Chemical and Biological Weapons in WW3?

General Tirpitz

Did either side of the Cold War plan to use chemical or biological weapons if the War started and if they did, what sort of threshold they had for such an action? Just something I have been wondering lately.
 

asnys

It depends a lot on what time period you're talking about.

Most scenarios I've seen assume widespread use of chemicals by both sides. Some people argue that they would refrain, because official US policy was to not distinguish between types of WMD, and so they would escalate to tactical nuclear use if anyone deployed war gases. I'm skeptical of that, because a) I think it's going to escalate to nukes anyway, and once you've started throwing those around there's no point in holding back, and b) even if it doesn't, I don't think the US would be willing to go nuclear over some VX if they aren't willing to over the invasion.

Bioweapons, maybe not. The US scrapped its program under Nixon, so after the '70s, certainly not. I'm not sure if we ever made enough BW agents to be used operationally even when we were in that business. The Soviets, harder to say. My understanding is that their BW program only got geared up in the '70s. They did produce enough agent for operational use, but I've seen conflicting reports on whether they actually had the means to deploy it beyond crop duster-style aircraft. Abilek, the famous Soviet defector, claims they had ICBM warheads designed to disperse BW agents. However, I've read that there's reason to be skeptical of that claim, and that they probably never had the ability to deploy BW agents behind the front line. I've got a big 800-page book on the Soviet BW program on my TBR stack, so hopefully I'll know more about this in a few weeks.
 

General Tirpitz

Asnys said:
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If we put aside those claims made by Abilek, what sort of role BW and CW would have had in WW3 scenarios? Would it be more tactical or strategic one?

I've got a big 800-page book on the Soviet BW program on my TBR stack, so hopefully I'll know more about this in a few weeks.
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It would extremely interesting to hear what that book has to say about this topic.
 
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Kung Fucious

Didn't Warsaw Pact plans for an invasion of Western Europe involve using nerve gas to clear the way?

Though now that I think about it my main source on that was Red Storm Rising, which probably isn't authoritative.
 

asnys

General Tirpitz said:
If we put aside those claims made by Abilek, what sort of role BW and CW would have had in WW3 scenarios? Would it be more tactical or strategic one?
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CW was primarily a tactical weapon. BW, I don't know, as I've never come across any real explanation of its place in the war plans, but I would assume strategic.

General Tirpitz said:
It would extremely interesting to hear what that book has to say about this topic.
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Viscount Stanthorpe said:
Slightly off topic, but what is the name of the 800 page book? It sounds like the sort of thing I'd be interested in!
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The Soviet Biological Weapons Program: A History, by Milton Leitenberg and Raymond A. Zilinskas.
 

Kung Fucious

Asnys said:
CW was primarily a tactical weapon. BW, I don't know, as I've never come across any real explanation of its place in the war plans, but I would assume strategic.
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I've never really read anything regarding BW having battlefield utility outside of targeting civilian populations
 
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