Battlefield chemical weapons

Pulmonary agents have been stockpiled by most countries that have pursued a chemical weapons program, and have been used a number of times on the battlefield. Although this class of agents is considered obsolete on the modern battlefield, several of these agents are still considered a significant threat as potential improvised weapons that could be utilized in urban warfare. 

Exposure to nerve agents is not restricted to the battlefield. Possible terrorist use of these weapons and the destruction of the chemical weapon depots certainly will increase the risk of exposure. Since treatment for intoxication with at least some of these organophosphorus (OP) acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors is still far from ideal, research efforts are devoted towards finding an effective treatment. 

The specter of chemical death persists. Like atom bombs, chemical weapons have been classified as weapons of mass destruction. But were they, and are they Nerve agents such as VX and sarin can certainly kill swiftly. But so can hundreds of familiar drugs and poisons. The real question is whether anyone within the limits of current technology can, in fact, use them effectively as lethal weapons on the battlefield. 

Loss of life or property from a terrorist attack at home or on om troops on a battlefield wonld be minimized or possibly prevented by the capability to detect the presence of chemical, biological, or radiological agents anywhere in the world. Detection capabilities are also reqnired at borders and U.S. ports of entry, where shipping containers and vehicles shonld be checked for evidence of chemical weapons, biological weapons, and explosives. Beyond detection, the capability to nnambignonsly identify observed threat agents is required to maximize the effectiveness of our response. 

In addition to battlefield trauma, there is also the risk of exposure to chemical weapons such as the nerve agents, notably the organophosphorus gases (soman, sarin, VX, tabun) [6]. Organophosphorus toxicity arises largely from their ability to irreversibly inhibit acetyl-cholinesterases, leading to effects associated with peripheral acetyl-choline accumulation (muscarinic syndrome) such as meiosis, profuse sweating, bradychardia, bronchioconstriction, hypotension, and diarrhoea. Central nervous system effects include anxiety, restlessness, confusion, ataxia, tremors. 

Chemical weapons are not a new method of warfare, they have been in recorded use since about 2000 BC. However, science and technology have refined these weapons and now their potential is awesome. It was the rise of the modern chemical industry at the end of the nineteenth century that first made feasible the use of significant quantities of toxic chemicals on large-scale battlefields and, indeed, chemical weapons were first used on a significant scale by both sides in the First World War. They were then used immediately after the war by Britain in Iraq (1920), and Spain in Morocco (1921). They were also used by Italy during its invasion of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935-1936, Japan during its war against China in 1937-1943, and by the United States in Vietnam... 

Certainly, some states in unstable regions of the world remain interested in chemical weapons. While they are probably not the most effective battlefield weapons, chemical weapons can instil terror in entire populations and compel governments to strike pre-emptively against chemical weapons production and storage sites. The presumption of a chemical warfare capability in an adversary state can magnify an existing condition of crisis instability. The CWC offered the prospect that in the not too distant future an entire class of unconventional weaponry would be eliminated. 

Lewisite (2-chlorvinyldichlorarsin) is another vesicant agent. Unlike sulfur mustard, there has never been a documented use in armed conflict. It was first synthesized and described by the Belgian priest and chemist Julius Arthur Nieuwland (Nieuwland, 1904). During World War I, the US military chemist Winford Lee Lewis suggested and initiated its development into a chemical weapon, which due to the 1918 armistice in Europe was not used on the battlefield (Vilensky and Redman, 2003). 

Germany s use of chemical weapons on the battlefield began on October 27, 1914 when they fired shells loaded with dianisidine chlorosulfonate, a tear gas, at the British near Neuve Chapelle. This tear gas normally produces violent sneezing. In this case, however, the chemical dispersed so rapidly in the air that the British never knew they were attacked by gas (Charles, 2005). Following this experiment, the Germans continued to test other potential chemical weapons. 

Chemical weapons were used by Saddam Hussein s Iraqi government both on the battlefield in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s and by Saddam Hussein s troops as a terrorist weapon in Kurdish villages in the northern part of Iraq. The attack on and massacre in Halabja, Iraq, on March 16, 1988, did not at the time create concern in most countries or most people, but increased awareness of the potential consequences of chemical attacks has made the Halabja massacre and its photographs a symbol of chemical weapons use against civilians around the world. 

To begin with, let me define my terms. From the military point of view, the term chemical weapons includes not only the well-known war gases as they are commonly called, but also the use of flame and smoke on the battlefield. I shall confine myself entirely to the war gases. This term in itself is inaccurate, as many of the chemical compounds concerned are not gases but rather liquids or even solids under ordinary conditions. However, the term has the sanction of established usage everyone knows what it means. It refers simply to the large-scale use of chemicals on the battlefield for their direct casualty-producing effect on the individual soldier after they have come in contact with his skin or been absorbed into his body. 

A second type of chemical weapon is rather new but has already attracted considerable military interest throughout the world—the large-scale use on the battlefield of chemicals which are not basically lethal in themselves but which produce a temporary and reversible incapacitation—for example, temporary mental confusion, temporary anesthesia, narcosis, paralysis, temporary blindness. Such chemicals used in conjunction with other nonnuclear arms could contribute to the success of a military operation, with a significant reduction in loss of life—particularly in comparison to the casualties associated with nuclear use. A situation where nonlethal weapons might be of considerable significance is found in so-called limited wars, or less than total wars, where military operations are limited in scale, area, participants, and degree of violence. In such wars it is desirable to stamp out aggression at the earliest possible moment and with minimum loss of life and property. 

Binary Chemical Weapons Chemical weapons formed from two non-lethal elements (called precursors) through a chemical reaction after the munitions are fired or launched. Binary weapons were manufactured, stored, and transported with only one of the chemical elements in the weapon. The second element was to be loaded into the weapon at the battlefield. As of November 1993, the precursors for the binary chemical weapons are stored at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland Pine Bluff Arsenal, Arkansas Tooele Army Depot, Utah and Umatilla Depot Activity, Oregon. 

The Newport factory, built at a cost of eight million dollars, was run for the Pentagon by the Food Machinery and Chemical Corporation of New York. By 1967 it had produced between four and five thousand tons of V X, and a new generation of chemical weapons had entered service with the United States. V X had been loaded into landmines, artillery shells, aircraft spray tanks, even the warheads of battlefield missiles.24 In less than ten years a potential British pesticide had become the most poisonous weapon in service with the American forces. 

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