Biological Warfare

There can be few forms of warfare that are as crippling to an entire civilization as biological warfare. The sole purpose of biological warfare is to poison entire populations, or military units, in order to annihilate all that interact with the biological weapon. Biological warfare has been in use since the ancient world, and it is even mentioned in many great plays and tragedies from Shakespeare to Plato. Although biological warfare has restrictions in today’s world, its impact is still widely used and recognized throughout the world.

Beginning with the Assyrians around the sixth century, biological warfare was used during this time in order to poison drinking water. Although poisoning water supplies and food supplies was a popular form of biological warfare during the sixth century, poisons proved their usefulness far after the Assyrians were diminished. Some historians believe that the warrior Hannibal of Carthage used a variety of poisonous snakes in order to decapitate his enemies. Legend has it that Hannibal tossed the snakes onto enemy ships in order to fill the deck with writhing bodies of poison. Though few have used Hannibal’s own idea of biological warfare, the trend did continue throughout the eighteenth century.

During the 18th Century, the Native American population was largely defeated through the usage of blankets given to the Native American people that were infected with smallpox. The smallpox trend grew throughout the 19th Century – whether by incident or on purpose is largely unknown – and some believe that smallpox infested blankets were the cause of the smallpox epidemic in California. Traces of biological warfare can even be found throughout the American Civil War when General Sherman supposedly polluted Union water through the execution of animals that lay decomposing, submerged in ponds and streams.

Today, biological warfare has been banned by the Geneva Protocol, which was erected in 1925, ever since World War II when biological warfare was used as a means to eliminate entire populations. Within the United States, the production of biological weaponry is strictly illegal thanks to former President Richard Nixon who gave the order to eliminate biological weapons within the United States. Although biological weapons are largely outlawed in many countries, instances of biological warfare tend to resurface on occasion giving rise to much objection, but often the perpetrators behind these incidences tend to remain unknown.