Systematic Assessment of Nation-States’ Motivations and Capabilities to Produce Biological Weapons

Remote detection of Biological Weapons (BW) proliferation is important, but challenging. We describe and use a joint socio-cultural influence and capability model to identify nation-states likely to have, or to develop BW. We utilize data about international hostilities and alliances, pharmaceutical capabilities, scientific and trade activities, and expert opinion. Our analysis suggests that Iran, Russia, Israel, China, Egypt, North Korea, India, Pakistan and Taiwan have both the motivation and capability to develop BW. The international community suspects Syria of having BW, but Syria has minimal apparent capability. Finally, Georgia, Sudan, Lebanon and Serbia have significant motivation and some capability. This work is supported in part by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) under grant HDTRA11010102, and the Army Research Office (ARO) under grants ARO W911NF1310154 and ARO W911NF0910273, and the center for Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems (CASOS). The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of DTRA, ARO or the U.S. government.