Barriers to Bioweapons

Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley shows that bioweapons development is a difficult, protracted, and expensive endeavor, rarely achieving the expected results whatever the magnitude of investment.

Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley is Assistant Professor of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University. She worked for a decade at the Monterey Institute for International Studies. She was for two years research director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies office in Kazakhstan and was founding editor of the International Export Control Observer.

In Barriers to Bioweapons, Ben Ouagrham-Gormley similarly and persuasively argues that the challenges to producing biological weapons—whether by state or non-state actors—are considerable.... The book is an attempt to demonstrate in a rigorous manner that there are significant barriers to producing bioweapons. Given the recent controversy over the publication of several papers on H5N1 influenza research, this is a timely and welcome book that challenges prevailing notions about the ease of bioweapons development. Summing Up: Highly recommended.

Janne Nolan:

Ben Ouagrham-Gormley's book is a fascinating study of the phenomenology of scientific knowledge, providing a compelling analysis of how knowledge is acquired, developed, transmitted, and, at the same time, diluted or lost as a result of organizational, social, economic, political, and ultimately very human factors that vary widely within countries and over time.

David W. Kearn:

Barriers to Bioweapons provides a clear and insightful examination of what is a highly technical and complex subject matter.... The book provides a useful template for analyzing and explaining the relative successes or failures of a number of potential large-scale scientific endeavors beyond the realm of Weapons of Mass Destruction. It is a must-read for nonproliferation experts and should be a standard text for understanding biological weapons development for some time to come.

Neil Narang:

[T]his is an overall excellent book that makes a significant contribution to the study of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. To date, existing research has overwhelmingly focused on the causes of nuclear weapons proliferation, while we know substantially less about the causes of chemical and biological weapons proliferation. This book represents an important and welcome step toward addressing that gap.