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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?

#41

Post by merely-unlikely »

mikem170 wrote: post #27

Funny, he never mentioned the chemical weapons that are used all the time, domestically, on protesters. Here's a couple articles I found: https://www.thecut.com/2020/06/tear-gas-is-a-chemical-weapon... https://www.newsweek.com/richmond-chemical-weapons-protests-... My two cents: In general, shouldn't our elected "leaders" arrange to meet with protesters, people who are obviously very frustrated, and spend the time to…

Legal for police use but banned in warfare. I agree with your point though.

> The 1925 Geneva Protocol categorized tear gas as a chemical warfare agent and banned its use in war shortly after World War I.

> In 1993, nations could begin signing the U.N.'s Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) that outlawed the use of riot control agents in warfare.

> A database by the International Committee of the Red Cross shows the ban of riot control agents in war went into effect in 1997, but still made it legal for law enforcement use. The Senate approved the CWC in a 74-26 vote on April 25, 1997

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/06/06/fac...

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

#42

Post by spywaregorilla »

nautilius wrote: post #24
DubiousPusher wrote: post #14

Good to see this posted again. I see a concurring example in aerial bombardment policy of the US and the UK throughout WWII. I even wrote a paper regarding it in college. Both the US and the UK wanted to target the war making capacity of the Germans. The Americans sought to achieve this with strategic precision bombing. The UK sought to do so with mass bombing campaigns targeting industrial workers. The disparity for…

Ooh, nice! "Targeting industrial workers to target the war making capacity" sounds so much nicer than "indiscriminate mass killing of civilians". Don't get me wrong, the Germans had it coming, but let's stop lying to ourselves, shall we?

Targeting industrial facilities however seems likely to work though.

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

#43

Post by MichaelCollins »

nautilius wrote: post #24
DubiousPusher wrote: post #14

Good to see this posted again. I see a concurring example in aerial bombardment policy of the US and the UK throughout WWII. I even wrote a paper regarding it in college. Both the US and the UK wanted to target the war making capacity of the Germans. The Americans sought to achieve this with strategic precision bombing. The UK sought to do so with mass bombing campaigns targeting industrial workers. The disparity for…

Ooh, nice! "Targeting industrial workers to target the war making capacity" sounds so much nicer than "indiscriminate mass killing of civilians". Don't get me wrong, the Germans had it coming, but let's stop lying to ourselves, shall we?

I think in principle there is a difference, or could be. They might prioritize neighborhoods with the greatest concentration of workers in strategic industries, rather than the neighborhoods with the largest populations.

But... is that really what they were doing?

> In the raid, major industrial areas in the suburbs, which stretched for miles, were not targeted.[10] According to historian Donald Miller, "the economic disruption would have been far greater had Bomber Command targeted the suburban areas where most of Dresden's manufacturing might was concentrated".[48]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_Wa...

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

#44

Post by jillesvangurp »

codefreeordie wrote: post #2

Because they're not really useful. It's very difficult to keep chemical weapons contained so that they only damage your target and not your own soldiers or your allies or a bunch of civilians whose gruesome deaths will not play well in the media. In general, conventional weaponry is more effective at accomplishing military objectives.

It's probably more because of the horrific effects it has mainly on non-military targets and the fact that people tend to be held accountable afterwards. As happened to e.g. Chemical Ali, a general in the Iraqi regime famous for his use of chemical weapons on civilians, who was hanged in 2010 for his actions. Likewise the mere hint of such weapons being used in Syria, caused them to be isolated further.

So, most modern military would be keenly aware that the use of such weapons might have long term consequences for them personally and hands the moral high ground to their opponent almost automatically almost immediately. This has mostly negative consequences short term and it's probably counter productive. If that was not the case, we'd be seeing those weapons used in e.g. the Ukraine right now by the Russians. And they seem to have no reservations about targeting civilians otherwise. But it's hard to spin gassing civilians as heroic or patriotic. Even in Russia. Kind of destroys their de-nazificaton pitch.

Even the Nazis did not go there during WWII. Aside of course from committing genocide as part of the holocaust. They did actually develop chemical weapons but they never deployed them on the battle field: https://www.history.com/news/the-nazis-developed-sarin-gas-b...

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

#45

Post by SXX »

swayvil wrote: post #32
nautilius wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ooh, nice! "Targeting industrial workers to target the war making capacity" sounds so much nicer than "indiscriminate mass killing of civilians". Don't get me wrong, the Germans had it coming, but let's stop lying to ourselves, shall we?

If we trust our leaders. And our leaders feed us a bunch of bullshit. And then, motivated by that bullshit, we nazi up. Does that make us bad people? This stuff has been researched deeply. Something like 96% of the population. Nice people. Not idiots. Will swallow absolutely anything that the leader feeds them. It may be unfixable. Or maybe the only way to fix it is to destroy all forms of mass media.

Sentient AI will fix it. We might not like the fix though.

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

#46

Post by samatman »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #13

> The other large-scale use has been in the Syrian Civil War, by the Assad regime against both military and civilian targets (but mostly civilian targets). False propaganda unfortunately according to the OPCW inspectors who actually went to Syria, including the director of the OPCW. But you can ignore them and take the CIA's word for it instead like the author of this article did. https://hitchensblog.mailonsunday.co…

White phosphorus is neither a war-zeppelin-bomber nor a chemical weapon.

Not sure which one you were under the misapprehension that it was. It's neither.

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

#47

Post by girvo »

mikem170 wrote: post #27

Funny, he never mentioned the chemical weapons that are used all the time, domestically, on protesters. Here's a couple articles I found: https://www.thecut.com/2020/06/tear-gas-is-a-chemical-weapon... https://www.newsweek.com/richmond-chemical-weapons-protests-... My two cents: In general, shouldn't our elected "leaders" arrange to meet with protesters, people who are obviously very frustrated, and spend the time to…

Because the article is about the why of militaries, and in case you didn’t read it, the article explicitly calls out the use of tear gas by police etc. as chemical weapon use, but as being orthogonal to the point they wanted to discuss.

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

#48

Post by FpUser »

justapassenger wrote: post #35
tenpies wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The biggest difference is political: when someone the media doesn't like does it, it's a chemical weapon. When someone the media likes does it, it's nothing. See: https://www.salon.com/2020/06/02/trump-may-have-broken-inter... vs https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/us/protests-portland-seat...

Please don’t confuse stupid political fights in media with real chemical weapons. It’s insulting to people who were killed/disabled as a result of chemical weapons.

>"It’s insulting to people who were killed/disabled as a result of chemical weapons."

While those killed by conventional weapons rejoice in heavens. Hypocrisy has no bounds.

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

#49

Post by GartzenDeHaes »

0. For chemical and biological weapons, there's in inverse relationship between dispersal characteristics and ease of force protection. For example, oily liquids such as VX disperse well, but personnel can be projected with simple charcoal lined protective clothes and gas mask filters. On the other hand, viruses and microtoxins are difficult to protect against, but they also have poor dispersal characteristics from bombs and projectiles.

1. The armed forces of major countries spend a lot of effort to LOOK as if they are prepared to operate under chemical and biological conditions. This includes large stockpiles of protective gear and regular exercises that include chemical weapons scenarios.

2. Chemical and biological weapons aren't used militarily because there's little reason to think that they would be effective. 2.

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

#50

Post by nicoburns »

swayvil wrote: post #32
nautilius wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ooh, nice! "Targeting industrial workers to target the war making capacity" sounds so much nicer than "indiscriminate mass killing of civilians". Don't get me wrong, the Germans had it coming, but let's stop lying to ourselves, shall we?

If we trust our leaders. And our leaders feed us a bunch of bullshit. And then, motivated by that bullshit, we nazi up. Does that make us bad people? This stuff has been researched deeply. Something like 96% of the population. Nice people. Not idiots. Will swallow absolutely anything that the leader feeds them. It may be unfixable. Or maybe the only way to fix it is to destroy all forms of mass media.

> If we trust our leaders. And our leaders feed us a bunch of bullshit. And then, motivated by that bullshit, we nazi up. Does that make us bad people?

Yes, absolutely. Deferring to authority is no excuse for morally abhorrent behaviour. Of course if you’re under threat that’s a different matter. But blind trust in leadership is a poor excuse. It’s not like the nazis had no detractors in Germany.

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