Focus on North Korea's nuclear arsenal obscures threat posed by chemical and biological weapons

ASIA PACIFIC / ANALYSIS

Focus on North Korea’s nuclear arsenal obscures threat posed by chemical and biological weapons

South Korean government officials attend a civil defense drill against a possible North Korean chemical attack in Seoul in March 2017. | AP

By James Stavridis
Bloomberg Opinion

Feb 28, 2019

As U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un held their summit in Vietnam, the narrow focus on nuclear weapons obscured a major danger: Kim holds the whip in a three-ring circus of weapons of mass destruction. The other two rings, adjacent and in many ways more frightening, feature chemical weapons and — above all — biological threats.

The North Koreans are suspected by U.S. and South Korean intelligence agencies of holding substantial amounts of a variety of biological agents including smallpox, botulism, typhoid and anthrax.

In 2015, the North Korean media showed Kim touring a biological plant. A former Pentagon official in charge of countering such programs told reporters that North Korean bio-weapons were “advanced, underestimated and highly lethal.”