A Handbook of Chemical and Biological Warfare

The common view of chemical and biological weapons is that they are a poor man’s atomic bomb, that they are vile instruments of terror that civilized nations just do not use. This naive and narrow viewpoint ignores the fact that nations owning nuclear weapons have also developed chemical and biological weapons, not content with the nuclear weapons’ more destructive capability. This view disregards the fact that more countries are investing in chemical and biological weapons programs than in the past despite the alleged perceptions that the world finds these weapons "immoral." Countries invest in chemical and biological warfare for very rational reasons; these weapons can be delivered effectively, they can be used to combat insufficiently trained or equipped modern forces or insurgents, and they shorten conflicts that might otherwise be very long and expensive. One country that once felt that these weapons were a rational investment was the United States. This book will provide some of the tools for students to research the area of chemical and biological warfare and, given that opportunity, to make their own judgments of the facts and opinions of many different agencies. The first introductory work of its kind to survey the fundamentals, policies, and strategies of chemical and biological warfare from 1915 to the present.