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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?

#151

Post by rodonn »

vilhelm_s wrote: post #76
rodonn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are solid/liquid forms that persist for much much longer. Look at the efforts UK went through to clean up after the chemical attack in Salisbury (which was a liquid in a perfume bottle).

Even the most long-lasting ones will still evaporate in a few weeks. (Of course, if it's inside a bottle it will not evaporate, and if it's inside a city you probably want to decontaminate it rather than wait).

It's a bit hard to say for sure since it is all classified info for the most part. This article cites one of the creators for claiming it could last for years https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/novichok-nerve-ag...

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

#152

Post by gentleman11 »

rayrrr wrote: post #9

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind. Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!—An ec…

Beautiful and terrible poem.

Not even Nazi Germany or Stalin wanted to recreate those battlefields, even at Stalingrad and when the Nazis were on the run from the Russians. Whoever reintroduces these weapons is stepping in front of some real monsters in the history books

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

#153

Post by lstodd »

afthonos wrote: post #106
j9461701 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 w…

> procuring the necessary explosives to injure 1000 people may be harder than procuring the equivalent sarin gas

Bullshit.

Procuring sarin is nontrivial organic synthesis. Procuring ANFO is just a question of ordering some diesel and fertilizer.

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

#154

Post by lstodd »

dmurray wrote: post #95
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? 5 kg of explosives? Definitely not.

> 5 kg of explosives? Definitely not.

For the costs they went with for the gas they could have toppled half a dozen skyscrapers in Tokyo.

They were insane.

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

#155

Post by clacke2 »

redis_mlc wrote: post #147
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While terrorism (going by the classical definition) hasn’t had had any (or many?) victories of that sort - let’s not pretend that acts of terrorism don’t achieve political goals - and if nothing else they make the people in charge sit-up and take notice. There’s only one example I can comfortably talk about: I don’t believe Devolution and the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland would have come about if it weren…

My understanding is that US envoys and a moderator was the main reason for the ceasefire.

Would they have even been there if not for the terrorism?

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

#156

Post by kjs3 »

robin_reala wrote: post #104
rayrrr wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 )

Fantastic. While lots of folks have read "Dulce et delcorum..." at least once, but Owen has a worthwhile body of work that deserves modern remembrance. Huge loss he died so young.

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

#157

Post by thedance »

donw wrote: post #13
thedance wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why aren't chemical weapons (for example VX) effective area denial weapons? They seem damned good for the purpose.

Because they deny the area to you as well. Cleaning up a minefield is child's play compared to dealing with nerve agents.

This is an argument against area denial doctrine, not an argument against chemical weapons as agents of area denial.

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

#158

Post by Balgair »

Spooky23 wrote: post #133
rsynnott wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> maintaining a supply of chemical weapons is dangerous I don't really buy this one. I mean, I agree it's dangerous, but the major powers maintained large stocks throughout the Cold War without apparently worrying about it too much. More recently it's become a somewhat expensive disposal problem, but in terms of cost it's not really significant next to the cost of maintaining, say, aircraft carriers, or nuclear warhe…

It's expensive to properly maintain those stockpiles, and even a well-funded military did a particularly bad job at it. There's no glory in keeping pallets of drums in good condition. Leaks happen and have happened, etc.

For instance: https://www.businessinsider.com/kitty-litter-nuclear-waste-a...

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

#159

Post by Balgair »

jonmartinwest wrote: post #62
kitteh wrote: post #43

Another reason: maintaining a supply of chemical weapons is dangerous. Turns out no city/state wants that stockpile, either. Years ago a co-worker of mine at the phone company had to go to military base in Terre Haute to work on some high speed circuits that weren't working properly. The network room was in the basement of a warehouse that stored VX nerve agents - rows and rows of it. When he got to the base he had t…

Dzerzhinsk in Russian is a great example of this.

> Dzerzhinsk is one of the worst-polluted cities of the world and has a life expectancy of 42 years for men and 47 for women, with the 2003 death rate exceeding its birth rate by 260%.

Holy Cow!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dzerzhinsk,_Russia

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

#160

Post by eecc »

jcranmer wrote: post #138
23B1 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> terrorizing the population into surrendering. This is asymmetrical warfare in a nutshell

Except terrorizing a population into surrendering hasn't proven to be an effective tactic in history. I'm struggling to think of a single case where it actually happened.

Uhm, nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
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