Chemical warfare

Chemical warfare is warfare (and associated military operations) using the toxic properties of chemical substances to kill, injure or incapacitate the enemy.

Sociopolitical climate of chemical warfare

While the study of chemicals and their military uses was widespread in China, the use of toxic materials has historically been viewed with mixed emotions and some disdain in the West.

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One of the earliest reactions to the use of chemical agents was from Rome. Struggling to defend themselves from the Roman legions, Germanic tribes poisoned the wells of their enemies, with Roman jurists having been recorded as declaring "armis bella non venenis geri", meaning "war is fought with weapons, not with poisons."

Related Topics:
Rome - Roman legion - Germanic - Weapon - Poison

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It is perhaps because of this view that in Europe before World War I, the use of poisonous chemicals in battle was typically the result of local initiative, and not the result of an active chemical weapons program. There are many reports of the isolated use of chemical agents in individual battles or sieges, but there was no true tradition of their use outside of incendiaries and smoke. Despite this tendency, there have been several attempts to initiate large-scale implementation of poison gas in several wars, but with the notable exception of World War I, the responsible authorities generally rejected the proposals for ethical reasons.

Related Topics:
Europe - World War I - Siege - Incendiaries - Smoke - Ethical

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For example, in 1854 Lyon Playfair, a British chemist, proposed using a cyanide-filled artillery shell against enemy ships during the Crimean War. The British Ordnance Department rejected the proposal as "as bad a mode of warfare as poisoning the wells of the enemy."

Related Topics:
1854 - British - Cyanide - Artillery - Crimean War

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This general concern over the use of poison gas manifested itself in 1899 at the Hague Conference with a proposal prohibiting shells filled with asphyxiating gas. The proposal was passed, despite a single dissenting vote from the United States. The American representative, Naval Capt. Alfred Thayer Mahan, justified voting against the measure on the grounds that "the inventiveness of Americans should not be restricted in the development of new weapons."

Related Topics:
1899 - Hague Conference - Alfred Thayer Mahan

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After extensive use of chemical weapons in World War I, the popular view of chemical weapons grew from distaste to disgust, such that their use had become the ultimate atrocity in the minds of most people at the time. So much so, in fact, that in 1925, sixteen of the world's major nations signed the Geneva Protocol, thereby pledging never to use gas biological methods of warfare again. Notably, in the United States, the Protocol languished in the Senate until 1975, when it was finally ratified.

Related Topics:
1925 - Geneva Protocol - United States - Senate - 1975

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Efforts to eradicate chemical weapons

• August 27 1874: The Brussels Declaration Concerning the Laws and Customs of War is signed, specifically forbidding the "employment of poison or poisoned weapons."
• September 4 1900: The Hague Conference, which includes a declaration banning the "use of projectiles the object of which is the diffusion of asphyxiating or deleterious gases," enters into force.
• February 6 1922: After World War I, the Washington Arms Conference Treaty prohibited the use of asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases. It was signed by the United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Italy, but France objected to other provisions in the treaty and it never went into effect.
• September 7 1929: The Geneva Protocol enters into force, prohibiting the use of poison gas and bacteriological methods of warfare. As of 2004, there are 132 signatory nations.
• May 1991: President George H.W. Bush unilaterally commits the United States to destroying all chemical weapons and to renounce the right to chemical weapon retaliation.
• The U.S. Congress has since passed legislation requiring the destruction of the entire stockpile by December 312004. Official U.S. policy is to support the Chemical Weapons Convention as a means to achieve a global ban on this class of weapons and to halt their proliferation.
• April 29 1997: The Chemical Weapons Convention enters into force, augmenting the Geneva Protocol of 1925 by outlawing the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons.

Chemical weapon proliferation

Main article: Chemical weapon proliferation

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Despite numerous efforts to reduce or eliminate them, some nations continue to research and/or stockpile chemical weapon agents. To the right is a summary of the nations that have either declared weapon stockpiles or are suspected of secretly stockpiling or possessing CW research programs. Notable examples include China and Israel.

Related Topics:
China - Israel

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According to the testimony of Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research Carl W. Ford before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, it is very probable that China has an advanced chemical warfare program, including research and development, production, and weaponization capabilities. Furthermore, there is considerable concern from the US regarding China's contact and sharing of chemical weapons expertise with other states of proliferation concern, including Syria and Iran.

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As of December 2004, Israel has signed but not ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, and according to the Russian Federation Foreign Intelligence Service, Israel has significant stores of chemical weapons of its own manufacture. It possesses a highly developed chemical and petrochemical industry, skilled specialists, and stocks of source material, and is capable of producing several nerve, blister and incapacitating agents. In 1974, in a hearing before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, General Almquist stated that Israel had an offensive chemical weapons capability.

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