In fact, the whole Riviera is packed in August, and neither Malthus nor Ehrlich have complained about the topless beaches of St. Tropez. -- P.J. O'Rourke
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Weapons of Mass Destruction
One of the main problems in trying to discuss the existence of WMD in Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Libya, and throughout the world, is that many of the people who believe that WMD were never found in Iraq can’t even define the term WMD.
Let’s start with a basic, fairly generalized definition… First, of the individual words, and then how they combine to form the phrase as it should really be used.
Weapon - An instrument of attack or defense in combat, as a gun, missile, or sword.
Mass - A large but nonspecific amount or number
Destruction - The act of destroying OR the condition of having been destroyed.
So, a Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) is “an instrument of attack or defense in combat capable of producing a large but nonspecific amount of people, places and things that have been destroyed”. In short, it is a weapon that can kill large numbers of people and/or wipe out a large area of real estate.
During the Cold War, the general impression of that whole class of weapons was just nuclear, since that was the threat that the Civil Defense Corps taught us to defend against, rather than, say a chemical shell or a biotoxin. The United States conducted some studies of the other types, but never really got into including large quantities of biological or chemical weapons into their arsenals, so even in the military, the tendency is to think only of nuclear weapons when hearing or reading the term “WMD”.
But those count as WMD, too!
Let’s examine some of the various types of weapons that fall under that category of WMD, shall we?
The most common WMD people think of is nuclear weapons, and understandably so, given the decades of those “Duck and Cover” ads and the Cold War and Mutually Assured Destruction and Nuclear Winter and all the rest. (A nifty little tool to estimate blast damage from a nuclear detonation can be found here.)
However, there are several other types of WMD, because (as I’m sure you remember) our definition doesn’t limit itself to just nuclear weapons, but includes all weapons that can kill large numbers of people, and may be able to either destroy large areas, or deny their use to the enemy, which is sometimes just as effective. (Why blow a bridge up if you can leave it intact while still preventing the bad guys from using it?)
These classes of weapons also include Biological weapons (such as anthrax or botulinum toxins), Chemical weapons (such as sarin or mustard gas), and Radiological weapons (such as a so-called “dirty bomb” or neutron bomb).
The delivery mechanism for these particular types of weapons has to take into account several things:
- coverage desired (whether it is a single spot or several football fields in area)
- lethality (LD50 - the dose at which half of the people die - for as many as possible)
- durability (how long before the agent breaks down due to exposure to the elements)
- weather conditions (chemicals and/or biotoxins will be washed off in heavy rain and winds can push the dispersed clouds away from the enemy or towards your own troops)
- possible delivery methods (you don’t want to be setting off a large explosion if high heat kills your lethal agent).
For this reason, special munitions have been developed for chemical weapon dispersal, containing just enough explosive to pop open the shell and cause the chemicals to disperse in a fine mist several dozen to a few hundred feet across. Some other options are:
- Sprayed from drones, “crop duster” style - such as pesticides, which are so amazingly close to chemical weapons, it’s not even funny. In fact, one of the deadliest nerve agents on the planet, Sarin, got its start as a pesticide back in the 1930’s.
- Launched from a man-held weapon, such as tear gas or smoke canisters (which are ALSO technically chemical weapons, used both for crowd control and area denial, in case anyone has forgotten)
- Dropped from aircraft, such as napalm
- Launched as artillery shells (especially effective for binary chemical weapons, which are harmless until they have been fired, and are mixed on the way to the target to make the poisonous agent)
- Suicide attack, in which the infectious agent is an individual (or group of individuals) seeking to infect as many people as possible through personal attack, or by setting off devices (e.g., aerosol sprayers) in crowded areas. (Tom Clancy described just such an occurrence - a group of men setting off aerosolized Ebola bombs in various transit cities and conventions - in one of his books.)
Just remember that the term “WMD” includes much more than just neatly stacked piles of fully-loaded artillery shells and buried silos containing ICBMs equipped with MIRV warheads. It includes many different types of weapons - chemical, biological, nuclear and radiological. It encompasses many different kinds of delivery systems - rockets, mortars, airplane, and missiles. It has several different purposes - massive death/devestation, area denial or incapacitation.
I hope this has been helpful. Feel free to leave your comments, updates and corrections.
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