Biological Warfare Vs Cyber Warfare

[PiSquare]

Some people and groups are of the opinion that World War III will be fought on a biological level by selectively releasing viruses and other destructive chemicals around the globe. Others believe that cyber warfare is the key to conquering prosperous and 'threatening' countries. 

 

I am more worried about chemical warfare as this can wipe out the largest part of humanity in a matter of months. Is cyber warfare on par with biological warfare as a seriously destructive WW III weapon?

[Buffy]

Chemical/Biological warfare has a distinct problem: you can't really control it. 

 

While the initial backlash against it's use in WW I--which led to all the initial treaties outlawing/limiting it's use--were all based on the horrific nature of the death they cause, the real reason that the major powers have had a much easier time finding the resolve to further eliminate their use has to do with the simple tactical issue of their release being as potentially devastating to the attacker as they are to the target. Wind blows in unpredictable ways, and even with the best chemical minds, making various gases that only work for a while never really work.

 

The only forces still seriously considering their use are small countries/organizations (e.g. al Qaeda), who have "nothing to lose" or have crazy Apocalyptic world views.

 

Chemical weapons require a lot of infrastructure to manufacture/store/maintain, so they're really out of fashion for everyone except small dictatorships (e.g. Syria and North Korea). Biological weapons on the other hand are much less expensive to develop, although much more dangerous to develop and delivery is much more problematic because they're deadly in small quantities but you need to spread those quantities widely. Thus they're much more useful for hit and run terror attacks than taking out an infantry division on a front-line of war.

 

Bottom line is that they are "so 20th century" and unlikely to play a big role except possibly as an end-game to a between the super-power's war where the losing side gets particularly desperate.

 

Cyberwar can be conducted by any script-kiddie in his Goth-draped bedroom. But there are limits built in to the system: The Internet was originally designed under Department of Defense contract to create a communications network that would survive nuclear war. So actually despite the popularity of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, the internet is not as easy to bring down as one might think. The biggest risk so far has come from the lack of interest on the part of governments to both exploit and resist attacks on the internet. For example the NSA has been obsessed with a very slim band of mostly Muslim terror organizations, while completely ignoring the needs of the vast majority of businesses who are actively being attacked by organized Russian and Chinese criminal gangs (oddly most NOT backed by their respective governments in any strategic way).

 

The biggest issue though is not so much the weapons that might be used in a WW III, but rather that the interdependency that really is a 21st century phenomenon, makes such a war extremely "unprofitable." Once one realizes that the vast majority of the wealth in the world loses if there is a war, pretty much assures that there won't be one, at least not a traditional "hot" war like those throughout human history. Except wars that are "mistakes" (like WW I) it's arguable that the only wars in the future are going to be those waged by Zealots, who pretty much with the exception of Hitler, don't have major followings either by people or wealth.

 

I grew up when we still had a cold war with a Soviet Union and a still proletarian Red China, but I don't really worry much about that kind of world coming back. I do worry about criminal gangs--both those that have to hide from the authorities as well as the Oligarchies of multi-national corporations--but with cooperative and reasonable governments recognizing the benefits of keeping them at bay, we do now have a chance to survive for a few more millenia....as long as we can figure out a way to stop trashing the planet.

 

 

We have met the enemy and he is us, :phones:

Buffy

[Dumbass]

You could control bio-agents for example, covertly vaccinating your population and then releasing the agent. Or infecting the whole world with a sleeper agent that is activated by specific genes (minor genetic variations) or you could slip the activating agent in the water supply. Or release an agent that wont survive in your climate. Or release agents that would target the enemy main crops. Or store sperm and release a male killing agent (or females if you invent artificial utures). Or maybe release an aerosol agent over their location and let it mix with the rain (you would create the rain by an underwater nuclear reactor).

 

Or, and this is my fav one, release an agent that would alter serotonin production in the brain thus increasing empathy and compassionate, and we will all live happily ever after.

 

Now am gonna go watch pinky and the brain, incase you didn't figure it out, I am pinky.

[PiSquare]

While Buffy reasoned with both feet firmly on the ground, Dumbass Pinky flew over the cuckoo's nest. Yet, both arguments make sense... and I can see the logic (or craziness perhaps?) in both. Thus, being the proverbial Libra, I am still tipping the scales from a firmly grounded "no WW III" to Pinky's "taking over the world". 

 

Maybe balancing the scales is simply another way of sitting on the fence...

Edited July 17, 2014 by PiSquare

[arissa]

Well, covertly vaccinating your population is a good idea but how many people really think ahead when it comes to this? Just take the movies as a great example (and yes I am talking about the things we watch for entertainment), how many times does it seem to take forever for someone to come up with a well maintained and working vaccine, in case of course they forget all about the vaccinating beforehand part.

 

The Last Ship, both the show airing now as well as the book is a great example of this. For me personally, I worry about both. We are living in a time when anyone will try to do anything in order to get ahead of others and I really do not put it past us as a species to concoct something so deadly, I mean, we are the only species that seems to enjoy bloodshed, right?

[InfinityLoopz]

It'll likely be some form of combination of chem-bio warfare paired with cyber warfare. If you look at the DARPA's HAARP and what it is capable of and then pair the idea of using such a massive antenna to control a swarm of nanobots that can be loaded out to poison/infect/etc on a simple computer command, you will get what I am thinking.

I'm wary of all the new tech but at the same time admire the advancement that is taking place (particularly in wearable technology).