It is nearly 15 years since biological weapons (BW) have become a significant national security preoccupation. The events of September 11, 2001, although not in any way related to BW, combined with the distribution of professionally prepared anthrax spores through the U.S. postal system in the weeks afterwards, magnified previous concerns by orders of magnitude.

"December 2005." "This is an expanded version of a paper prepared for an international conference, 'Meeting the Challenges of Bioterrorism: Assessing the Threat and Designing Biodefense Strategies.' The conference was convened on April 22-23, 2005, by the Center for Security Studies of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology located in Zurich, Switzerland" -- P. ii. "This is an expanded version of a paper prepared for an international conference, 'Meeting the Challenges of Bioterrorism: Assessing the Threat and Designing Biodefense Strategies.' The conference was convened on April 22-23, 2005, by the Center for Security Studies of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology located in Zurich, Switzerland"--Page ii. "This is an expanded version of a paper prepared for an international conference, 'Meeting the Challenge of Bioterrorism : Assesing the Threat and Designing Biodefense Strategies.' The conference was convened April 22-23, 2005"--p. ii.

Pt.I. Introduction -- Pt.II. The evolution of state biological weapons programs -- Pt.III. Evolution of nonstate actor/terrorist biological weapons capabilities -- Pt.IV. Framing "the threat" and setting the agenda of public perception and policy prescription -- Pt.V. Costs and consequences of the U.S. biodefense program -- Pt. VI.Conclusion.