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Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore?

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Re: Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore?

#101

Post by ggm »

GarvielLoken wrote: post #100

What an ignorant article. The Soviet union was a peer to the "Western" and "Modern System" and they would totally use chemical weapon during a conflict, asymmetrical tactics and in general any underhand methods that they could think of. Typical Nato way = The only way article. And the Soviet union was more mechanized and earlier then the US. If anything Nato was the static tactic user during the cold war. Source: htt…

The refusal of NATO to repudiate first strike and the decision to place troops forward into the comecon borders did nothing to assuage paranoia inside the sovuet union. Do not equate missiles in Cuba with the permanent stationing of troops with tactical nukes on the landmass facing Russian satellite economies.

Many senior non US NATO staffers are believed to have agreed they'd disarm Americans who even looked like latching up the missiles btw..

Seriously: if you wanted one thing to help defuse a world looking to CBW then a president confident enough to repudiate first strike would have done it in the 1950s and 1960s (my school navy cadet handbook in the seventies explained CBW cleandown for ships in graphic detail at the back)

Re: Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore?

#102

Post by amitport »

gonzo41 wrote: post #67
austincheney wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that are chemical weapons any more than water in waterboarding. They are all chemicals including water.

WP white phosphorous is actually a chemical weapon when used against people. It is an anti material weapon and used for smoke screens. But read up on the use of WP in fallujah.

Well that depends who you ask. US claimed it is not a chemical weapon because it ""merely"" burns its subjects but doesn't poison them.

Though probably any other country using it like they used it in Fallujah would have suffered consequences (note we're not talking about WP as used for lighthing and gun laying. Allegedly (I'm not sure what the evidence status), US used it for shake & bake on civilian population)

Re: Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore?

#103

Post by anovikov »

We don't use chemical weapons because they have very poor military efficiency - modern armies taught themselves very well to protect against them, they will mostly harm civilians and make any postwar arrangements very complicated. Also they are very indiscriminate and depend on factors such as wind and elements way too much, so they are about as likely to harm own troops as the enemy. Plus, why bother if we have, to kill military targets, high precision weapons that do the job a lot better than chemicals ever could, and for wide area targets or infrastructure, nukes?

Re: Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore?

#104

Post by robin_reala »

rayrrr wrote: post #50
kjs3 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incredibly powerful writing. You might give Wilfred Owen props for writing it.

I was waiting for someone to do that for me. ;) Thanks. Agreed. Props to the WW1 poet Wilfred Owen 1893-1918.

(I put together a PD ebook collection of his work at https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/wilfred-owen/poetry)

Re: Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore?

#105

Post by Joker_vD »

j9461701 wrote: post #88
jvanderbot wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is, in fact, explicitly stated in TFA. "This isn’t a value question, but a value-against-replacement question – why maintain, issue, store, and shoot expensive chemical munitions if cheap, easier to store, easier to manufacture high explosive munitions are both more obtainable and also better? When you add the geopolitical and morale impact on top of that – you sacrifice diplomatic capital using such weapons and…

I find myself mostly agreeing with this article, although I think it over-states its case slightly and this section highlights why. Chemical weapons are not very useful on a tactical level, and modernly nuclear weapons are superior on the strategic level. But for a brief period between 1915 and 1945, they were an attractive solution for mass death on a strategic level. A 1,000 pound explosive bomb, with WW2 level tar…

> will still have its payload disperse over a wide area and is utterly horrific to deal with. As the article notes, the 1995 sarin attack in Japan injured over 1,000 people.

In closed spaces. In closed spaces, chemical weapons are pretty effective, cf. "gas chamber", but in open spaces they are much less deadly.

Re: Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore?

#106

Post by afthonos »

j9461701 wrote: post #97
kelnos wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As the article notes, the 1995 sarin attack in Japan injured over 1,000 people. Sure, but an equivalent conventional high explosive would have likely killed all those 1,000 people, wouldn't it have? > In a sense, chemical weapons are a kind of 'poor man's nuke'. Russia and America are standing down their chemical weapons because they have actual nukes, and don't need to also have 2nd rate knock offs. The article ex…

>Sure, but an equivalent conventional high explosive would have likely killed all those 1,000 people, wouldn't it have? Looking it up on wikipedia, most suicide bomber vests weigh roughly as much (5 kg) or up to 4 times as much (20 kg) as all the sarin used in this attack (5.45 kg). I've never heard of a single suicide bomber, using a vest, injuring 1,000 people. So I am inclined to think the chemical approach is mor…

“Equivalent” is also a matter of perspective. For a terrorist, procuring the necessary explosives to injure 1000 people may be harder than procuring the equivalent sarin gas. For a state, the calculus changes, as do goals. Storage, transportation, safety (states are much less likely to be willing to have their own soldiers die than terror cells), all those concerns can tip the balance, especially for a strong state with a modern army.

Re: Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore?

#108

Post by noctune »

austincheney wrote: post #31
thom wrote: post #8

Some would possibly count tear gas, white phosphorous or depleted uranium.

None of that are chemical weapons any more than water in waterboarding. They are all chemicals including water.

The "Chemical Weapons Convention" bans tear gas for use in warfare, so that could easily be considered a chemical weapon.

Re: Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore?

#109

Post by ggm »

It's indiscriminate and insufficiently useful because occupying the field demands decontamination and collateral damages are ruinous. It's also illegal which may seem odd but 'just war' imposes constraints. Troops are less effective in CBW uniforms and atropine (and other) drugs deeply unpleasant. Neither side wants it, Syria aside.

Unneeded force wastes effort. We don't use napalm either. White phosphorus is used. Sadly. As is depleted uranium which wreaks havoc with dust. Weapons with chemical consequence abound.

Teargas was used for bunker clearing. The Russians have used sleeping gases in Chechen hostage rescues and people died from side effects. Nothing is simple with gases.

Old mustard gas is heavy liquid, bad juju. These old school simple chemical weapons were a giant toxic chemical love canal disaster. Belgium and France still heavily contaminated around the trenches.

Binary weapons safer but still pretty bad. "Safe" to handle is very qualified when field treatment is "hit it with a hammer" maintenance.

Ask yourself if the neutron bomb is still a part of rational war planning. Three days later, it's all usable as is. No electromagnetic spike damage, just smelly dead bodies to bury. Hmm. Bit niffy. Menthol up the nostrils is said to work by forensics staff.

Re: Why Don’t We Use Chemical Weapons Anymore?

#110

Post by beloch »

We don't use chemical weapons because they didn't even work that well in WWI.

The first chemical weapon attacks in WWI were quite deadly. However, chlorine, phosgene, mustard gas, etc. didn't remain effective after troops on both sides came to expect them. Once everyone had gas masks and the training to put them on quickly, chemical weapons became a mainly psychological threat. There are plentiful horror stories about gas attacks precisely because so many people survived them.

Chemical weapons and surprise are, together, a deadly combination. What might be combined with surprise in the future?

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