Chemical and Biological Warfare

Abstract

Why should the world be more averse to chemical and biological warfare (CBW) than to other forms of war, repeatedly attempting to ban such warfare by means of international law? Is there some objective difference between poison gas or plague bacilli on one hand, and steel bullets, or B-52 high explosive bombs, or nuclear weapons on the other? Or does CBW instead illustrate the faddishness and superficiality of disarmament campaigns in general? The Allied Powers after 1919 may indeed have condemned chemical warfare simply to reinforce the impression that Germany was morally culpable in World War I. The Germans supposedly had initiated the of gas warfare (although the first use here might really have to be pinned on France instead); if Germans had used such weapons first, such must have been evil. Perhaps instead the aversion to gas reflected the horrors of such warfare for the soldier exposed to it, although casualty statistics suggest that fewer soldiers died or were permanently maimed after being incapacitated by gas, as compared with those stricken by other means. Perhaps instead the techniques of chemistry and biology have seemed unclean and unmanly, the products of odd-ball scientists ensconced in laboratories, reflecting perverted scientific ingenuity rather than the bravery of cold steel. The