Introduction

While the weaponry has progressed over the years, the reasons for use have not. It has always been about eliminating the other. That other is the civilization, group or idea that conflicts with our own. The whole point of further evolving the research of weapons has hinged on building a better killing machine. I think Lyon Playfair said it best in his statement in 1854 about the advancement of chemical weapons

 “It is considered a legitimate mode of warfare to fill shells with molten metal which scatters among the enemy, and produced the most frightful modes of death. Why a poisonous vapor which would kill men without suffering is to be considered illegitimate warfare is incomprehensible. War is destruction, and the more destructive it can be made with the least suffering the sooner will be ended that barbarous method of protecting national rights. No doubt in time chemistry will be used to lessen the suffering of combatants, and even of criminals condemned to death”. [HILMAS et al. 2008: 11]

            This research has brought us things like the hydrogen bomb, grenade, artillery cannon and the machine gun. But the most devastating weapons we have created are chemical and biological weapons. Most of these weapons cannot be seen, heard or avoided. By the time you realize what has happened, it is already too late. These weapons have the ability to blind, asphyxiate, burn, poison, contaminate natural resources, irritate, weaken and kill. The power of these weapons is unimaginable. A small dose of the modern developed bioweapons is enough to wipeout an entire city if dispersed in the correct manner. What makes these particularly deadly is the ability for the virus or bacteria to multiply and be passed from host to host.

Chemical and biological warfare are not new weapons. The use of poison tipped darts to infect the enemy over a short distance has now been perfected to the use of long ranged missiles capable of deploying deadly concoctions over a thousand miles away. Our prehistoric ancestors would be so proud.

I will begin this blog by giving a very basic history of the use of biological and chemical weapons preceding World War I. This will be followed by a description of chemical and biological weapons. Then I will discuss the wars that the United States and its allies participated in testing and use of chemical and biological weapons. I have chosen to limit myself to this specifically because the topic of chemical and biological warfare is very vast and involves many different aspects. Lastly I will touch on a few ways America and others have been attempting to dismantle these weapons.

History of Chemical and Biological Weapons Before World War I

 The history of western civilizations using biological and chemical weapons began thousands of years ago. The earliest use of biological weaponry for military purposes by a western civilization was in 600 B.C. by Athenians. They used the hellborus root to poison the water supply for the enemy’s city during the siege of Kirrha. This poisoning caused severe diarrhea that lead to an easy conquest for the Greeks.

The first use of chemical warfare began with the Spartans in the battle of Peloponnesian War. They combined pitch, a resin like substance that is extracted from tar, and sulphur onto wood boards. They burned these boards under the enemy walls to produce a choking smoke that caught the enemy off guard and allowed the Spartans to take the city with ease.

After these tactics proved useful, other armies began to adopt these strategies. The methods of chemical warfare evolved when arsenic was discovered. Armies began using arsenic smoke to produce clouds to drive out enemies during siege warfare. Veit Wolff von Senftenberg wrote about the uses of arsenic gas in the wars between the Christians and the Turk “It was a sad business. Christians must never use so murderous a weapon against other Christians. Still, it is quite in place against Turks and other miscreants.” (HILMAS et al. 2008: 11) This reference to the Turks identifies them as the other or not of the same group. This is the idea behind what is known as the structure of violence. By identifying the Turks as miscreants, it insinuates that these people deserve die by the use of such a murderous weapon.

            The technology of biological weapons increased as the knowledge of disease and sickness grew. Once militaries realized how diseases spread, they began to use it as a more effective weapon. This began simply with the use of infected corpses being catapulted over enemy walls. This idea was also applied to poisoning water supplies with infected corpses. This idea was perpetually used as to conquer civilization with the use of smallpox infected blankets that were given to the Native Americans. By using these methods, smaller armies were only required to eliminate a large enemy force that was debilitated by the spread of infection.

Types of Chemical Weapons

              All chemical weapons fall into the group of chemical agents. A chemical agent is “intended for use in military operations to kill, seriously injure, or incapacitate man because of its physiological effects.” (HILMAS et al. 2008: 10)These weapons fall into different categories depending on what type of destructive abilities they contain. There are seven categories of chemical agents. The seven categories are antipersonnel agents, choking agents, blood agents, vesicants, non-irritating incapacitates, nerve agents, anti-plant agents.

Antipersonnel agents consisted of compounds intended to make the target sneeze and tear. This caused temporary blindness or tearing, sneezing, shortness of breath and a discharge of blood from the nose and mouth.

Next we will discuss choking agents. This agent’s gas causes immediate severe damage to the respiratory system ending in fatality. This damaged is accompanied in some cases by a buildup of fluid that suffocates the victim. The lethality depends on how close the person is to the area of the gas’s release.

Blood agents attack the respiratory functions in the body. When attacked they cause coughing accompanied by frothy mucus and saliva. This inability to breathe is followed by convulsions, cardiac arrest, coma and death. In minor doses the symptoms are less severe. These include dizziness and headache.

Vesicants are chemical weapons designed specifically to attack any exposed and moist skin. This weapon creates a painful blistering effect on the exposed skin. If inhaled in high doses it will cause the same blistering effects internally in the respiratory areas. This would result in death immediately or after the course of four or five days. This gas could also attack the victim’s eyes causing blindness.

Non-irritating incapacitates are used to cause confusion. One of the only non-irritating incapacitates has been tested for warfare is 3-quinuclidinyl benzilate or BZ for short. The effects of this drug are not always consistent but can be in the range of dehydration, hallucination, distorted vision, slurred speech, lethargic behavior, loss of motor skills and incoherent thought. The stupor that this compound creates was intended, like mentioned earlier, to cause confusion in the ranks, and make nonviolent capture of hostiles possible.

            Nerve agents are one of the scariest chemical agents. They are undetectable by the human senses and therefore make it very difficult know if you have been exposed. Nerve agents have a large range of effects. They can be mild such as dizziness and confusion. In stronger doses, it progresses to twitching, vomiting, paralysis and death. Another interesting reaction to nerve agents is paresthesia, a sense of burning or itching feeling on the skin.

  The name anti-plant agent does  just as the name states. These are chemicals used to destroy foliage that enemies use as cover. It also has other uses, such as destroying enemy food sources and eliminating plants for illegal sale like marijuana and coca. Effects of these chemical on humans is a burning and itching feeling on the skin, paralysis, restricted breathing and lesions. These effects do not even include the long lasting effects to exposure such as, permanent nerve damage, tumors, birth defects in child from parents exposed to nerve agents and leukemia. These anti-plant agents are similar to the insecticides and anti-fungal products used by many farms today. This agent has been proven to have significantly lowered sperm count in males that have worked on agricultural farms. One example is the ongoing lawsuit between Standard Fruit and two thousand of its employees over alleged sterility as an effect of its chemical sprayings.

Types of Biological Weapons

There are five categories for biological weapons. These five are toxins, viruses, rikettsiae, bacteria and anti-plant. These should be feared greatly. The reason for this is that unlike chemical weapons, some of these can be spread from person to person or animal to person. The area of the weapons release maybe small, but because the spread of infection is very likely. By doing this, it is able to capitalize on this and multiply.

In the category of toxins, botulism is most well-known. Botulism is a nerve toxin that targets the respiratory functions. This can be fatal in large doses. Even in small doses it can be fatal if not treated in time. The treatment takes months to rid the body of infection. If it is to be used as a weapon, it would target food sources. This toxin carries the tittle of being the most poisonous material known to man. If used in an aerosol disbursement method, one gram of this toxin has the ability to kill up to one million people.

Most viruses used as biological weapons are spread after airborne dispersal methods by mosquitos. Two viruses that are commonly known are yellow fever and Venezuelan equine encephalomyelitis. The Venezuelan virus is also known as west nile virus and is related to the biological agent Japanese encephalitis, which is a culmination of many similar viruses into one more potent virus. These viruses cause high fever, aches and vomiting. These viruses have .03 to sixty percent chance for fatality in severe cases. But the idea is to incapacitate the enemy for an easier siege. Many of these symptoms are similar to rikettsiae Q fever. The only difference is the chance of mortality without treatment is much lower, about two percent.

Bacterial agents that are most commonly known are plague, anthrax and cholera. I would like to talk about anthrax specifically. This bacterium has an extremely high mortality rate if used correctly in airborne dispersal, about seventy-five percent. This is due to the fact that there is currently no medicine to counteract the inhalation of anthrax spores. If inhaled, it produces flu like symptoms, followed days later by death from pulmonary complications and blood poisoning. The spores that cause the sickness also have a very large half-life lasting of decades in a contaminated area.

Anti-plant agents are used in biological warfare to specifically target enemy food sources in order to cause starvation. Two examples are rice blast and wheat stem rust. Rice blast is a fungus that destroys the rice plant. It is estimated that enough rice crops are destroyed every year by this fungus to feed sixty million people.

World War I

The knowledge of chemical and biological weapons grew in leaps and bounds during World War I. This can be attributed to research efforts by France, Germany, Russia and America. During the time World War I a whole host of new chemical weapons were used. These gasses severed as a way to cause panic and fear among the ranks in soldiers. These gases were very hard to tell the difference of until the effects took place. These weapons fall into different categories depending on what type of destructive abilities they contain. During World War I antipersonnel agents, choking agents, blood agents and vesicants were used.

The most popular antipersonnel agent was bromoacetone. Before World War I the French had discovered the usefulness of antipersonnel agents when trying to control large crowds of people rioting. The applied the same strategy during the war to disperse enemy troops that were hunkered down in trenches.

Choking agents were considered the most deadly chemical weapon in the arsenal of armies during World War I. It began with the use of chlorine gas. When the German army used this gas on a large scale in World War I, it became the first use of chemical weapons of mass destruction. This caused a large scale use of chlorine gas to be used by Allied forces in retaliation. Chlorine gas was soon replaced by a more effective killer, phosgene. To be exact, it was a ten times more effective.

Blood agents such as cyanide were used very rarely during the course of World War I. This is because it was difficult to release enough into the air to cause death in the enemy. Last on the list of chemical weapons used during World War I are vesicants. Two types of vesicants used during World War I are sulfur mustard and arsenical. Sulfur mustard gas caused fear in many soldiers, for good reason. This gas, if dispersed in heavy concentration, would settle in low areas on the battlefield such as trenches and craters caused by artillery fire and stay there for hours or even days. If an unsuspecting solider were to jump into one of these areas for cover, they would break out in large blisters.

By the end of World War I, 26 million casualties were counted. Of those 26 million, one million were attributed to chemical warfare. This number does not take into account the soldiers that as a result of chemical weapons weeks or months after coming into contact during battle.

The effects of the chemical weapons were felt by the armies even after the war. Many soldiers returned home disabled. Although they were fortunate to have survived the war, it came with a heavy cost .These costs were blindness, loss of speech, severe chemical allergies and respiratory issues. These issues left many veterans few choices when they returned home.

Chemical Weapons Stockpiling and Use During World War II

There was was a massive stockpiling of chemical weapons during World War II. This also goes in hand with the development of new breeds of chemical weapons. Vast amounts of chemical weapons were stockpiled by both the Japanese and German armies. This stockpile consisted of eight thousand tons of chemical agents by the Japanese, seventy-eight thousand tons by the Germans.

 These stockpiles consisted of new chemical weapons such as sarin, soman and nitrogen mustard. Most deadly was sarin gas. This gas was developed by noble prize winner of chemistry of 1938, Dr. Richard Kuhn. Sarin gas is an organic phosphate compound. This compound is very similar to the insecticide zyklon b, which was used by the German army in the Jewish concentration camps to kill massive amounts of innocent Jews simultaneously in a confined area. The number of those killed by zyklon b is estimated to be over one million.

These new chemicals were being transformed into more deadly weapons. The invention of rockets allowed a chemical warhead to be fixed on the rocket and launched up to five miles away before exploding its deadly cargo. With the birth of the aircraft it also made possible the chemical bomb. This could disperse massive amounts of chemical gas on a single target area.

Biological Weapons Use and Testing During World War II

Biological weapons evolved as well during World War II. Countries that participated in this research were Japan, American, England, Canada, France, Italy, and Hungary. Out of these seven countries, only four produced enough research to be mentioned. Those four are America, Canada, England and Japan. These four all worked on the research pertaining to anthrax. England, Canada and America worked together during the war to produce anthrax cakes that were intended to be feed to enemy livestock, but were never used even though over five million were produced.

England was the only one of the three to produce a bomb capable of deploying anthrax. These bombs were detonated on Gruinard Island as the testing ground. This island remained infected for over fifty years until finally being decontaminated by the British government.

Japan was the only country that actually used biological and chemical weapons during the time of 1932-1945. During Japan’s invasion of China, many chemical weapons and biological weapons were used. Most notable of the chemical weapons used was nitrogen mustard. The use of biological weapons was anthrax, typhoid fever, dysentery, cholera and plague.

  They were the country doing the most advanced research at the time. Mostly impart because they were doing this research on humans. This research was confined to three facilities that are known of to this date, unit 100, unit 731 and Ei-1644. Ei-1644 was a Chinese hospital that was turned into a test lab, but Chinese seeking medical assistance did not know this. These units did some of the most unimaginable and disgusting things to human subjects to date. I will only mention those that pertain to biological and chemical testing in this article. These experiments involved infecting subjects with previously discussed toxins, poisons and chemicals in order to see what the reaction would be on the individual. While the subject was still alive, an autopsy was conducted to see what reaction the subject had to the tests. Others that had survived the test trial were killed in other horrendous manners. At least ten-thousand prisoners died in these labs. These prisoners were Chinese civilians, Chinese resistance fighters, Russian and American prisoners of war as well. Of all these prisoners, it has been told by members of the research teams that not a single person was let survive.

These tests were not limited to just laboratory settings. The researchers also did field studies in cities surrounding the labs. These included giving children chocolate bars laced with anthrax, poisoning of wells and rivers, the release of plague infected fleas over large cities and the release of bacterial clouds.

Talal Asad wrote about the use of cruel behavior and torture. In his writing, he defines the meaning of cruelty as degrading and physical treatment of those that are seen as less than human. He then proceeds to use the example of children and defeated enemies in this definition as being less than human in the eyes of the persecutor. I would say that you can draw a comparison between this theory and the Japanese thoughts of the Chinese and prisoners of war during these acts.

These studies were tests of their newly developed weapons, the uji bomb and the ha bomb. The uji bomb contained plague fleas that were released when a small charge exploded the porcelain container holding the fleas. The ha bomb was a bomb that when detonated released shrapnel that had been infected with anthrax spores.

The final number victims for these experiments number in the area of 250 thousand. This number cannot be confirmed because the majority of the research has not been released to this date. Any researchers that were captured by the American army were charged with crimes but then the charges were dropped in exchange for the information that had been documented on the human test subjects. Japan has only recently acknowledged the exisistance of these labs in 2002. Some nurses that had worked at the labs have come forward about the crimes committed as well in 2006.