Weapons of Mass Destruction

The specter of nuclear weapons and similar weapons of mass destruction (WMD) looms like a dark shadow for people around the world, even for those who have never even seen the images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Stockpiles remain, while some countries are only beginning to build caches of their own. Even more concerning is that terrorist networks are known to be developing the capacity for building and using nuclear weapons. This paper will take an in-depth look at weapons of mass destruction in the twenty-first century. The reader will glean a better understanding of the types of such weaponry, as well as a stronger appreciation of the forces that push leaders to either dismantle or build their WMD arsenals.

Keywords Aum Shinrikyo; Dirty Bomb; Mutually Assured Destruction; Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT); Radiological Dispersion Devices (RDD); Rogue Nation; Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Sociology & Technology > Weapons of Mass Destruction

Overview

Tomiko Morimoto remembers the day as if it was yesterday. The sky was clear, and despite the fact that the familiar drone of an American B-29 bomber hummed from the sky, she had little fear. After all, Hiroshima had not yet been bombed during the war, but countless reconnaissance airplanes had flown over her city. What happened next, however, forever scarred her. She saw a flash as bright as the sun followed by a loud explosion. "Everything started falling down," she recalls. "All the buildings started flying around all over the place." As she escaped the growing fire, she watched helplessly as her city burned. The next day, she and the other children were released from their exile to find their way home. She crossed a railroad bridge and saw what was once a river had become "a sea of dead people." She lives now in a quiet town in upstate New York, grateful for her life but fearful of the fact that nuclear weapons still exist. "I'm always afraid as more countries have the atomic bomb. I fear the end of the world" (Phillips, 2005).

The horrific scenes of Hiroshima and later Nagasaki were indeed traumatic to those who viewed their images as well as those who witnessed them first-hand. Even those who had dropped the bomb had no idea of the devastation the atomic bomb would cause when detonated over the enemy. Then again, the two bombs used in Japan during World War II were far less powerful than the ones that would be built after the war. The United States and its allies built up an enormous stockpile of these nuclear weapons (as well as the cutting-edge technologies used to deliver them), and their primary competitor in the Cold War, the USSR, and its allies and satellite states in the Warsaw Pact, did the same.

In the post-World War II world, the term "weapons of mass destruction" refers to a weapon capable of inflicting massive destruction to property and/or the human population. Long after the Cold War came to a close and after many of these arsenals were dismantled, the specter of nuclear weapons and similar weapons of mass destruction (WMD) looms for people around the world, even for those who have never seen the images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Stockpiles remain, while some countries are only beginning to build caches of their own. Even more frightening is that terrorist networks are known to be developing the capacity for building and using nuclear weapons.

This paper will take an in-depth look at WMD in the twenty-first century. The reader will glean a better understanding of the types of such weaponry, as well as a stronger appreciation of the forces that push leaders to either dismantle or build their WMD arsenals.

Chemical & Biological Weapons Use

In 1937, German bombers, at the behest of the Spanish government, laid siege to the ancient Basque city of Guernica, dropping thousands of pounds of explosives on the Spanish town, including thousands of two-pound incendiary projectiles. In their pursuit of crushing insurgents, the Germans literally razed the city in an attack that lasted for three hours. People attempting to escape were either gunned down at the city limits or pushed back into the city to be buried under fiery rubble. George Steer of the London Times commented on the devastation, coining a term that would become a household phrase for generations to come: "Who can think without horror of what another widespread war would mean, waged as it would be with all the new weapons of mass destruction?" (Macfarlane, 2005, p. 2).

Of course, Steer's use of the term was in reference to the devastation of Guernica. The Germans used conventional weapons of the era, such as grenades and artillery, that were non-nuclear, non-biological, and non-chemical. The destruction was total, to be sure, but it was not of an unconventional nature. In the post-World War II world, however, "weapons of mass destruction" refers to a weapon that is capable of inflicting massive destruction to property and humans. Although Steer referred to conventional weaponry, the phrase has long since been equated with nuclear, chemical, or biological arms.

Interestingly, one of the manifestations of WMDs pre-dated the use of conventional weapons at Guernica. Early in the First World War, the French fired tear gas canisters at their German enemies, and the Germans used similar tear gas weaponry in much larger quantities shortly thereafter. One year into the war, however, the Germans built upon their use of chemical weapons, launching chlorine gas attacks on the Western Front and either killing or severely wounding large numbers of Allied troops. The attacks were quickly condemned, but the British retaliated with their own chlorine weaponry. As the war escalated, so, too, did the use of chemical weapons. Chlorine was mixed with phosgene, and mustard gas soon followed. Had the war not come to an end when it did, historians believe, some 30-50 percent of all manufactured artillery shells would have contained poison gases (Duffy, 2007).

The Armistice of 1918 and the Geneva Conventions banned such weaponry. However, not all segments of humankind put their faith in such older treaties during the course of their own wars. In fact, they were used almost immediately in the Pacific War of the 1930s, when the Japanese are alleged to have used them on the Chinese. The United States had employed a policy of no-first-use for chemical weapons, threatening to use them only if they were used against US forces. However, a German bombing run on an American ship in Italy destroyed thousands of 100-pound mustard bombs.

During the Vietnam War, the United States used defoliants and riot-control chemical weapons, but it also ratified the Geneva Protocols pertaining to such weapons in 1975. The Protocols also gave the United States the right to retaliate using such chemical WMDs if they were used against the United States. Vietnam had received a large stockpile of chemical weapons, most likely from the USSR, but WMDs played no significant role in the war. The United States’ use of Agent Orange to control vegetation has notoriously caused long-term health effects for both US veterans and the Vietnamese (Scott, et al., 2003).

In 1993, the United States signed the United Nations Chemical Weapons Convention, agreeing to completely dismantle its chemical stockpiles (Federation of American Scientists, 2000). A great many other nations also ratified the treaty, but many others did not. In fact, the broad-scale ratification of international treaties designed to halt production and dismantle existing stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons are, in a way, making the environment more complicated. Some believe that the many states that have not ratified the treaties may, in fact, be continuing their chemical and biological weaponry development programs.

Chemical and biological weapons remain some of the more elusive forms of WMDs due in part to their constant evolution and to the technological limitations in tracking their production and transport. As so-called rogue nations (those that are perceived to have sponsored various forms of international terrorism or act outside of other international laws) become increasingly isolated, their propensity to provide such weaponry to non-state or extra-national armed groups or use them on an open battlefield becomes less of an option to them (Slesnick, 2007). Nevertheless, their continued presence among those who refuse to comply with international bans signifies that they remain a threat to global security. Due to Russia’s known stockpile of chemical and biological weapons in 2023, there was fear the country would deploy them in their war with Ukraine (Arms Control Association).

In 1993, 130 nations signed the Chemical Weapons Convention prepared by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. This agreement sought to eliminate chemical WMDs from production, to stockpiling, to use. In 2023, 193 states had signed the Convention and 99 percent of chemical weapon stockpiles had been eliminated. Chemical weapons, however, continued to exist (OPCW, 2023).

Nuclear Weapons

When Robert Oppenheimer first saw the destructive power his atom bomb demonstrated at Alamogordo, New Mexico, in 1945, he famously invoked the words of the Hindu epic Bhagavad Gita: "If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst forth at once in the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One," he said, adding, "I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds" (Center for Defense Information, 2008).

The bomb that was detonated over Hiroshima yielded about 12 kilotons of explosive power on that city, the equivalent of about 4.8 million sticks of dynamite (Allison, 2005). In the twenty-first century, there are thousands of nuclear weapons tipped with warheads that are hundreds of times more powerful than that bomb (Roth, 2006).

Mutually Assured Destruction

Traditionally, the world’s nuclear powers have remained hesitant to deploy nuclear weapons during a war. Cold War adversaries, for example, understood that any war they fought with nuclear weapons would be won at too great a cost. With this fact in mind, a long-standing policy between the US-led West and the Soviet Union-led East kept the two countries from engaging in open warfare. This policy, known as Mutually Assured Destruction, was by and large successful in this regard—neither side wanted to risk launching its nuclear arsenal at the other, so neither side would allow a direct confrontation to occur (Downing, 2008). This approach would be the dominant mode of thought for much of the Cold War years.

With the exceptions of the Cuban Missile Crisis and President Reagan's resurgent rebuilding of the American nuclear arsenal, US and Soviet nuclear stockpiles began shrinking with the introduction of several UN-sponsored non-proliferation and disarmament treaties. When the Cold War came to an end, the greatest nuclear powers in the world saw no need to continue building their stockpiles, and the world began to feel as if the specter of nuclear war was fading.

The United States and the Soviet Union were not, however, the sole nuclear powers in the world. China tested its first nuclear bomb. India, Israel, and Pakistan would not be far behind. Interestingly, India, Israel, and Pakistan would not sign the landmark Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but many more would (although they would disarm not long after declaring their nuclear capabilities), such as the former Soviet states, South Africa, and Iraq. Three states, however, have captured international attention as so-called "states of immediate proliferation concern," which means that they are alleged to continue to develop their nuclear programs in defiance of the demands of the international community: Syria, Iran, and North Korea (Arms Control Association, 2007).

With the continued development of nuclear weapons by sovereign nation-states, concerns remain not only about the warheads being constructed but about the methods by which such weapons might be delivered. Two decades after President Reagan fought for a space-based missile defense system, President George W. Bush fought for missile interceptor installations in Europe. In fact, the issue of weapons delivery remains just as paramount in terms of inter-state relations as does the nature of the weapons themselves. One missile defense advocate maintains that the best policy in this regard is not diplomacy, mutually assured deterrence, or even a measured response. Rather, he argues, the best response is to use modern technology to its fullest to create an impenetrable missile shield to protect American interests (Ellison, 2008).

The end of the Cold War also created a nuclear security situation. With the breakup of the Soviet Union, the stockpiles of many of that former collective's members were left in questionable states of security. Such risks create opportunities for sub-national groups, such as terrorist organizations, to obtain weapons of mass destruction for their own purposes. As much as the global community has worked to deescalate the threat of nuclear war, some things have not changed from the days of the Cold War. In 2023, the US and Russia still held 89 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons and 86 percent of its warheads (FAS, 2023).

Further Insights

WMDs & Terrorism

The horrific results of the use of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons would seem to fit perfectly into the plans of sub-national armed organizations and networks seeking to instill fear into their targets. For a long time, however, these groups eschewed the use of such WMDs for two major reasons: The technologies used to create WMDs were not easily obtained since state security organizations held them under tight guard. Also, targeting innocent individuals is believed to have deterred sub-nationals from using WMDs, especially in an era in which such images would be quickly viewed around the world, which could then create a backlash among would-be sympathizers and supporters (Cronin, 2003).

This latter concern among terrorist groups was cast aside by the Japanese group Aum Shinrikyo, whose leader sought to destroy Japan in order that he would reemerge as its new leader. In 1994 and 1995, the group launched a series of chemical and biological weapons attacks on their perceived enemies as well as innocent targets in a residential neighborhood and, most infamously, on a crowded subway in Tokyo. The two attacks killed nearly twenty people and injured thousands. Had the group not made a series of logistical mistakes, the death toll would almost certainly have been much higher. Police cracking down on the group after the subway attack discovered that Aum Shinrikyo was attempting to create powerful biological agents and already had enough sarin gas to kill more than four million people (Choy, 2002). In a world in which such groups had previously proven unable to use WMDs in their activities, the Japanese terrorist group became the first to use them almost exclusively.

Indeed, several spectacular terrorist attacks in the latter twentieth and early twenty-first centuries suggest that their fear of losing support among likely constituents was subsiding. With the willingness to use WMDs increasing among some terrorist groups, all that was lacking was access to either the technology to build WMDs or the weapons themselves.

For example, the fall of the Soviet Union and the subsequent instability among its former satellite states exacerbated fears that a terrorist group might obtain nuclear technology or materials through black market networks and create a crude but a more easily assembled weapon.

WMDs became a common topic for the media as the administration of George W. Bush used the rationale that Saddam Hussein, the leader of Iraq, was harboring WMDs and this, therefore justified a US invasion. This was later proven false. During this time period, it was also feared that Osama bin Laden, leader of the terrorist group al Qaeda, had or was looking to squire WMDs. These fears dominated US news in the early twenty-first century (Butt, 2019).

Dirty Bombs

Dirty bombs use radioactive material in a conventional explosive. When the bomb detonates, it does not yield the destructive power of a nuclear bomb—rather, it simply disperses radioactivity upon detonation. Such a device is easily constructed within and/or transported across borders into a target zone. Larger amounts of casualties and injuries would occur if a dirty bomb were set off in a crowded area, and if the attack were large enough, entire city blocks would need to be razed, decontaminated, and buried (Acton, Rogers & Zimmerman, 2007).

Certainly, the fear of such WMD attacks is both quantifiable and justifiable. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, municipalities have weaved into their emergency preparedness plans contingency plans for radiological dispersal device (RDD) weapons attacks.

International security investigators continue to identify facilities in former Soviet states in which materials are at risk of theft. Some several hundred material-producing generators, most in former Soviet states, are at risk of terrorist infiltration (Myers, 2007). Most stated targets remain on guard for such devices, as well as other WMDs, as rogue nations and terrorist organizations continue to press forward with nuclear development and use.

Conclusions

"Weapons are like money; no one knows the meaning of enough" ~ Martin Amis

Indeed, the history of humankind has coincided with an evolution of sorts, creating bigger and more powerful weapons seemingly with every generation. Chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons have long been a part of the weapons caches of many major industrialized nations. With only a few exceptions in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, however, WMDs have not been deployed in state military operations since the Geneva Accords. Still, as long as the weapons (and the money, materials, and schematics used to help people and nations build their own) remain in the open and on the marketplace, few nations with WMDs will unilaterally dismantle their own programs until their competitors do.

With this inter-state equilibrium concerning the use of WMDs, attention naturally turns to those who do not follow internationally-accepted rules. Sub-national armed organizations may not have had the wherewithal to conduct an operation that involves WMDs until Aum Shinrikyo's attacks, but terrorist networks worldwide have expressed an interest in obtaining such technologies and using them against their perceived enemies.

In addition to watchdog-style investigation and inspections, an increasingly globalized international community is well-advised to work collectively against WMD development and proliferation (Bernstein, 2008) and to enhance security around existing stockpiles.

Terms & Concepts

Aum Shinrikyo: Japanese terrorist group responsible for a series of 1990s chemical and biological weapons attacks on civilian targets.

Mutually Assured Destruction: Cold War deterrent doctrine that signified that any confrontation between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces would result in mutual annihilation.

Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT): Originally signed in 1968.

Radiological Dispersion Devices (RDD): Also known as dirty bombs—conventional explosives mixed in with radioactive materials to spread radiation rapidly upon detonation.

Rogue Nation: A state that poses a risk to international security due to destabilizing activities such as supporting terrorism and authoritarianism.

Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD): A device designed to cause large-scale damage and casualties upon deployment.

Bibliography

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Suggested Reading

Asal, V. H., Ackerman, G. A., & Rethemeyer, R. (2012). Connections can be toxic: Terrorist organizational factors and the pursuit of CBRN weapons. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 35, 229-254. Retrieved November 4, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database SocIndex with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=71924167

Cressey, D. (2008). Chemical weapons agency shifts focus. Nature, 452(7188), 671. Retrieved September 26, 2008 from EBSCO Online Database Academic Search Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=31593966&site=ehost-live

Gorman, S. & Crawford, D. (2008). WMD panel urges focus on biological threats. Wall Street Journal — Eastern Edition, 252, A4.

Johnson, K. (2008). WMD/hazardous materials evidence awareness. Fire Engineering, 161, 28-30. Retrieved September 26, 2008 from EBSCO online database Academic Search Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=34392552&site=ehost-live

Magnarella, P. J. (2008). Attempts to reduce and eliminate nuclear weapons through the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the creation of nuclear weapon-free zones. Peace and Change, 33, 507-521. Retrieved September 26, 2008 from EBSCO online database Academic Search Complete. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=34188550&site=ehost-live

Military is called unprepared for attack. (2008, February 1). New York Times.

Mousavian, S. (2013). Globalising Iran's fatwa against nuclear weapons. Survival (00396338), 55, 147-162. Retrieved November 4, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database SocIndex with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=86689168