is working on countermeasures, but there's another interesting thing: You can stop biological attacks by quarantine. It's very simple, very effective, and doesn't require developing Armageddon-tier weapons in the process. Another issue that's purposefully isn't discussed in the video is how effective the delivery of these weapons are. Simply put, not very. Viruses, the main attack vector, change in every iteration. There's no guarantee you can infect that many people with an intact version of your weapon. Sooner than later, you genocidal weapon will stop being so selective, because it's evolving for it's own benefit, not yours.

And finally, if you really are concerned about this issue, as you should, the right way to fight against it is to find a way to stop the infection and proliferation, to find ways to stop these attacks without accelerating weapons development. There are ways to fight these weapons without building them, and you can definitely do better than starting a public campaign that asks people to develop horrific bioweapons just so we can find a way to stop them later on, maybe.

[xcvbxzas]

I don't think it's fair to say that development programs will just stop after a reasonable advancement on the last known state of the art.

If you (a nation) are working on this, it's fair to assume your peers are as well. If you have improved on the state of the art, it's safe to assume your peers are in a similar position or will soon be.

By making advancements, all you are doing is proving that other nations with a similar level of technical sophistication can do the same. Even if you make strong assumptions that you are indeed the best, you can't assume other nations will never reach where you are now. Maybe you have 5 years on them, because you are clearly superior? Or maybe you take a more conservative stance and assume you're behind - just in case.

Furthermore, I don't think quarantine would be an effective response to an intentional biological attack. Even just quarantining say, New York City, would be a nearly impossible task. And since this is an attack, why wouldn't all major cities be targeted? There would be no way to contain it physically.

Even if you think pure quarantine is the way to go, there is a lot of useful information that can only be gained by doing the weaponization research. What sort of incubation times could show up? How virulent, etc. Knowing these sorts of things would really improve the quarantine situation. There also isn't really a good way to know without doing the research. It doesn't mean it has to be packaged into a weapon, but the hard part is all done.

[microcolonel]

If you think that "Quarantine" is not dependent on the type of the threat, then I don't see how you can be so certain of the optimal policy.