The Need for Preparedness Regarding Biological Warfare in an Evolving World

Chennai Centre for China Studies
31 minutes ago
9 min read

By Harsh Sinha

Image courtesy: UN News

Recent developments, including the foiled ricin terror plot in India, highlight an uncomfortable truth: biological threats are no longer abstract risks discussed only in arms-control circles. They are real, evolving, and increasingly shaped by technological diffusion and non-traditional security dynamics [1]. While the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) established a foundational global norm against biological weaponisation, advances in synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, dual-use research, and the growing involvement of non-state actors have exposed the limits of existing governance frameworks [2]. This brief examines how contemporary biological threats differ fundamentally from earlier paradigms, draws lessons from India’s ricin case, and considers whether the G20 should play a more active role in shaping a strengthened global biosecurity architecture.

The Changing Biological Threat Landscape

Biological threats today extend far beyond the classical image of state-run laboratories developing weapons in secrecy. They now encompass deliberate use of pathogens or toxins, accidental laboratory releases, and naturally occurring pandemics. The COVID-19 crisis demonstrated with clarity that biological events, irrespective of intent can overwhelm healthcare systems, disrupt economies, and strain governance worldwide [3]. The lesson was stark: biological risks are not merely military concerns but multidimensional threats spanning public health, national security, and economic stability.

Unlike nuclear or chemical weapons, biological agents often require minimal infrastructure, can be developed covertly, and are notoriously difficult to attribute once released [4]. This ambiguity complicates deterrence and response, making preparedness far more complex than the arms-control models conceived during the Cold War.

Dual-Use Technologies and the Democratization of Biotechnology

Rapid advances in synthetic biology, gene-editing technologies such as CRISPR, advanced bioinformatics, and AI-assisted biological design have transformed medicine, agriculture, and disease control [5]. These innovations promise immense benefits, yet they also introduce serious risks when governance and oversight fail to keep pace.

The central dilemma lies in the dual-use nature of life-science research. Scientific work intended for legitimate humanitarian or commercial purposes can be repurposed for malicious ends, including toxin production, pathogen enhancement, or targeted biological disruption [6]. As biotechnology becomes cheaper, more accessible, and more decentralised, the biological threat landscape has shifted from tightly controlled state programmes to unpredictable non-state and hybrid actors.

Case Study: The Foiled Ricin Plot and India’s Bio-Threat Thresholds

In November 2025, the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad arrested a religiously radicalised doctor and two associates for attempting to extract and deploy ricin, a highly toxic biological toxin derived from castor beans. This marked India’s first confirmed ricin-related terror plot and brought renewed attention to national biosecurity preparedness [7]. An analysis published by the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) provided important insights into the evolving character of bio-terror risks and their policy implications [8].

Ricin’s appeal to extremist actors lies less in its ability to cause mass casualties and more in its psychological and symbolic impact. Even limited production or attempted deployment can generate disproportionate fear, intense media attention, and political disruption [8]. The case also exposed the accessibility of dual-use materials. Castor beans are legally available for legitimate industrial and agricultural uses, yet can be exploited by malicious actors with minimal resources and online guidance [9].

Equally significant was the hybrid nature of the plot. Loosely connected operatives, guided through encrypted communication and ideological networks beyond India’s borders, attempted to pursue biological disruption without any centralised command structure. This convergence of ideology, technology, and biological knowledge blurs the line between conventional terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, challenging traditional security doctrines [10].

Structural Limitations of the Biological Weapons Convention

The BWC remains a cornerstone of global disarmament, but it reflects the technological realities of the early Cold War rather than today’s complex bio-technological environment. Its most critical weakness is the absence of a formal verification and compliance mechanism [2]. Unlike nuclear or chemical weapons regimes, the BWC does not mandate inspections or enforceable compliance measures, limiting transparency and confidence-building.

The treaty also lacks structured mechanisms to track rapid advances in synthetic biology, AI-enabled research, and commercial gene synthesis. When the BWC was drafted, non-state actors were not viewed as principal threats. Today, decentralised extremist networks and lone actors represent a qualitatively different challenge, one the treaty was never designed to manage [10].

Why the G-20 Matters for Global Biosecurity

Given the transnational nature of biological threats and the limitations of existing arms-control structures, the G-20 is uniquely positioned to provide leadership. Bringing together major economies, scientific powers, and health stakeholders, it can bridge the gap between security policy, scientific governance, and public health preparedness [11].

A G-20-led biosecurity initiative could complement the BWC by promoting shared norms, voluntary transparency measures, peer-review mechanisms, and coordinated preparedness efforts. It could also strengthen disease surveillance networks and facilitate rapid cooperation during bio-emergencies, particularly in the Global South where vulnerabilities remain pronounced.

India’s Biosecurity Preparedness in a Chaoplexic Threat Environment

In a densely populated country like India, where self-medication is prevalent due to a skewed doctor–patient ratio, particularly in rural and peri-urban areas : bio-terrorism represents a serious non-traditional security threat that intersects public health vulnerabilities with national security risks. The widespread availability of over-the-counter drugs, informal healthcare practices, and delayed disease reporting create conditions in which a deliberate biological incident could spread rapidly before detection. Such structural vulnerabilities amplify the impact of biological threats, making early attribution and containment extremely difficult. In this context, preparedness is no longer optional; it is imperative that India “fastens the belt” and transitions from reactive health security measures to anticipatory bio-defence planning.

The convergence of cyber and biological risks further compounds this challenge. In 2023, a ransomware attack crippled All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, forcing the institution into manual operations and exposing sensitive patient records, research data, and administrative systems. Beyond immediate disruption, such cyber intrusions carry deeper strategic implications. Compromised medical and genomic datasets can potentially be exploited to enable customised biological warfare, where adversaries leverage stolen health data to identify population-specific vulnerabilities, comorbidities, or treatment dependencies. As healthcare systems digitise rapidly without commensurate cyber-bio safeguards, the risk of data-driven bio-manipulation , blending cyber sabotage with biological targeting, emerges as a credible future threat.

Technological shifts such as big-data analytics, artificial intelligence, and 3D printing have further transformed the threat landscape. Manufacturing is no longer confined to mass production but increasingly enables mass customisation, allowing tailored outputs at low cost and decentralised scale. In malicious hands, these capabilities could be leveraged to customize delivery mechanisms, medical counterfeits, or biological components, bypassing traditional detection frameworks that are designed for large-scale, uniform threats. This evolution aligns with the logic of chaoplexic warfare, a concept that emphasises exploiting complexity, decentralisation, and adaptive disruption rather than rigid command-and-control models. In such a paradigm, adversaries seek to corrupt the decision-making cycle , particularly the Observe–Orient–Decide–Act (OODA) loop, through misinformation, data poisoning, cyber interference, and biological ambiguity, creating confusion rather than overt confrontation.

For India, this means biological threats must be viewed not in isolation but as part of a broader spectrum of hybrid and chaoplexic conflict, where cyber, bio, cognitive, and informational domains converge. Traditional deterrence models and siloed institutional responses are insufficient against adversaries who exploit systemic complexity and civilian vulnerabilities. Strengthening India’s biosecurity therefore requires integrated strategies that link public health, cyber resilience, intelligence analysis, and forensic attribution. Without such convergence, the combination of self-medication practices, digital health exposure, and emerging customisation technologies risks turning biological threats into high-impact, low-visibility instruments of coercion in future conflicts.

Thematic Map to showcase the entire issue in context of India :

India’s future biological threat environment is best understood through the lens of complexity, convergence, and ambiguity.

Threat Vector Layer:Cyber intrusions into health systems → compromise of medical and genomic data → AI-enabled analysis → customised biological disruption [12].

Enabling Conditions:High population density, widespread self-medication practices, uneven healthcare access, and rapid digitisation without adequate cyber-bio safeguards.

Possible Adversary Strategies: Chaoplexic warfare—> decentralised actions, ambiguity, misinformation, corruption of the Observe–Orient–Decide–Act (OODA) loop, and plausible deniability [13].

Primary Risks: Delayed detection, attribution failure, public panic, economic disruption, and erosion of institutional trust.

Core Capability Pillars: Integrated bio-technical intelligence, cyber-secure health infrastructure, bio-forensics and attribution capacity, trained state-level responders, and credible public communication.

Strategic Outcome (Desired): Decision superiority, rapid attribution, convergence of biology,chemistry and security studies, controlled public response, and institutional credibility.

Policy Imperative: A deliberate shift from reactive outbreak management to anticipatory bio-defence governance.

Why Biological Preparedness Matters for India

For India, preparedness against biological warfare and bio-terrorism is not a theoretical concern but a strategic necessity shaped by demographic density, regional security dynamics, technological diffusion, and public health vulnerabilities [14]. Biological agents spread rapidly, overwhelm healthcare systems, and trigger cascading socio-economic disruption. COVID-19 exposed systemic gaps in outbreak detection, surge capacity, supply chains, and risk communication even for naturally occurring pathogens.

In a country of India’s scale and diversity, the consequences of a deliberate biological incident: particularly in densely populated states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh or border regions like West Bengal, would be magnified by mobility, urban congestion, and healthcare asymmetries. Early biological incidents often resemble natural outbreaks, complicating attribution and weakening deterrence [4].

India’s Policy Position and Institutional Response

India has consistently highlighted structural deficiencies in the BWC, including the absence of verification mechanisms, a permanent technical body, and systems to track rapid scientific advances [15]. To address these gaps, India has proposed a National Implementation Framework covering oversight of high-risk agents, governance of dual-use research, mandatory domestic reporting, and incident-management mechanisms. Along with France, India has co-proposed an Article VII assistance database to facilitate rapid international support during biological emergencies [16].

Domestically, India implements its BWC obligations through the 1989 biosafety rules, the Weapons of Mass Destruction and their Delivery Systems Act (2005), and export controls under the SCOMET list [17]. While these provide a strong legal foundation, evolving threats increasingly demand institutional integration, technical expertise, and real-time intelligence.

There is a compelling case for establishing a dedicated National Bio-Technical Research and Analysis capability under the National Technical Research Organisation, integrating cyber intelligence, biological analysis, and forensic attribution. Such an entity could maintain a centralised data repository on biological threats, suspicious research trails, toxin-related intelligence, and emerging risks, including attempts at medical or genomic data manipulation from premier government institutions.

Internationally, INTERPOL’s Bioterrorism Prevention Unit and BioTracker platform provide useful models for coordinated threat monitoring [12].

At the sub-national level, State Multi-Agency Centres : particularly in densely populated or border states and officials linked to platforms such as NATGRID should receive dedicated training on bio-warfare and bio-terror contingencies. Biological threats require a different analytical lens from conventional terror plots, integrating epidemiology, forensic biology, cyber-security, and criminal intelligence. Without targeted training, early warning signals may be missed or misinterpreted.

Human Capital and Long-Term Capacity Building: A critical enabler of biosecurity preparedness is skilled human capital. India would benefit from developing a specialised cadre of bio-security and bio-forensics experts through structured academic and professional pathways. Institutions such as Rashtriya Raksha University, CSIR-CCMB, ICMR are well positioned to host dedicated departments that integrate bio-forensics, cyber safety, criminal intelligence, and national security studies. A purpose-built curriculum would allow investigators, analysts, and policymakers to understand biological threats not merely as scientific phenomena but as instruments of coercion embedded within broader security strategies.

The foiled ricin plot in Gujarat is a reminder that biological threats are no longer distant or hypothetical. They are adaptive, decentralised, and increasingly accessible. While the Biological Weapons Convention retains moral and normative importance, it is operationally constrained in addressing today’s technological and security realities. In an interconnected world where biological events can cascade rapidly across borders, no nation can act in isolation. Strengthening preparedness requires adaptive governance, credible verification, and coordinated international leadership. With proactive domestic reforms and leadership through forums such as the G-20, India can help ensure that advances in the life sciences remain instruments of human welfare rather than vectors of fear and instability.

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