Barriers to Bioweapons: The Challenges of Expertise and Organization for Weapons Development

In both the popular imagination and among lawmakers and national security experts there exists the belief that with sufficient motivation and material resources states or terrorist groups can produce bioweapons easily cheaply and successfully. In Barriers to Bioweapons Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley challenges this perception by showing that bioweapons development is a difficult protracted and expensive endeavor rarely achieving the expected results whatever the magnitude of investment. Her findings are based on extensive interviews she conducted with former U.S. and Soviet-era bioweapons scientists and on careful analysis of archival data and other historical documents related to various state and terrorist bioweapons programs.