Chemical and Biological Warfare - Research Paper Example

 Chemical and Biological Warfare Introduction Things known to a person are always like a drop in an ocean of thoughts. This is the philosophy through which the world has seen a lot of changes over the past two centuries. As every day progressed, there have been innumerable discoveries speeding the success of human beings in making their life an easy approach. There have been innumerous facilities provided to make the mundane life a fantasy. Every man has sought out ideas to make life easier for his lineage. This process also revealed the dark side of human beings. It brought hatred among people, creating vengeance and indifferences between them. Slowly but steadily, a peace loving environment turned into a tumult. Countries started vying at each other’s success and fought out for supremacy of one over the other. This resulted in discoveries of objects and weaponries that can sabotage human life. As the years progressed, this department of inventions progressed rapidly leading to a summit were utter catastrophe has become possible. One variant of such a demolishing act between countries is through chemical and biological war. Chemical and biological war relates to usage of poisonous gases, and biochemical weapons to kill humans in war. Though several operations are carried out by peace loving countries to rest the spread of these weapons, the plethora of options available to create these weapons and the ardor of countries to gain advantage over others has foiled such operations. (Bhudhan & Katyal, 2002, p. 12) The following paragraphs trace the root of these wars, providing insight into how chemical warfare came into picture and followed with recommendations on how to handle these issues in future. History of Chemical and Biological Warfare Chemical Warfare History The history of chemical substances being used for killing people traces back to as early as sixth century BC when rye ergots were used by the Assyrians to kill people by mixing them in wells.( (Bhudhan & Katyal, 2002, p. 237) In the 1700’s, the English people were cheap enough to use small pox affected blankets against the people of French and India to spread that disease. (Bhudhan & Katyal, 2002, p. 237) Though early histories contain very small traces of chemical warfare, the major effect of using chemicals first happened when the German, Fritz Haber deployed bombs satiated with nitrous gases on enemy fields during the First World War.( (Mauroni, 2007, p. 128) It created mass destruction and turned out to be a highly successful weapon for them. The opponents, unaware of such types of warfare were completely flanked and thousands of them were dead and injured. Though the rest of the world was stupefied by this new warfare, the Germans mastered it and used it desperately in order to salvage their success during the First World War. Due to the inadequacies of proper protections against those gases, they themselves were not able to sustain its destructive power and hence used it sparingly. The world got noticed of the sublime power of such chemical weapons and hence the United Nations, founded after the war, brought out the Geneva protocol in the year 1925. (Mauroni, 2007, p. 12) The protocol assured all supporting countries that none of them would use it as a first air of defense or attack. As rules are meant to be broken, World War II arrived. With the power of chemical weaponries being firmly established in the war’s previous edition, Japan, the prime attendee of this war used poisonous gases and plague affected materials over countries like China. They also killed lots of prisoners by spreading dangerous gases through their cells. (Mauroni, 2007, p. 12) Later in the year 1973, several peace making solutions were established stating that no more advancement in chemical warfare should be made. Despite such rules and protocols, several instances of usage and development of chemical warfare have been found. These instances include: Use of Phosphine gases by the Vietnamese against Cambodian troops during the 80’s (Mauroni, 2007, p. 148) Use of chemical weapons by Iraq over Iran killing several thousand including both Iranians and Iraqis, during the Iran Iraq war of 1980’s (Mauroni, 2007, p. 198) Relatively minor incidents of usage of chemical weapons by terrorists during the last decade. Biological Warfare History Biological warfare deals with the use of living organisms against their original cause, for the destructions of human life. This includes use of bacterial and parasitic organisms such as fungi and anthrax. They are, in general, used to kill both living organisms as well as plants. Though biological weapons and chemical weapons are entirely different, there is a commonality between these two because the toxic ingredients produced by these two are more or less common. But the major difference is that the organisms used in biological warfare reproduce themselves increasing their effect proportionally to the time they spread. But nonetheless, both are destructive in their own ways. Before the 19th century during which the use of these weaponries were prominent, there have been outward use of biological weapons to kill people. These include killing of people by mixing toxics with food items and use of fabrics containing diseases. During the First World War, the Germans used anthrax and spread it across Russia by means of couriers and inserting it in horses that were transported to Russia. Then is the Second World War, Japan used different methods to kill Chinese people by spreading typhoid through the rivers that flowed through China. (Bhudhan & Katyal, 2002, p. 239) As an act of vengeance, the allied countries, U.S. and UK started providing funds for the development of biological weapons. Through these research methodologies, several new biological weapons were discovered. Several such instances of biological warfare happened all over the world till 1970s. The year 1972 saw the introduction of a new treaty called as the Biological and Toxic Weapons convention which prohibited countries from producing biological weapon and allowed experiments related to biology only for peaceful work. (Mauroni, 2007, p. 290) Though the treaty was highly successful gathering the support of a lot of countries, there are still evidences for rising number of experiments being done with respect to biological warfare. Such instances include researches conducted by Russia in the 80’s and development of biological weapons by Iraq during the Gulf war. The recent incident that occurred with respect to biological warfare was when the US citizens received anthrax affected letters, leading to the death of 5 people. Although it was a minor incident, it remains as an example of the effect of biological warfare for the young generations. (Bhudhan & Katyal, 2002, p. 239) Current Trend The present trend suggests that, although development and spreading of biological/chemical warfare is under check, there are looming possibilities of some terrorist organizations being able to lay their hands on these weaponries because of their easy preparation methods and easily available source materials. There is no need of highly qualified materials to create these weapons. Day to day amenities can be easily used to create these weapons The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) have made sure to destroy all the stockpile of chemical and biological weapons in different countries. . (Murphy, 1985, p. 32) They have also made sure to restrain countries from testing and producing biological and chemical weapons, unless for a noble cause. Despite all these measures, there are several reports and charts prepared by these two organizations, allege that there are possibilities of certain countries stockpiling these weapons unofficially. The recent trend alleges that at least 8 countries are capable of producing such weapons and although the Iraq war has been declared as over, there are some uncertainties regarding the biological weapons developed in Iraq, that are still left unidentified. Due to lack of proper verification procedures, these granaries pose a serious threat to the mankind. With the advent of most advanced experimenting techniques done through different technologies, future of mankind with regard to this aspect is bleak. (Murphy, 1985, p. 38) Predictions There are no more hard fought battles like those that prevailed in the previous ages. There is in fact, less number of military operations except for the Iraq war and the Gulf war of the 90’s. Wars in current age mostly relate to civil and anti-terrorism acts. With the implementation of CWC and BWC, the use of chemical weapons has also come under control. But that does not deter by any means, the implications that lay in front of us in the near future, thanks to the chemical and biological weapons. There is a possibility of small countries using chemical weapons against powerful nations due to their inability with high range weaponries. There are also possibilities that governments of different nations could use chemical weapons against terrorists or vice versa. There are a couple of incidents that happened in the past that could justify this prediction. The Lankan- LTTE war were chlorine gas was used by the LTTE and in 2007, when Iraq terrorists combining with Al-Qaeda bombed US soldiers with chlorine filled trucks. (Tucker, 2009) Adding to this is the economic globalization and the advent of new technologies bolstering the possibilities of developing chemical weapons in a more banal environment. This has indirectly opened up the possibilities for development of chemical and biological weapons from unexpected quarters. Due to lack of proper rules on eliminating chemical wastes from chemical producing industries, there is a constant spread of chemical agents across objects that are used for day to day activities. This could also pose a huge problem. (Tucker, 2009) Future Recommendations For a criminal justice practitioner, the recommendations for curbing chemical and biological warfare are as follows: The threat analysis should be made uniform and severe in such a way that a mere fact analysis and prediction of each countries capability in developing biological and chemical weapons is not enough. A thorough and rigorous analysis is required. For that, the CWC and BWC should be reformed An exaggerated report containing predictions of a countries biological development should be avoided. An assertion of a dubious fact would encourage other countries to increase their chemical and biological development operations. The budget associated with both the CWC and BWC should be increased from its current value. This would encourage the people of CWC and BWC to make severe inroads into a country’s developments in this field. (Schweitzer, 2005) The organizations should be given more liberalities in accessing the internal reports of each country and the committees should be made completely neutral and independent of influence from different countries. Improve the process of verification done by the organizations for checking for chemical stockpiles in different countries. The current process is far from being comprehensive. In case if there is any incident pertaining to the usage of chemical weapons, the countries should be educated of developing a defensive plot to counter such attacks. A detailed description of the process is a mandatory function that needs to be put into practice by all countries and should not be kept only in theory. The stockpiles available with US and Russia should be destroyed safely and at the earliest. Any further experiments in biosecurity should be made public by the respective nation carrying out those experiments. The CWC and BWC should list down the possible set of chemical agents that can be produced by countries so that the countries could also be aware of their responsibilities and the regulations to be followed. The trading of chemical and bio products should be distinguished from other trading activities and should be done under the inspection of the controlling bodies. A further investigation of those trade details should be conducted by these governing bodies in a random manner. The chemical manufacturing facilities should be governed by strict rules in their use of technologies, building environment and in disposing of chemical wastes. Conclusion A detailed analysis of the chemical and biological warfare, its history, current and future trends and a gist of possible reforms that could be followed to curb the development and usage of such weapons have been described. Irrespective of all these reforming acts done by several peace loving organizations, the proximity of destroying chemical/biological warfare is very far. But, on a positive note, it has not increased to the extent it was going during the 20th century. There are still several concerns that need to be addressed due to the accruing of globalization and technological advancements. Though its existence has been completely suppressed and there is only very few traces of chemical activities being taking place across the world, countries like US and other equally responsible allies should not rest from their goal of completely destroying this destructor of mankind. References Bhudhan, K., & Katyal, G. (2002). Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare. (pp. 237). India: APH Publishing. Mauroni, A. (2007). Chemical and Biological Warfare: A Reference Handbook. (pp. 128). U.S.A: ABC Clio Inc. Tucker, J. (2009). The Future of Chemical Weapons. The New Atlantis, 26, 3-29. Retrieved from: http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-future-of-chemical-weapons Murphy, S. (1985). Chemical Warfare: The Present Position. Medicine and War, 1(1), 31-39. doi: 10.1080/07488008508408606 Schweitzer, Y. (2005). Al-Qaida, 9/11 and Unconventional Means: Changes in Terrorists Mindsets and Effects on their Modus Operandi. Read More