Modem warfare, and

The vast amount of research and development work on inoendiarieH in the World War went far toward solving the many and formidable technical problems created by the adverse conditions of modem warfare, and it may be said that, insofar an concerns the technical efficiency of the agents themselves, incendiary armament had reached a generally satisfactory state of performance. On the other band, the tactical results from use of incenffiaries in the late war were disappoiniing. This was chiefly due to two factors. First, the conditions on the Western Front and, to a somewhat less extent, on the Russian Front, were naturally very unfavorable to the use of incendiaries. Not only was the weather and much of the terrain wet and adverse to application of incendiaries. 

We now address the question of what does this mean We argue for the importance of three, related, factors. The first factor we propose is the events of the Gulf War itself. We will suggest that the initial trigger for Gulf-related illnesses were the peculiar hazards of modem warfare and the methods used to protect troops from such hazards. In particular, we will consider the threat of chemical and biological warfare and the methods used to reduce that threat. 

As a result, the strategic, operational, and tactical levels of war are an important aspect of modem warfare and the mihtary doctrine with which such warfare is conducted. A key to understanding armed conflict is the acknowledgment that warfare between organized armed entities ultimately involves fighting for a political purpose. As Clausewitz most famously noted war is not merely an act of policy... 

The bloody Second Battle of Ypres was fought in France on 22 April 1915, and was the first time in modem warfare when poison gases were employed. At a crucial... 

CBR would be relatively inexpensive compared to other modem forms of warfare and could use delivery techniques al ready developed for nuclear weapons. 

As with killing in modem warfare, that in the defence of the body uses different systems and different weapons, and collaboration and communication between the different systems is essential, hi addition, the weapons must kill without incurring substantial damage to the host tissues (i.e. minimal collateral damage). However, death of some host cells is essential in defence of the body as a whole. 

It has been recognised for many years that modem warfare is less often that of conventional army versus army confrontations [1], but now more often army versus semi-military (guerrilla) forces, street battles (urban terrain environments) [2] and insurgencies involving civilians. It can also involve challenging terrains such as deserts, jungles or mountains [3],... 

In modem warfare, such as of WWIl, the grenade, especially the rifle grenade, has [become a diversified weapon. It. started to be used not only as an antipersonnel weapon and against machine gun nests, but also against... 

The Killing Ground The British Army, the Western Front and the Emergence of Modem Warfare, 1900-1918, London Allen and Unwin, 1987. 

Before the era of modem warfare, it has always been taken for granted that during a war epidemic disease caused more deaths among the soldiers and civilians than the use of weapons. It took the atomic bomb, deployed in a ruthless and criminal manner by the United States against unarmed people and in contravention of international law, to change this assumption. 

Nearly all modem warfare is chemical. Most weapons depend on chemical reactions to burn and blast. But society usually uses the term chemical warfare to refer to the intentional exposure of people to toxic substances that can kill, sicken, or incapacitate. 

Major S.J.M. Auld, MC, was a witness to the first mihtary gas attack early in WWI, and after his service on the front, he served as a member of the British Mihtary Mission to the USA as part of the Liaison Effort between the defense organizations of the USA and her allies. While the war stiU raged, he reported on the effects of mustard gas in his textbook Gas and Flame in Modem Warfare. According to Dr Auld, the effects of mustard gas... 

Auld, S. (1918). Chapter IX Mustard or yellow cross gas. In Gas and Flame in Modem Warfare, pp. 169-84. George H. Doran Company, New York, NY. 

The toxicokinetic profile of a chemical warfare agent in mammalian organisms depends on numerous factors, including the nature of the poison, route of exposure, and species differences. Sophisticated study design, modem technical and analytical monitoring tools as well as reliable data from literature are indispensable quality criteria which should be met when performing toxicokinetic studies. The present chapter is focused on this topic. For guidance, we will comment on the stracture of this chapter to provide the reader with an impression of the content. 

The threat and magnitude of disastrous fires have been further enhanced with the development of modem incendiary and nuclear warfare. Catastrophic nuclear or incendiary fires not only involve large areas, but also cause more or less simultaneous ignition, and could envelop whole cities in fire, burning them to the ground in a matter of hours. This is in contrast with other catastrophes, in which fire develops from isolated locations and spreads with a relatively shallow front-line over a period of a few days. In 1842, the fire in the old section of Hamburg lasted four days whereas, during the fire... 

Malcolm Dando, The impact of the development of modem biology and medicine on the evolution of offensive biological warfare programs in the twentieth century, in Defense Analysis, 15 (1), 1999, 43-69, quotes from 51. 

Chemical industry thus stands as a great bulwark of strength for the maintenance of peace, for its beneficent and peaceful activities can, in case of absolute necessity, be qttickly turned into the manufacture of materials without which no successful defense of om country coitld be maintained and no army cottld withstand attack in modem warfare. [Ibid., p. 232]... 

Both chlorine and Phosgene were the two most widely used war gases in the early twentieth-century in terms of their productions, uses in the wars and the number of deaths they caused. Chlorine is a very important industrial chemical. Use of these gases in the modem warfare, especially that of chlorine has declined drastically, making way for much deadlier chemical weapons such as nerve agents. 

Much of our government and interagency [programs and program managers] seem to be in a state of denial about the requirements needed to adapt to modem warfare. 

Both the definition of victims of conflict and the scope of legal protection may have to be revised as modem warfare changes the conditions and consequences of conflict. To date, the Geneva Conventions have lent themselves to reinterpretation as the nature of conflict has evolved, providing progressively extensive legal protection in different types and situations of conflict. 

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