«The Washington Times»: Improving global response to biological weapons of mass destruction

29.08.2023 in 12:34

In the lens of the world media

On Aug. 17, the Department of Defense released its updated Biodefense Posture Review designed to achieve «a resilient total force that deters the use of bioweapons, rapidly responds to natural outbreaks, and minimizes the global risk of laboratory accidents». The Biodefense Posture Review and other authoritative U.S. and foreign government strategies emphasize that countering these threats requires comprehensive international deterrence and defense measures. In his speech to the U.N. General Assembly in September 2020, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev proposed creating an International Agency for Biological Safety, Richard Weitz writes in The Washington Times.

«The agency aims to help the BWC, U.N., and other bodies keep biological research peaceful and transparent; improve global health and safety; build state capacity; accelerate the development of vaccines and biological countermeasures; establish more inclusive export control mechanisms; expand international trust and cooperation through improved accessibility of confidence-building measures, known as CBMs; and maintain a database of potential assistance to states threatened by biological attack.

The agency could also support further initiatives — such as societal means of verification, voluntary peer reviews, and AI-assisted training and open-source data mining — to increase global surveillance and make states more confident about receiving international assistance. Early detection of natural, accidental and deliberate biological threats is imperative for mounting effective defenses.

The agency could also counter the kind of disinformation that has poisoned discussions of COVID-19 by supporting a more institutionalized and frequent international review of biological developments. That Kazakhstan has decent relations with Russia, China and the United States should help the proposal overcome the power divisions that have impeded recent progress on other nonproliferation initiatives», – the article says.