While greatly overshadowed by the nuclear arms race, the US and Soviet biowarfare programs during the Cold War were absolutely terrifying. Many Soviet bioweapons scientists defected to the US toward the end of the Cold War. One of those scientists — Ken Alibekov — shared his experiences in a thrilling autobiography called Biohazard [0]. According to Ken’s claim in the book, he actually uncovered the Sverdlovsk anthrax incident through an epidemiological research project while in medical school. While it’s likely many of the stories in Biohazard were embellished or altogether fabricated (vested interests in promoting biowarfare threats), anecdotes from US scientists working at USAMRIID at the time support many of the Soviet claims. It’s interesting to ponder how differently the world might have turned if both sides had access to our modern understanding of genetics, precise editing tools, and inexpensive sequencing. Biowarfare is insidious for other reasons as well: lack of damage on physical infrastructure, relatively low development costs, ability to mimic a natural pandemic, and potential for mass transmission to name a few. And perhaps that latter one is a saving grace — the possibility of losing control over a biological weapon makes it a very risky asset indeed.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biohazard_(book)
