The Cold War is often remembered as a prolonged standoff between rival superpowers.

Nuclear brinkmanship, proxy wars, and ideological confrontation dominated the era. Somehow, catastrophe was avoided.

But this familiar story hides a darker and less visible side of Cold War competition: biological experimentation conducted under the ruthless logic of strategic rivalry.

Science during the Cold War was never neutral.

Laboratories were not just centres of discovery; they were extensions of national security policy. Ethical constraints frequently gave way to strategic necessity.

The logic was simple and brutal. If an adversary might exploit a technology or a biological vector, it was imperative to study it, replicate it, or pre-empt its use.

This mindset did not stop with chemicals or nuclear materials. It extended to living organisms capable of spreading disease quietly and efficiently.

Ticks became objects of strategic interest precisely because of their disturbing attributes. They are resilient, hard to detect, and capable of transmitting pathogens without immediate symptoms.

Unlike conventional weapons, tick-borne diseases do not produce instant devastation. They spread slowly. They appear natural.

Attribution is difficult, if not impossible.

In a geopolitical environment obsessed with deniability, this ambiguity made such vectors strategically attractive.

Decades later, the consequences of that thinking remain unresolved.

Recent legislation in the US calling for a review of historical biological weapons research involving ticks and tick-borne diseases does not prove malicious intent. Nor does it establish deliberate release.

Yet the very need for such an investigation raises unsettling questions about how far governments were willing to go — and how much of that history was never fully disclosed.

Today, tick-borne diseases such as Lyme disease present a growing public health challenge.

It has been estimated that there are hundreds of thousands of new cases annually in the US alone.

These outbreaks affect healthcare systems, labour productivity, military readiness, and agricultural communities.

While no definitive link has been proven between Cold War-era research and present-day outbreaks, the overlap between past experimentation and current vulnerability is difficult to ignore.

This is not merely a historical curiosity.

It is a warning about how great-power rivalry distorts scientific inquiry and corrodes trust.

When research is conducted behind walls of secrecy, even legitimate public health crises become entangled with geopolitics.

In such an environment, facts struggle to keep pace with fear. Uncertainty itself becomes a political weapon.

The controversy surrounding the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic illustrates this dynamic vividly.

Investigating how the virus emerged — whether through zoonotic spillover, laboratory-related activity, or other pathways — is not unreasonable.

On the contrary, understanding origins is essential for preventing future pandemics.

Yet in a deeply mistrustful international environment, even well-intentioned inquiries can carry severe geopolitical consequences.

Australia’s call in 2020 for an independent international investigation into the origins of Covid 19 drew an instant rebuke.

Beijing interpreted the request not as a neutral public health measure, but as a politically motivated act aligned with broader strategic pressure from the West.

What followed was a rapid deterioration in China-Australia relations, marked by trade restrictions, diplomatic freezes, and growing mutual suspicion.

This episode reveals the harsh reality of today’s international system.

Biological issues rarely remain scientific. They quickly become proxies for larger power struggles.

For both rising powers and middle powers, even the language of transparency can be interpreted as containment, humiliation, or provocation.

This mirrors the Cold War experience closely.

When biological research is politicised, transparency itself becomes suspect. Secrecy breeds suspicion. Suspicion fuels confrontation. Confrontation discourages openness.

The result is a vicious cycle in which cooperation becomes fragile, and global health governance becomes collateral damage.

The Biological Weapons Convention was intended to prevent precisely such outcomes.

Yet it remains a weak instrument. It lacks robust verification mechanisms and meaningful enforcement powers.

Compliance depends largely on goodwill among states.

Goodwill, however, is in short supply in an era of renewed strategic rivalry.

As competition intensifies, the temptation to revisit dual-use research grows.

At the same time, the capacity to regulate such research continues to erode. The deeper problem is structural.

A world order governed primarily by power politics rewards short-term advantage over long-term safety.

Scientific breakthroughs are assessed through a security lens rather than a humanitarian one.

Nature itself — viruses, insects, ecosystems — becomes an arena for strategic manipulation rather than collective stewardship.

The risks are no longer theoretical.

Climate change, mass travel, urbanisation, and ecological disruption have made disease transmission faster and more unpredictable than ever before.

A biological incident, whether natural or man-made, can escalate into a global crisis within weeks.

Once unleashed, such forces cannot be recalled, controlled, or neatly attributed.

Equally damaging is the erosion of public trust.

When citizens believe governments may be hiding past actions — or weaponising uncertainty — confidence in public health institutions collapses.

This mistrust fuels misinformation, vaccine resistance, and political polarisation.

Societies become more fragile just as they face greater biological threats.

The lesson from the Cold War is therefore stark.

A sustainable world order cannot be built on secrecy, rivalry, and zero-sum thinking.

Investigating biological threats is necessary, but it must be conducted through genuinely multilateral and depoliticised frameworks.

Without this, even good intentions, such as investigation into the origins of a pandemic, can bring about trade disruptions between two distant countries who do not share any borders either by land or sea.

Even noble intentions can trigger diplomatic crises and deepen global fragmentation. Not surprisingly Canberra is against a world without any semblance of rules at all.

Same goes with Tokyo which is not necessarily encouraged by Washington DC’s designs on Greenland. Why?

In a rudderless world order, the greatest dangers may not arrive with explosions or invasions.

They may arrive quietly, through slow-moving biological threats shaped by past experiments and present mistrust.

The ticking time bomb is not just a pathogen.

It is a system that rewards competition over cooperation.

And once it goes off, no nation will be able to claim immunity.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT