Chemical Warfare Capabilities Research Articles

Past British chemical warfare capabilities

Graham Pearson joined the MoD in 1962. He has managed defence research at a senior level, becoming Director General (Research and Development) in the Royal Ordnance Factories. He was Director General of the Chemical Defence Establishment‐when, it became the Defence Support Agency in 1991. In 1995 he was appointed Assistant Chief Scientific Adviser (Non‐Proliferation) in the MoD. Both have writ‐ten extensively on chemical and biological defence issues and continue their interest in the area into retirement.

Verification: The Key to Arms Control in the 1990s

Verification in the age of glasnost and open skies the politics of verification verification and Congress the politics of Soviet arms control compliance verification and mobile missiles conventional verification in a changing environment verification - cornerstone for European security open skies and multilateral verification SCLM limits and verification improving arms control compliance dispute resolution managing on-site inspections global proliferation of chemical weapons verification of chemical and biological weapons the impact of the proliferation of ballistic missiles and chemical warfare capabilities in the Middle East.

Disarmament and other options for Western policy—making on chemical warfare*

The increasing prominence of scenarios of non-nuclear war in NATO's defence planning has made the proper status of chemical warfare weapons increasingly difficult to assess. The perplexities largely stem from the relationship between chemical weapons and the nuclear threshold, and what that may mean for overall deterrence. Alone among the NATO members, France and the United States have retained chemical weapons in their arsenals. Both are now poised to modernize and expand their chemical forces. The American administration wishes to proceed with this at once, and has cited undisclosed evidence of increasing Soviet chemical warfare capabilities in justification. It has also argued that modernization and expansion would strengthen the West's negotiating position in the continuing Geneva talks on chemical warfare disarmament. At the end of 1985, the US Congress made its funding of the administration's programme conditional upon a formal expression of support from NATO. In May 1986 NATO defence ministers duly adopted a 'force goal' to this end, but made it clear that, in doing so, they were not assenting to any deployment of the new weapons to Europe. These developments have brought the issue of planning and preparedness for chemical warfare into unprecedented political visibility in Western Europe. Public opinion has not viewed the issue with equanimity. Like the neutron bomb, this subject has great potential for divisiveness. In political terms it is unsurprising, therefore, that a note of genuine conviction can be heard in the voices of West European leaders extolling the virtues of negotiated chemical warfare (CW) disarmament; and West European delegations to the 40-nation Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, where CW has been under discussion since 1968, are now negotiating with an evident will to succeed. Some of the problems confronting CW disarmament are explored in the pages which follow. The starting point is an analysis of the present CW arms control regime1 and of the CW policies that have so far flowed from it.

A retaliatory chemical warfare capability—Some problems for NATO

(1985). A retaliatory chemical warfare capability—Some problems for NATO. The RUSI Journal: Vol. 130, No. 4, pp. 15-19.

Pentagon Says Binary Chemical Arms Needed for Credible Deterrent

At a Senate Armed Services hearing late last month, Administration spokesmen outlined reasons why the Pentagon is asking Congress to end a 16-year moratorium on the production of chemical weapons by voting for funds to build binary chemical shells and bombs. Defense Department witnesses cited the Soviet's superior chemical warfare capability and the perils to civilians from chemical warfare. They also said that the U.S.'s weak capability to use chemical weapons offensively jeopardizes efforts to achieve a verifiable ban on such weapons. The Pentagon's solution to these insufficiences is the production of 115-mm binary artillery shells, which would deliver the nonpersistent nerve gas GB, and the Bigeye bomb, which would deliver the persistent nerve gas VX. To that end, it has asked Congress for $175 million. At the hearing Pentagon spokesman Thomas J. Welch, the Secretary of Defense's deputy assistant for chemical matters, argued that the U.S. does not have a chemical weapon capability ...