the constitution. or for women away from their families. it will help knock down those restrictions that have locked women into the old stereotypes of behavior and opportunity. exploring the american story. watch american history tv and find a full schedule on your program guide, or watch online anytime at c-span.org/history. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back with daniel gerstein, who is a senior policy researcher with the rand corporation, and he is here to discuss the chemical and biological threats and the invasion of ukraine. dan, good morning. guest: good morning, jesse. nice to be here. host: first of all, explain your

background in bio security and some of your work in this field. guest: well, i have a doctorate in biodefense, and that is from george mason university. i have been working in the field for over 15 years and served in a variety of positions within industry, to government. i was in the obama administration doing this kind of work as the principal director for countering weapons of mass destruction in the office of the secretary of defense for policy. here at rand i work on a lot of security and defense issues, public health, emerging technology. and i have a long background in security defense, going back to my days in uniform, and, of course, industry think tanks and academia. i am also an author. i have two published books on biological warfare and i have done a number of studies on the government, as well as

publishing a number of articles. i have also spent a good bit of time in ukraine, particularly dealing with the cooperative threat reduction, and in particular the laboratories and buyer research facilities -- bio research facilities we are talking about. that will be an interesting host: part of the discussion. host:i want to bring up one of the -- host: i want to bring up one of the books he wrote during the biological weapons convention. -- ro. the biological weapons convention. guest: the bouquet working title that started out as the biological and toxin weapons convention, the most important arms control agreement you have never heard of. most people don't know about this very important convention, if you look at what can -- it pertains to a can be involved with up to 20% of the u.s.

economy. it is an important convention and one that has had a bit of a checkered past. for my -- so my reason for writing the book was to think about how u.s. policy could evolve and become more enlightened with respect to the biological weapons convention. that is, to try to implement certain processes and procedures that would help with questions such as verification and compliance. host: so let's get some basic information about chemical and biological weapons, and some of the concerns we have about what is going on in ukraine. first of all, for our audience, can you tell us the difference between a chemical weapon and a biological weapon? are they the same thing and are the two different things? guest: no they are not, and they

are very often conflated, which is really a bit of a problem, since they have very different implications. we talk about biological weapons, you are talking about not just the biological material that makes up these weapons, but also the method of delivery, whether that is an aerosol spray, or in the case of a bioterrorist, or whether that would be much -- be something more sophisticated if there was some sort of state biological weapons attack. and we are talking about the use of microbial agents another biological agents. this can also include toxins. simmer me think about biological weapons, we normally address bacterial, virus, and biologically-derived toxins. then they give you a couple of examples. we talk about bacterial weapons, i think most of your viewers are

probably familiar with the term anthrax, or the pathogen anthrax from the 2000 one attacks here in the united states. that is an example of a bacterial agent. a viral agent, of course, would be very different. viruses are not living organisms, some of me think about viruses, we think about smallpox. think about ebola. perhaps other viral hemorrhagic fevers. today we spent a lot of time talking about covid. even though that is not a biological weapon per se, but it is a virus. then when we talk about toxins we are talking about those types of elements derived from biological material that have been purified. think about botulinum neurotoxin, which comes from a bacteria.

what is the difference now with chemical weapons? chemical weapons also require both the chemical, as well as a means of delivery. say, it is a bomb or artillery shell, something like that. when we think about the chemical weapons, though, we have a set of the river -- very refined the lists we use to govern the chemicals. and we lump them into various categories depending on whether they are only used for weapons or could be used for industrial processes. here we are thinking about different agents like blood and nerve agents. more frequently we are talking about opioids as a potential chemical weapon. so, you know, chemical weapons are not derived from living matter. what is interesting is, when one

looks at chemical and biological weapons, there are actually some agents that are categorized as both chemical and biological. an example is ricin, which is derived from a been a plant, but the purified toxin is also on the chemical munitions list. host: we have heard a lot of talk about chemical and biological weapons when it comes to the russia/ukraine conflict rate why are we hearing about this now? guest: the experts are saying we are looking at a potential for a false flag operation. something where the russians may it clear that there are issues and they are expecting some sort of chemical or biological attack and they are going to prepare for that.

this is really, as the state department has said, these are just lies. they are untruths. in fact, the only laboratories that ukraine has today are those dedicated to public health issues, biosurveillance, understanding the microbes that would be in ukraine that could possibly cause disease. and, you know, they could be everything from animal diseases such as african swine fever, which is in the hog populations in large parts of europe. it could be anthrax, which is both a human and animal disease that is endemic in many countries. those laboratories exist to do bio surveillance. they exist to do reporting and to do research to be able to

develop diagnostics and medical countermeasures. on the chemical side of the house, all of the munitions that were once stockpiled in ukraine were returned to russia as part of the cooperative threat reduction, and they have subsequently been destroyed by russia, with the organization for proliferation and chemical weapons as observers, and the united states assisted in developing those facilities. so there are no chemical weapons, there are no biological weapons. the only -- you know, in terms of chemical, certainly a country like ukraine is going to have chemical agents, not in terms of warfare agents, but chemicals such as chlorine that they would use for filtering their water. they would never have that for

use on a battlefield. host: let me take a second here to remind our viewers, they can take part in this conversation. you're going to open up our regular lines. that means democrats, you can call (202) 748-8000. republicans, your line is (202) 748-8001. independents, you can call (202) 748-8002. keep in mind, you can always text us at (202) 748-8003. and we are always reading on social media, on twitter, and on facebook. now, we have seen the american government both at the united nations and from the white house say that russia intends a disinformation campaign as an excuse for it to use chemical and biological weapons. are there currently any

international treaties that forbid this or any type of international agreements that says they can't do this? guest: well, jesse, that is right on target. there are absolutely international agreements in place. for biological, we have the biological weapons convention. it was entered into force in 1975. it establishes an unequivocal norm against the use of any sort of biological material for warfare. and the only use of these biological materials is for what we will call the three p's -- prophylactic, or other peaceful purposes. inc. about other biological research as part of the biotech industry. for the chemical weapons convention, that entered into force in 1997. as i mentioned, it is a list-based approach to trying to

ensure that weapons that are chemical weapons-specific, or precursors that could be used to make chemical weapons are not available, and cannot be developed, or are not allowed to be used for any purpose on the battlefield. and, you know, another one we have is the united nations security council resolution 1540 that was established in 2004, which prevents nonstate actors from acquiring nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, their means of delivery, or any other related materials. and, of course, you know, as part of our work we have had since 1993 the cooperative threat reduction. many of your viewers may notice as the cooperative threat reduction program. we put it in place.

it was a bipartisan effort to get rid of all of the dangerous facilities, materials that were part of the old former soviet weapons programs. and any that could be returned to peaceful purposes, that was done. such as bio surveillance and research. if it wasn't, then the material was destroyed. and we paid billions of dollars to help the states of the former soviet union get rid of their stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. host:1 yesterday pentagon spokesman john kirby was asked by a reporter about the russian chemical and bio weapons capabilities and whether the u.s. thinks that russia would actually use these weapons. i want you to listen to what john kirby said, then react to

it, dan. john: i don't want to get into intelligence assessments. we are watching this as closely as we can. i don't have anything to report with respect to specific russian kim/bio capabilities inside ukraine. this is a country that has a reputation for using those kinds of weapons on people, and we know they have a program. two, we continue to watch for the potential -- and i want to stress the word potential. potential that they could be banging this drum with the intent of creating some sort of false flag event that they could use as an excuse to escalate the conflict even more. again, we are watching this everyday. i don't have any specific indication now to talk about, but it is something we are

concerned about. you might have heard president zelensky last night say that exact thing. that you have to be careful what you see the russians accuse others of, because it often times ends up being what they are planning to do. again, we don't have firm indications right now. it is just something that could happen that we want to watch out for. host: i want to hear your reaction to what john kirby said there, dan. guest: i agree fully with what he said and i will amplify a couple of points. the first is that we have seen russia participate in false flag operations. even though they were not implicated in the use of chemical weapons in syria in support of the shah al-assad regime -- bassar al-assad regime, they did not attempt to stop the use of chemical weapons . and, in fact the assad regime used these chemical weapons and

nerve agents and toxic industrial chemicals such as chlorine in trying to defeat their enemies. and eventually we did get the stocks destroyed, but what happened was, they used these with pretty good effect on cities. and these other sorts of chemical munitions that could be used to -- it would settle in basements and they could kill people who are trying to hide underground to avoid the shelling. so i very much agree with that. we have seen russia close-up and personal with respect to the use of chemical weapons on their own people. we have seen them use novichok, which is a nerve agent. against people like navalny. so we have every expectation that they have a program.

it is an offense of program, and they have used it. with respect to biological, we have great uncertainty about what the soviet or the former soviet and now the russian program actually entails. we helped rebuild some of their laboratories to western standards as part of the program. we have not ever been able to go back and inspect the work to ensure that it was done appropriately, which really should be because for concern. and we don't have good sense of what they are doing in those laboratories. they certainly have the capability, as we have seen, for both developing chemical and biological weapons. and we should expect that they are proceeding along these lines. host: one of the things that happened last week is that russia has been spreading what

the united states government says are false rumors that the u.s. has higher labs -- biolabs in ukraine. does the united states have a dialogical or chemical weapons program? if we do, where is it? if we don't, why don't we? guest: as part of the cwc for chemicals and the bwc for biological, we were giving up all of our offense of programs we had. the biological program was halted by president nixon in 1969. the chemical weapons program ended through the chemical weapons convention that entered into force in 1997. since that time we have been destroying all of the stocks. we have destroyed approximately 75% of our stocks. they are in a couple of depots around the united states, and it is just a matter of throughput to destroy the stocks.

they are no longer able to be used, and we would not use that. it is against international law conventions that we have signed up to. host: let's let some of our viewers join this conversation. we will start with greg, who was calling from richfield, wisconsin on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span, and good morning, daniel. guest: good morning. caller: i have a couple of questions regarding the rand corporation. historically you guys were kind of put together dealing with cold war issues and how to keep america safe. now what i have seen is that you are going way past that. if we want to talk about ukraine and weapons that is one thing. you are doing social engineering , specifically who is funding the rand corporation and moving beyond the traditional role of the rand corporation to keep america safe, and nuclear

weapons out of the world's hands? what are you doing these days in terms of social engineering? because as a growing corporation i think you are way beyond, way over your skis in terms of what your initial intentions were. thank you. guest: well, ok, thanks for the question, let me push back a little bit on that. rand corporation was started in 1947. its first contracts were with the air force, and it is very prominent in work such as deterrence theory, which was part of the cold war and how we waged the cold war. but rand is an organization, a federally-funded research and development center. we have a very close relationship with all of the military services. the department of defense, the joint chiefs of staff. we are continuing to assist in a

wide range of activities. in addition, there are many customers that we have that see us as very good for helping them think through challenging problems. so, let me give you an example of a study just completed. i looked at the plan in columbia that knelt with counter narcotics and counterinsurgency. and we looked at the period of 2000 to 2020 to assess how well u.s. support to colombian authorities, to the colombian government, actually functioned. and so, you know, that kind of work may not fit into what you will consider to be the traditional, but it is very important. another study i participated in and testified in front of congress had to do with covid-19. and i think if we have learned anything so far from covid we

would have to say that my you know, the relationship between public health and national security and economic security is very strong and one that requires an organization like rand with the skills we bring to think through the hard problems. so i don't think we are over our skis. in fact, i think we are doing the type of work that is in the public interest. but thank you very much for that question. host: let's go to brian, who is calling from fulsome, pennsylvania on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning. things were taking my call, daniel. i was wondering if the enhancement of attentional pandemic packages can be weaponized as biological? in my second question would be -- i hope you can answer them both -- would be fentanyl as a chemical weapon and how that can be weaponized against a

population, either attacked as individuals or society? there are my questions. guest: great. thanks for both of those. on the first one, the consideration of pathogens to be weaponized, it certainly is possible to see the weaponization of things like, you know, talk about covid-19, but on the other hand what i think covid-19 and, you know, some of the hype around, you know, the experiments being conducted, you know, this is really about better understandings of these pathogens and how they function. and that helps us develop medical countermeasures. it helps us develop vaccines. it helps us be prepared and to understand this biological environment in which we live.

so, it is very important. now, can they be weaponized? i think the question comes back to, you know, something like covid is not controllable in this way. it is not as though you can steer it one way or another. so something like influenza, or that has a very broad ability to -- for transmissibility is likely not to be a very good weapon as we have often talked about, it could boomerang back on your own population. so from that standpoint it is not really something that i would expect to be weaponized. you know, on your second question on fentanyl, we actually have a couple of interesting experiences where we have seen the russians use fentanyl. and they have used it with pretty good effect. the most prominent one is the

2002 siege of the theater. they used a fentanyl which is about 10 times more potent than regular fentanyl. it is very dangerous. it is an opioid. if you get a high enough dose you will need to have either mechanical ventilation -- that is, he will have to have cpr -- or you will have to have naloxone to counter the effects. and if you don't have either of those two, very rapidly, that individual is likely to expire. so it is extremely dangerous. we have seen the russians use it in an aerosol form. they had a number of deaths in the theater incident, and part of that was not able to control the concentrations. too many people got too high a concentration and it led to numerous deaths.

host: one of our social media followers has a question. this question says, can nuclear deterrence be used to protest their use, or does using biochem -weapons sidestepmutually assured destruction? ---i used to be a huge tomkat -- tom clancy fan. i remember a line that says, the united states considers biological and chemical weapons to be the same as nuclear weapons, so if they were used against the u.s., a nuclear attack could be the result. is that line true, and does bio chem weapons sidestep mutually assured destruction? guest: it is an interesting proposition. we have thought about this. one of the reasons why president nixon decided to renounce biological weapons is we recognized not only the power of these types of weapons -- that

is, dialogical material converted to weapon, but we also recognized how inexpensive they were to develop. and some had even labeled them the poor man's atomic bomb. it was not advantageous to have the world with the ability and the proliferation of these kinds of capabilities. so, you know, we are certainly concerned about that. but your other part of the question was really interesting too. that goes back to the nuclear posture review. when i was in the obama administration the nuclear posture review actually had a line in it which called out that we reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in the case of a biological attack. what i would not want to do right now is preempt by them -- preempt the bided administration.

they are in the process of doing their nuclear posture review and we will have to see where they come out on this. but definitely we have concerns about the extraordinary capability of biological weapons. now, since tom clancy wrote his book i would say we have become a bit more enlightened about the utility of amoco weapons and the dangers from chemical weapons. they remain very dangerous. but unlike nuclear weapons, unlike biological weapons that could have a strategic effect -- the pentagon, the thresholds, the size of the weapons employed -- we generally do not think of chemical weapons as being strategic. they are really more tactical in nature. they are much more confined to geographically-smaller areas. you know, the experience of world war i, it took literally

hundreds of thousands of gallons of these toxic industrial chemicals such as phosphine and chlorine in particular, and phosgene as a weapon, to have a battlefield effect. they do dissipate rapidly, whereas the biological, depending on the pathogen, could be persistent. in the case of something like anthrax, which is a spore-forming agent, that would be something very dangerous. nuclear comes with a variety of other issues that i think your listeners are very familiar with. host: let's go back to our phone lines and talk to yaya on the democrat line. good morning. caller: good morning. i wanted to ask about disinformation, paired up with biological weapons. and i want to mention how the

u.s., prior to covid we were having measles outbreaks in various parts of the country. and, you know, i am an rn and i would wonder, why are there anti-vaxxers out there? have celebrities on the anti-vax train. people did not want to vaccinate against measles, so we were having outbreaks. there were outbreaks in schools. i just think it is not even necessary to attack the u.s. with bio weapons. we have been getting attacked with disinformation for many years, and that is causing ourselves to weaponize infectious diseases and spread it. and i did not see it coming with these measles outbreaks, so once this covid anti-vaccine hysteria started coming up and hundreds of thousands of americans died from covid, it is really frightening because all we need

is infectious disease and social media and we will harm our several -- harm ourselves. guest: i'm not sure there is a questionnaire, but i'm happy to make a comment. my, will be, thanks for your service as an rn. the other thing i would say is, i agree with you on the disinformation. as someone who is in this field and testified a number of times about covid to congress -- and, you know, these issues are near and dear to me. watching what is going on with medical countermeasures, the disinformation, people taking treatments that have no hope of working, you know, people who are not adhering to the calls for vaccines, i mean, that is really crushing. and at the end of the day, the time we look at the people who are directly attributed to have died from covid plus the excess deaths from covid we could be looking at, you know, 1.5

million, maybe even 2 million people who will have died from covid-19. and some of those deaths, particularly those since the vaccines have been relatively -- been readily available, they are heart-wrenching to think about. the families that have been destroyed and the suffering that has gone on. i certainly agree with your point. host: let's go to brad, who is calling from brooklyn, new york. good morning. caller: good morning. daniel, thank you for taking my question. i have a question about anthrax. back in 2001, shortly after 9/11 we had some anthrax attacks in this country. the fbi thought possibly that stephen hatfield had the potential to manufacture weaponized anthrax, which we know is a reduced spore that can

go deeper into the lungs and is coated with an anti-static to keep it floating in the air. now, we have been told that we do not know who possesses the delivery system to make this effective, but my question is this. if you could imagine a warm august day in manhattan and someone with a quart of weaponized anthrax on top of a building, a 30 story building, sprinkling anthrax down onto the sidewalk, what do you think about that sort of possibility and the hundreds of thousands of people who might die in a very short period of time after that? guest: well, i think about it all the time, actually.

this is an area where i have great concerns. in fact, an earlier book i did before the arms-control book was called "bioterrorism in the 21st century." and i talk a lot about how and why a bioterrorist might be interested in developing these capabilities and how they may employ them. i try to think through ways that we might this incentivize a bioterrorist from wanting to do this. what i definitely worry about that, and i also worry about it more because with biotechnology, you know, back in 2000 it took a good bit of skill to do many of the steps that a bioterrorist would have to accomplish in order to develop a biological weapon. but today some of those requirements, those steps, have actually been democratized, have been made less challenging,

because we actually have biotechnology's which can assist one in purifying a toxin or purifying a bacteria, growing it in the proper conditions, purifying it so he can be harvested, then, you know, drying it. all of these capabilities are more relatively -- or more relevant -- are more readily available than they were 20 years ago, so i worry about this kind of issue. host: let's talk to robert, who is calling from hazzard, kentucky on the republican line. good morning. caller: good morning to you. yes, sir, what do you think the role of nato and the u.s. could be if vladimir putin decides to use those chemical and biological weapons, and is that in nato and the u.s.'s play cards?

i hope that is not in the play cards. and also, do you think russia would have invaded ukraine if the world had not experienced covid? i would like to hear your answer on both. thank you. guest: well, on the first part of your question, you know, i would have to say that, you know, when one looks at, you know, what russia has done, you know, they have sort of, you know, going into a place where, you know, we are being very careful not to say that we are at war, nato, the united states is at war with russia. but having said that, he know, some of the outcomes that are occurring right now, such as a mass migration, which as of yesterday or so was up to 2 million people which are streaming into nato countries,

you know, that is already affecting nato. when we talk about chemical and biological use i think it is entering into another very difficult space. you know, this question of, is it an -- a nato issue? i would like to take you back to 1994, in bosnia was in the middle of a war and, you know, the united nations protection force was in there trying to do peacekeeping. that was not working very well, so u.s.-led initiative put in a nato-led force was undertaken. and that force when in in december of 1995. and so, this would not be the first time that nato has been involved in an out of sector type of operation.

afghanistan was also out of sector. so, you know, if we think about that -- i'm not advocating either way. it is a serious discussion that needs to go on. but there is also the question of humanity. and, you know, how much can we expect to have nato and, you know, the rest of the community of nations sit by while a country is being devastated? and the use of chemical and biological weapons really would take it up to a very new level. i don't think i want to go too much further. i certainly would not want to draw redlines that we are not prepared to enforce, and i think i will leave it at that. host: let's talk to alita, who is calling from seattle, washington on the republican line. good morning. caller: yes, good morning. i would like to ask mr. gerstein

if he thinks that putin, being as insane as he is, would unleash these chemical weapons that they could actually reach the united states? guest: yeah, so, you know, a couple of things. let me just put this into a different perspective. first, i don't see chemical weapons as something that would be fit on an internet continental -- an intercontinental ballistic missile. i don't think he has those stocks right now and i don't inc. he would want to go to that place. what i would say is that, you know, he started off by saying, you know, as insane as he is. i guess i would just say, as with other actors, very bad actors in some cases, even terrorists and such, we try to

hesitate from calling people insane. we may not understand all of their rationale, but they may actually have some sort of rationale. you know, like the rest of the international community watching putin today, i certainly have grave concerns about his decision-making process. and, you know, i hope that he does not begin to go further than he already has with respect to, particularly these types of weapons. you know, i don't want to say this too shockingly, but i feel that we are already in a nuclear confrontation with russia. for the past four weeks putin has been, what we call brandishing his nuclear forces. he has been talking about them. in the pre-invasion period he ran a nuclear exercise, which i think is very dangerous, because

if we miscalculated, if he miscalculated, it could have actually resulted in some sort of nuclear weapons incident. so, you know, i'm very concerned about that. in addition, he has been taken over two the real large nuclear power plants. chernobyl, which is no longer functional but is still needing to be tended to, and the zapper rita nuclear facilities, which is the largest nuclear facility in europe. so i have grave concerns about what he is doing. and, you know, i am hopeful, but, you know, open is one thing. seeing him responsible and not use weapons of mass destruction is quite another. host: we would like to thank arena corporation senior policy researcher daniel gerstein for

coming on with us this morning and talking us through chemical and biological weapons and the invasion of ukraine. dan, thanks so much for your time this morning. guest: thanks, jesse. thanks for having me on. host: coming up later, we are going to talk more about ukraine. in fact, we will talk public opinion with galen druke, the host and producer of fivethirtyeight's policy podcast. he will join us later for our spotlight on podcast segment. next we are going to go back to you and ask you what you think your concerns are about the russia-ukraine situation in our open forum segment. you see the numbers on screen. start calling in and we will come to your calls next. stick with us. we will be right back. ♪

>> if confirmed by the senate, judge ketanji brown jackson, president biden's nominee for associate justice of the supreme court, would become the first african-american woman to hold that position. sunday on q&a, renee jefferson, professor of law at the university of houston and co-author of the book "shortlisted," talks about judge jackson's nomination and some of the women who have been considered for the high court. >> she was not only shortlisted by president reagan for the seat that went to o'connor, but he shortlisted her again. reagan could have given us more than one woman on the court. he had multiple vacancies. she wasn't shortlisted for the seat that ultimately went to justice kennedy. and she was shortlisted again, or at least her name was floated when the nomination for clarence thomas was at risk of not going forward.

and so she was suggested as a possible solution to president george h.w. bush. and she was shortlisted again by president clinton for the very seat that justice breyer is now retiring from. so, finally, decades later it will go to a black woman. >> renee jefferson, sunday night on q&a. you can listen to q&a and all of our podcasts on our c-span now app. ♪ >> book tv, every sunday on c-span2 features leading authors discussing their latest nonfiction books. at 1:00 p.m. eastern we bring you live coverage of the tucson festival of books. including retired u.s. army lieutenant colonel alexander vindman, with his book "here, right matters carol anderson

with her book "the second: race and guns in unequal america." and david johnston, author of "the big cheat." at 10:00 p.m. eastern, lauren hubbard, chair of the george bush council of economic advisors talked about his book "the wall and the bridge." he argues government needs to invest more to offset job losses due to technology advances and globalization. he is interviewed by former international monetary fund chief economist kenneth rogoff. watch book tv every sunday on c-span2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online anytime at book tv.org. -- booktv.org. >> "washington journal" continues. host: we are back and we are