Weapons of Mass Destruction
The 2003 Iraq War added vigor to the discussions and debates on weapons of mass destruction – their definition, their use, control and the threat they represent to the world at large in the future. This paper attempts to shed light on some salient key topics, starting by tracing the term back to its earliest usage, defining it as per various sources, briefly pondering over its use and control, and conducting an in depth analysis of the link between these weapons and terrorism.
Origins of the term and Definition
The term “weapon of mass destruction” was first known to be used in 1937 by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Cosmo Gordon Lang, when he referred to the Luftwaffe German aerial attack on the town of Guernica in Spain. The then President of Spain had ordered this deadly attack, which went on for 3 hours, destroyed more than half the town and killed one third of the town’s population – to quell the Basque resistance to Nationalism. Later evidence was found which proved that Guernica was in fact used as a testing ground for a new military ploy: to weaken the enemy by blanket-bombing a civilian population. The Archbishop in the London Times referred to this bombing and ensuing damage:
“Who can think at this present time without a sickening of the heart of the appalling slaughter, the suffering, the manifold misery brought by war to Spain and to China? 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” (“Archbishop’s Appeal”, p.9)
This was a time when chemical weapons had already started to be commonly used, particularly in World War I, and Japan was conducting in-depth research on biological weapons, but nuclear weapons were yet to be discovered. The Archbishop had used it, however, only in reference to conventional bombs, and not to biological or chemical weapons as modern usage dictates.
It was after the historically tragic incidents of U.S. bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the Cold War that this term started to be used more when talking about non-conventional weapons, and then pertaining only to nuclear and radiological weapons. The less harsh terminology of “strategic weapons” was also used during the Cold War to refer to America’s nuclear arsenal, a critical defense and an essential deterrent against potential nuclear or conventional Soviet attack (Bashor, 1998).
When the Cold War ended, the U.S. no longer had to use nuclear weapons as a deterrent, and hence, emphasis turned to disarmament. This was a time when Islamic nations and independent Islamic groups were posing a serious threat to U.S. interests and the first Bush administration at the time was severely worried by the Iraq-Kuwait War of 1990, the Gulf War of 1991 and Iraq’s nuclear and chemical weapons program. After these incidents, whenever the term Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) was used, it was usually to refer to the many tries by the Clinton administration and the United Nations among other influential politicians and media to destroy Iraq’s weapons programs and arsenal (Bashor, 1998). Since then, the use of this term with reference to Iraq has become increasingly common, so much so that their alleged existence was eventually the chief justification for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, even though no WMD were found.
Today, according to the U.S. military definition, WMD are:
“Chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons capable of a high order of destruction or causing mass casualties and exclude the means of transporting or propelling the weapon where such means is a separable and divisible part from the weapon. Also called WMD” (Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms)
Definitions may differ according to various interpretations; even the U.S. law has a varying categorization of what constitutes weapons of mass destruction. For example, Harigel (1998), an expert in this field perceives only nuclear weapons to truly be WMD because he believes they are in a league of their own when it comes to their explosive power, intensity of heat radiation and radioactive strength. Chemical and biological weapons, he considers as weapons of “intimidation” when aimed at soldiers and weapons of “terror” when targeted at civilians.
Another condition which dictates the classification as WMD is that the weapons’ use has to be strategic. Elaborating on this, Evans (2004) says this means they would be designed in a way to “have consequences far outweighing the size and effectiveness of the weapons themselves.” This strategic condition of the use of WMD also characterizes their use in total war, a military doctrine which describes a war in which all available resources are mobilized. In such a scenario, WMD would be used to attack those avenues which a country would employ to support and bolster its war effort, primarily its population, industry and natural resources.
Today the definition of WMD is more liberal in its scope, different from the Cold War days when it referred only to Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles, likely to kill millions. Experts now classify battlefield combat arms such as shells, mortars, short-range rockets or other systems fitted with nuclear, chemical, biological or radiological detonators as WMD.
Development and Use of WMD
There are a number of international conventions and treaties which are responsible for governing development and use of WMD, by laying down a set of rules to promote mutual security between partners and equilibrium of sorts at an overall level, whether it is in a particular crisis situation or with regards to the arms race. These treaties do not further the premise of disarmament as they do not adhere to the peace-without-weapons stance. Rather, they attempt to limit damage and maintain stability by allowing mutually-controlled armament. While all countries have not become party to these treaties, a few examples are Outer Space Treaty, Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Chemical Weapons Convention, Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and Seabed Arms Control Treaty (Blum, Asal & Wilkenfeld, 2005).
To date, the U.S. is the only country which has deployed nuclear weapons in a war. There are seven other countries which have tested a nuclear weapon and openly declared possession. These (along with the U.S.) are often referred to as the nuclear club and they are France, India, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, North Korea and the People’s Republic of China. Israel is perceived by most experts to possess nuclear weapons also, but its official stance has been that of nuclear ambiguity, where it neither confirms nor denies its nuclear standing. Some countries have opined that Iran has been seeking a nuclear arsenal, but it has always denied this claim, and the truth is not known in this regard. South Africa developed a nuclear arsenal in the 1980s after a period of extensive research but voluntarily gave it up a decade later, and became the first nation in history to have done so. The demise of the Soviet Union led to independent states, such as Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, inheriting Soviet’s nuclear weapons, however, these states soon relinquished their arsenal to the Russian Federation. Some countries such as Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey have access to nuclear weapons owing to the nuclear sharing agreements that they are party to (Blum, Asal & Wilkenfeld, 2005).
WMD and Terrorism
There have fortunately been very few instances of terrorist attacks using WMD or unconventional weapons, in fact only four significant terrorist attacks have taken place in the last 25 years which have made use of poison, disease or radioactive substances as weapons. In 1984, more than 700 people were made sick when a religious cult tried to reduce voter turnout in a local election by secretly mixing salmonella in a restaurant salad in Oregon. The other three incidents are the 1990 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam attack on the Sri Lankan military force with chlorine gas, the 1995 attack on the Tokyo subway with liquid sarin (the most serious attack to occur in Japan since World War II) and the 2001 anthrax attacks in the U.S (Parachini, 2003).
The above events raised serious safety concerns and after Sept 11 attacks, terrorism was no longer a vague idea. While prior to the 1990s terrorism was something which occurred far away from U.S. soil, these episodes brought the evil of terrorism closer and demonstrated the willingness and ability of terrorists, whether they belonged to the U.S. or not, to target U.S. homeland and do what previously was difficult to imagine: conduct mass killings with large quantities of explosives and to employ poison or disease, and even aircrafts as weapons. This is when terrorism, by its very definition, seemed to have changed. Previously, terrorists operated within certain boundaries, and their motive seemed to be to draw attention to their cause. As terrorism expert Jenkins (1975) said, and what became a famous observation, “Terrorists want a lot of people watching and a lot of people listening and not a lot of people dead.” This no longer held true as now they sought to kill indiscriminately and in large numbers, and reasoned it out by bringing a higher, religious cause into play (Parachini, 2003).
Hoffman (1997) agreed that the most important reason why terrorism was now becoming more of a lethal threat than ever before was the drastic proliferation of terrorist groups with a religious imperative as their core motive. He asserts that these “religious terrorists” differ in their modus operandi from secular terrorists in a very basic way: Secular terrorists do not pursue the strategy of indiscriminate violence because they think it is immoral and does not help to accomplish their objectives. On the other hand, religious terrorists not only consider it to be justified morally, but also a necessity for the achievement of their aim. Religion becomes their binding force, it lends legitimacy to their objectives, and is either imparted by clerics who claim to represent a divine authority or conveyed by sacred text.
Attempts in the international arena to curtail the spread of arms and weapons that can inflict damage on such a mass level are not a recent occurrence. In fact, it can even be said that there have been a number of successful efforts to stop the production and potential use of these weapons. An example from earlier times is an agreement after World War I to ban the use of mustard gas while recent examples include the almost universal support of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, setting up of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which claims to be the “world´s center of cooperation in the nuclear field” (IAEA website), and the inauguration of the Chemical Weapons Convention. These and other events and agreements have together assured that the international community has met with a decent level of success in limiting the ability, as well as interest, of states to pursue WMD. Libya, which at one point was considered to be one of the most dangerous countries from the perspective of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, decided to dismantle its nuclear program in 2003 and agreed to immediate and unconditional international monitoring of its facilities. To an extent, this was testament to the success of today’s nonproliferation regime. However, the fact remains that the agreements and institutions which are the basis of this regime extend only to decisions and policies of states. Non State actors such as terrorist groups, religious sects and ethnic groups are not covered under their umbrella which means that they will be at the core of the nonproliferation challenge of the present and near future (Blum, Asal & Wilkenfeld, 2005).
There are two aspects of this challenge and they can be viewed in a fairly simple fashion: by addressing this as a two-pronged problem of supply and demand. In the modern era, supply of materials and/or nuclear weapons can easily be matched with the demand of the, for instance, Islamic extremists who want to deploy them. While reducing supply and securing current arsenals is a possible solution, it represents only one aspect of the challenge. While that is essential, it most certainly is not enough. What also needs to be devised is a detailed approach to manage the demand side of the equation. According to Curtis (2006), “contemporary nonproliferation strategies merely buy us time in a world where technological advances and the operations of a global economy may soon outpace our defenses.” It is the hatred which feeds the need to use WMD, and tackling that will help to deal with the phenomenon of demand.
Curtis (2006) makes a solid argument when he notes that in dealing with the threat of Islamic extremists, understanding the Muslim world is very important. And at this point in time, the Muslim world is hostile with the U.S. because they perceive U.S. policies to be hostile to them, as foremost on their minds are the Arab-Israeli and Iraq conflicts. Then, when “truly regrettable incidents” like the Abu Ghraib scandal take place, they become the defining characteristic of U.S. foreign policy, serving to reinforce and solidify old beliefs.
When Muslim countries were polled on their views on the U.S., results were unfavorable mostly, and generally mixed. There were some countries such as Indonesia, where post-Tsunami ratings have gone up from 15 to 28%. But U.S. favorability is notably declining in what previously used to be strongholds, such as Turkey, a NATO ally. According to Curtis (2006):
“We need to study and understand how the Muslim world views our actions so we that we can better explain and defend our policies, not just our principles.”
Public diplomacy is not just an exercise in campaigning for yourself and marketing your positives, it also means that the U.S. needs to work with not just the governments, but the people in predominantly Muslim states to diminish the strength of the brand of Islamic extremism which is flourishing there, and which gives birth to terrorism. Pursuing a policy of ‘soft power’ is the most significant way that the U.S. can deal with the new strategic reality – one in which “the amount of discontent in the world is becoming a highly significant national security variable” (Wright, 2002 qtd. in Curtis, 2006).
Compelling new motives have therefore emerged to boost the demand side, and the ‘supply’ side has also seen an increase in opportunities and capabilities, such as easier access to and availability of important information and principle components of WMD. Previously several technical as well as self-imposed limitations ensured that terrorists did not employ WMD, but that era has long gone. The world could potentially witness a bloodier and more damaging period of violence than before when motive, opportunity and capability combine with religious reasons or justifications at their core, terrorism’s path might embark towards higher levels of destruction, possibly using WMD for the attainment of goals.
Analysis and Recommendations for the Future
The events of September 11, 2001 (9/11) changed perceptions of terrorism forever. The deadliest terrorist event which claimed close to 3000 lives and billions in financial losses ensured that the global community had no choice but to seriously consider the potential threat of modern terrorism, and that a large (and growing) outlay on homeland security was necessary to defend one’s territory. 9/11 was significant in another way: it set the bar for terrorism in the future, as terrorists will now look to increase the scale of carnage to outdo the magnitude of 9/11, to capture even more media and public attention, to be more newsworthy than before. And this is what increases the possibility of their usage of WMD, which are more likely to be chemical or radiological.
This threat is definitely a worrying one. Foreign policy should ideally rank high on its list of objectives the prevention of the proliferation of WMD, and this needs to be done diplomatically, and through the joint efforts of the international community, rather than employing single minded military threats. Indeed, in the long run it will get easier to make WMDs, specifically those of chemical and biological nature and easier to access them as well. What needs to be dealt with then is the urge to use them.
Resolute and consistent efforts at international diplomacy are a very powerful foreign policy tool, and the only one right now which can ensure that WMD do not find their way in the hands of terrorist groups or hostile regimes. The existing arms control network of treaties and mutual agreements which have proven successful to an extent in curbing proliferation and use of WMD will need to be strengthened and solidified some more. Also, the global stores of nuclear arsenal will need to be systematically reduced to lowest possible levels. All this needs to be accomplished in order to prevent the possibility of increasingly lethal and destructive use of WMD and this will only be possible through preventive diplomatic efforts, and not through offensive military strikes.
References
“Archbishop’s Appeal.” Times (London), 1937, p. 9.
Bashor, M. (1998). International Terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction. Risk Analysis 18(6), 675-678.
Blum, A., Asal, V., and Wilkenfeld, J. (2005). Nonstate Actors, Terrorism, and Weapons of Mass Destruction. International Studies Review 7, 133-170.
Curtis, C. B. (2006). Curbing the Demand for Mass Destruction. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 607(1), 27-32.
Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms. Web.
Evans, M. (2004). What makes a Weapon one of Mass Destruction? Times Online. Web.
Harigel, G. G. (1998). Military Sales and Nuclear Proliferation, Disarmament and Arms Control. Web.
Hoffman, B. (1997). Viewpoint: Terrorism and WMD: Some Preliminary Hypotheses. The Nonproliferation Review Spring/Summer, 45-53.
Jenkins, B. M. (1975). “International Terrorism: A New Mode of Conflict” in David Carlton and Carlo Schaerf, eds., International Terrorism and World Security (p. 15). London: Croom Helm.
Parachini, J. (2003). Putting WMD Terrorism into Perspective. The Washington Quarterly 26 (4), 37–50.