Okay, after watching “Aliens” the other day, and examining certain scraps of paper, I finally decided to ask a question that’s been on my mind for awhile…does or can macroscopic animal life legally qualify as “biological weapons”?
Say, for this argument, the U.S. creates…I dunno, a breed of giant mutant attack ants. Or Triffids. Whatever.
Now, the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibits "Microbial or other biological agents, or toxins whatever their origin or method of production, of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes; " and the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention says much the same thing.
The text of the treaties, however, don’t seem exactly geared towards prohibiting the use of vicious animals, though. But then again, IANAL.
So, I ask you…am I going to be a war criminal for dropping xenomorphs on trenchlines? What about, say, using Locusts against crops? Is there a clear enough legal distinction between “weaponized disease” and “plague of hellbeasts”?
I’ve heard in various animal disease classes that different types of diseases that only attack animals were pondered for use as biological weapons by various countries over the years. The idea was to cripple the agricultural industry of the enemy, making them unable to wage war against you. Not exactly on the OP, but related.
I think whether furry quadrupeds or yeast cells “count as biological weapons” is equivalent to the question of whether the big powers like the US want to feel free to use them.
There was a joke running around after 9-11 that we should drop a bunch of pigs out of airplanes into the area where Bin Laden was presumed to be hiding. The idea being, of course, that the pigs might run into his cave and he, being a devout Muslim, would run out rather than be touched by a pig.
Ridiculous, of course, but it goes to show that with a little ingenuity, it might be possible to utilize animals in an offensive manner without any training or weaponizing at all.
Not really the same thing, since the Navy dolphins aren’t used as a weapon (that is, offensively). For comparison, if someone developed a bacterium which could be used to detect poisons, that presumably wouldn’t be considered a biological weapon, either, even though it’s a microbe developed for use by the military.
If I remember right, the Russians trained rats to chew up wiring and other soft parts of vehicles and gear and then dropped them behind German lines. The Germans responded by “drafting” cats into their units. The SS units mandated that their cats must be all black (apocryphal). This backfired on the Soviets when they overran German positions and found themselves subject to sabotage from their own rats.
Weren’t rotten animal carcasses catapaulted over castle battlements to spread disease back in the day (a la Monty Python’s Holy Grail, but more seriously…) ? Though in this case the microbes would still be the biological weapon, I suppose, with the carcass as a means of delivery.