Chemical and Biological Warfare essays

Chemical and Biological Warfare essays Chemical warfare is the use of natural or synthetic substances to disable or kill an enemy. It is also used to prevent them from using resources such as agricultural products or foliage in which to hide. Why use chemical weapons? Because of their ability to cause mass casualties or damage to an enemy with only a limited amount of risk to the forces who are using the chemicals. The origins of chemical warfare dates back to the time when humans began to use weapons. Primitive people used poisonous darts and arrows to hunt for food and in battles between tribes. Thousands of years later people still use these inhumane and deadly weapons with pretty much the same intentions primitive men did. The first time chemicals were used in war against the United States was during World War I. American soldiers were not at all prepared for chemical warfare. Nerve agents and mustard gas were used in this war. After the end of the war, a treaty was signed in Geneva on 1925 by many nations to prohibit every nation who signed it: the use of any asphyxiating, poisonous, or other gases and bacteriological methods of warfare. This treaty came to be known as the Geneva Protocol. However this protocol did not prohibit the production of these agents. Despite this agreement the United States, the Soviet Union and other countries kept producing and stocking piles of chemical weapons. They also improved their protection against these agents. Because having a better offense obviously implies having a better defense. In 1969, the United States stopped the production of all chemical weapons. They also began to destroy those munitions that had been stocked for many years. But in 1987, they began once again to produce those weapons with a better method of storage: they filled the canisters with two comparatively harmless gases which combine to form deadly gases only after being released fro...