Warfare, chemical, threat

The purpose of this book is to contribute to informed debate by providing an analysis of the development and deployment of chemical weapons from 700 bc to the present day. In Chapter 1 the groundwork for this, which follows a brief appraisal of historical prededents, is laid in a discussion of chemical warfare during the First World War, from which certain aspects are taken up and their development over subsequent years described. Chapter 2 examines the First World War in detail since it remains the most significant experience of the chemical threat. It contains some technical descriptions and a number of wider themes that have present-day relevance. One such theme is the nature of the whole... 

World War generals were the last field commanders to actually confront chemical agents on the battlefield. Today, in the light of a significant terrorist chemical threat and solid evidence of the utilisation of chemical warfare in lesser conflicts, it is by no means certain they will retain that distinction. 

Advice to naval leadership on the chemical warfare (CW) and biological warfare (BW) threat can be traced to the Cold War period. As the Navy undertook a major force buildup in the early 1980s, a memorandum from committee member Joshua Lederberg to the CNO, Admiral James Watkins, USN, was instrumental in precipitating the decision to equip some new vessels with collective protection capabilities and improved chemical weapons detectors.1... 

The committee discussed, but ultimately decided not to recommend, establishing a separate command to lead Navy warfighting efforts in chemical and biological threat environments. Unlike Navy mission areas (such as antisubmarine warfare), chemical or biological attack or the threat of such attack defines an environment in which all naval forces must be prepared to carry out their as-... 

Reactive Skin Decontamination Lotion (RSDL) has recently been approved for procurement by the U.S. military (F-Z-EM 2007). RSDL is currently marketed by E-Z-EM, Inc. and is a patented, broad spectrum, skin decontamination lotion that is used to remove or neutralize chemical threat agents and biological warfare agents such as trichothecene mycotoxin (T2 toxin), which can cause severe skin and eye irritation. RSDL was originally developed by the Canadian Defense Research Establishment and consists of 1.25 molar potassium 2,3-butanedione monoximate in poly-etheylene glycol monoethyl ethers with 10% w/v water (Sabourin et al. 2001 Lukey et al. 2004). 

O Chemical Warfare Agent Threat to Drinking Water... 

Chemical and Biological Warfare Agents Threat Spectrum... 

Vascular smooth mu.scle is inherently distinct from the other contractile muscle types, skeletal and cardiac, The contractile machinery is less organized and usually appears as sporadic bundles rather regular striations. The result is an inherent functional difference in the modulation of contractility and response to chemical threats by compound.s such as OP agents. However, relatively little work has been performed to investigate the regulation of vascular smooth muscle by OP compounds and chemical warfare agents in general. 

In a changing world, where the traditional East-West conflict has subsided in the face of steadily increased chemical agent proliferation among many Third World nations, the chemical threat appears to be increasing from smaller nations or political splinter groups with little or no sophisticated chemical warfare industrial capability. Hence we must be prepared for chemical agent attack from terrorist elements, and for crude delivery systems... 

---