Of course, the existence of holdout states such as Syria and North Korea does not invalidate the CWC, any more than the continued existence of street crime makes domestic laws irrelevant. Even without universal adherence, the CWC can slow the spread of chemical weapons by isolating the small number of nonparticipating countries, limiting their access to precursor chemicals, and exposing them to international political and economic pressure if they continue their illicit programs. As defense analyst Brad Roberts has observed, “Norms matter in international politics—not because they constrain the choices of the most malevolent of men but because they create the basis for consensus about responses to actions inconsistent with those norms.”
DESPITE THE growing interest in chemical weapons on the part of terrorists, the technical hurdles to the acquisition of nerve agents remain significant. An annex to the 2004 Iraq Survey Group report disclosed that an Iraqi insurgent group known as the “Al-Abud network” had attempted for six months to produce chemical warfare agents, without success. The group recruited a Baghdad chemist and acquired chemicals from looted state companies and other sources, but it could not obtain the ingredients for Tabun and also failed at subsequent attempts to manufacture mustard agent. Nevertheless, according to the ISG report, “The most alarming aspect of the Al-Abud network is how quickly and effectively the group was able to mobilize key resources and tap relevant expertise to develop a program for weaponizing CW agents.”
The headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands, of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). This international body oversees the implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, a treaty banning chemical weapons that entered into force in 1997.
The George W. Bush administration’s major contribution to combating the threats of chemical weapons proliferation and terrorism has been the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), which President Bush announced in a speech in Kraków, Poland, on May 31, 2003. Under this agreement, a coalition of like-minded countries (initially eleven, now more than sixty) have agreed to conduct joint operations to interdict and seize illicit shipments by sea, air, or land of unconventional weapons, delivery systems, or related materials to and from “states and non-state actors of proliferation concern.” PSI is organized around a set of “interdiction principles” that call upon the participating states to take specific actions permitted under international law, such as stopping and searching ships and denying air-transit rights.
OPCW inspectors count chemical artillery shells during an inspection in Russia.
Given that transfers of actual chemical weapons are unlikely, the effectiveness of PSI in interdicting clandestine shipments of chemical precursors and production equipment remains to be seen. The sheer volume of chemical trade and the reluctance of states to share sensitive intelligence will probably make it difficult for states to identify and track suspicious cargoes in a timely manner. Moreover, because a PSI strategy requires near-universal participation to be fully effective, the limited number of fully active members represents a serious weakness. For these reasons, a significant proportion of illicit traffickers and terrorist organizations are likely to evade any interdiction strategy.
ALTHOUGH INFORMAL arrangements such as the Australia Group and PSI can make a useful contribution to combating chemical proliferation, they cannot do the job on their own. It is also essential to reinforce the international norm embodied in the Chemical Weapons Convention, which remains a key instrument for pursuing the ultimate abolition of gas warfare. To achieve this goal, the CWC requires effective verification and enforcement measures, which still leave much to be desired. One negative trend is that member states have weakened some of the treaty’s more intrusive inspection procedures, creating loopholes for potential cheaters. For example, the OPCW inspectorate has a powerful but portable instrument called a gas chromatograph–mass spectrometer (GC/MS). This device, which fits into a large trunk, can identify an unknown compound by breaking it into fragments that are sorted by molecular weight, generating a spectrum with distinctive peaks and valleys that a computer matches against a “library” of known spectra in an electronic database. Because of concerns by chemical manufacturers over the potential compromise of industrial trade secrets, CWC member states have constrained the use of GC/MS during routine inspections of chemical plants. In addition, the limited sampling and analysis that does occur (mainly with on-site equipment) must employ “blinding” software, which merely reports the presence or absence of known chemical warfare agents and precursors listed in an annex to the CWC. As a result, a determined cheater could develop and produce an unlisted compound (such as one of the Novichok agents) in a bid to avoid detection.
Despite these clear gaps in the verification regime, the parties to the CWC have been reluctant to increase the number of chemical agents and precursors subject to on-site sampling and analysis. For example, although the U.S. and British governments know the chemical structures of the Novichok agents and their binary precursors, they have decided not to add these compounds to the CWC’s list of declarable chemicals because of concern that the information could be exploited by proliferators or terrorists. A possible solution to this dilemma would be to increase the number of chemical spectra stored in the GC/MS analytical database, making it possible to detect a larger range of toxic compounds, without formally expanding the list of declarable chemicals.
Closely related to verification of the CWC is the problem of enforcement. Historically, the international community has been unable or unwilling to punish violators of arms control treaties. Compliance has relied largely on moral suasion, yet determined cheaters may not be deterred without a credible threat of economic or military sanctions. Indeed, Iraq’s flagrant violations of the Geneva Protocol during the 1980s demonstrate the need for enforcement to make disarmament treaties more effective. Although the CWC does not constrain terrorists directly, the fewer the number of states that continue to possess or to pursue chemical arms, the harder it will be for terrorists to follow suit—either by stealing actual weapons or by obtaining the equipment, materials, and know-how needed to produce them.
A Russian military officer with a Scud missile warhead of the type that Soviet forces had filled with nerve agents, during a display on June 8, 2001, at the chemical weapons depot near the remote Russian town of Shchuch’ye. The Russian government invited diplomats from the United States, the European Union, and Canada to Shchuch’ye to appeal for financial support for Russia’s long-delayed effort to destroy its vast chemical weapons stockpile.
ANOTHER WEAKNESS OF CWC implementation has been the failure of Russia and the United States, the world’s two largest possessors of chemical weapons, to destroy their respective stockpiles according to the timetable set out in the treaty. The former Soviet stockpile, stored at seven depots on Russian territory, consists of about 40,000 metric tons of nerve agents (Sarin, Soman, and R-33) and blister agents (mustard and lewisite). Destroying this toxic legacy of the Cold War in a safe and responsible manner entails huge financial, political, and environmental challenges.
Because the total cost of destroying the Soviet chemical weapons stockpile has been estimated at more than $8 billion, Russia relies heavily on financial assistance from the United States and other countries. Many bureaucratic hurdles and technical problems have slowed the destruction effort, making it impossible to meet the 2007 deadline in the CWC for eliminating the entire stockpile. As permitted by the treaty, Moscow has requested a five-year extension until 2012, but even the new target date may not be realistic. In the meantime, inadequate physical protection and accounting at some of the Russian depots have rendered the chemical weapons they contain vulnerable to theft or diversion. A depot near the Russian town of Shchuch’ye, for example, consists of fourteen barn-like buildings containing 1.9 million nerve-agent-filled artillery shells, stacked on wooden racks like bottles in a wine cellar. The shells are small enough that a few could be smuggled out in a suitcase.
The Unite
d States has also encountered serious difficulties in destroying its aging stockpile of chemical weapons. A modest milestone occurred in November 2000, when the high-temperature incinerator on Johnston Island in the Pacific finished burning the munitions transferred from Okinawa and West Germany, accounting for 6.6 percent of the U.S. stockpile. The remaining weapons are stored at eight depots scattered across the continental United States and are slated for elimination at dedicated destruction facilities built at each site. Since 1985, however, technical, managerial, and political problems have slowed the pace of the “chemical demilitarization” effort and markedly increased its cost. When the program began, the projected price tag for destroying the entire stockpile was roughly $1.8 billion, but by 2004 it had ballooned to $26.8 billion. One reason for the delays and cost overruns has been opposition to the use of high temperature incineration from communities near the U.S. Army depots where the weapons are stored. Public pressure has derailed plans to build chemical-weapons incinerators at the depots in Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, and Colorado, and forced the adoption of alternative technologies such as chemical or biological neutralization. Yet despite legitimate concern over the potential health hazards of incineration, an even greater risk lies in not destroying the weapons, which are plagued by leaks and provide an attractive target for terrorists.
U.S. Army workers prepare a pallet of thirty M55 rockets to be transported to the chemical weapons incinerator at Tooele Army Depot in Utah. In recent years, the U.S. effort to destroy its stockpile of chemical weapons has fallen behind schedule.
A further obstacle in the path of chemical disarmament is the effort by the United States and Russia to develop a new generation of “nonlethal” weapons, including powerful incapacitating agents that act on the nervous system. The CWC explicitly bans the combat use of incapacitants and tear gas because any release of toxic chemicals on the battlefield could easily escalate to the employment of lethal agents. Yet Russia and the United States both claim the right to employ incapacitating agents for counterterrorism operations under an exemption in the CWC for “domestic law enforcement.”
On October 23, 2002, Chechen rebels stormed the Dubrovka Theater in downtown Moscow during an evening performance and took about 900 people hostage, threatening to set off bombs unless their demands were met. Russian Special Forces surrounded the theater and a standoff ensued. During the three-day siege, the militants released about 200 people, mostly women, children, and Muslims, but the Russian authorities refused to negotiate. The standoff ended on October 26 when the Special Forces, suspecting that the rebels had begun killing hostages, pumped a narcotic gas (related to the anesthetic fenantyl) into the building through the air-conditioning system. The agent subdued many of the militants, who were either executed at point-blank range by the government commandos or killed in the ensuing shootout. But 129 of the hostages also died, all but two of them from the effects of the gas. Weakened by fatigue and hunger, they succumbed to an overdose of the narcotic, which suppressed the breathing center of the brain. Contributing to the debacle was the Russian authorities’ refusal to identify the agent, preventing paramedics from administering an antidote in time to save many lives.
The Moscow theater incident suggests that the “lethality” or “nonlethality” of a given chemical agent is not an intrinsic characteristic but is a function of a way it is used, including the concentration, the means of delivery, and the targeted population. Moreover, the use of chemical incapacitants in paramilitary operations is dangerous because it blurs the line between law enforcement and warfare, creating a “slippery slope” that makes the battlefield use of chemical weapons more likely. It is therefore essential to close this legal loophole in the CWC by defining the law enforcement exemption more narrowly.
A final challenge to the chemical disarmament regime is the rapid pace of technological innovation in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, which could spawn new chemical warfare threats. For example, “combinatorial chemistry,” which involves the automated synthesis of thousands of related compounds followed by their rapid screening for desired physiological effects, is a powerful tool of drug discovery. Yet this technique could easily be misused to identify incapacitating or lethal chemical warfare agents. Similarly, progress in understanding the functional biochemistry of the brain could lead to the development of improved drugs for treating mental illness, but it could also spawn a new generation of chemical warfare agents that induce sleep, fear, paralysis, or rapid death. More compact and efficient chemical manufacturing technologies, such as “microreactors,” could also make it easier to conceal an illicit chemical weapons production facility.
THE HISTORY of the discovery, proliferation, and control of chemical weapons offers grounds for hope as well as concern. It is clear that the taboo against poison warfare has a source deep in the human psyche, giving rise to an international behavioral norm of great antiquity and wide cross-cultural character. During World War I, the advent of industrial synthetic chemistry, which made the large-scale production and use of poisons feasible and cheap, and the pressure of “military necessity” to escape the bloody stalemate of trench warfare, combined to erode the existing legal and moral restraints on chemical warfare. In the 1930s, the accidental discovery of the nerve agents in Germany and their production and stockpiling by the Nazi regime further undercut the norm, but fears of Allied retaliation (based in part on incorrect intelligence assessments) ultimately discouraged Hitler from using his “secret weapon.” The postwar competition among the victorious Allies for the secrets of the German nerve agents culminated in the chemical arms race of the Cold War, a “war of nerves” in which each superpower tried to deter attack by the other while pressing for political and strategic advantage. Beginning in the late 1960s, nerve agents spread to the developing world, leading to their alleged use in the Yemen civil war and their known use in the Iran-Iraq War. The trickle-down process reached its logical conclusion in the 1990s, when nerve agents became an instrument of terror by a doomsday cult in Japan.
Over the same period, however, there were some positive countervailing trends. Because of the deeply rooted nature of the poison taboo, the norm gradually became reestablished as the twentieth century advanced. Chemical weapons were progressively delegitimated under international law, beginning in 1925 with the Geneva Protocol’s limited ban on use in war and culminating in 1993 with the CWC’s sweeping prohibitions on the development, production, stockpiling, transfer, and use of chemical arms, to which the great majority of the world’s states now adhere. Toxic weapons that a few decades ago were being mass-produced and stockpiled in the thousands of tons by the major powers are now considered “beyond the pale,” and billions of dollars are being spent on their destruction. Only a handful of states persist in acquiring or retaining chemical arms, and none of them admit possession.
Although the CWC is binding only on countries that join voluntarily, it can be of value in slowing the spread of toxic weapons to rogue states and terrorist organizations, such as Al-Qaeda, by strengthening the restrictions on trade in precursor chemicals and increasing the vigilance of the international chemical industry about the proliferation threat. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the OPCW has encouraged member states to pass national legislation making the provisions of the CWC binding on their citizens and corporations, and imposing penal sanctions for violations. The international behavioral norm embodied in the CWC remains fragile, however, and scientific or technological advances (such the development of new incapacitating agents) could once again undermine the taboo against poison warfare. In view of the continuing threat of chemical weapons proliferation and use, strengthening the legal and moral barriers against the use of chemistry for hostile purposes will be vital for human well-being and survival in the twenty-first century.
NOTES
Note: Books cited in short form in the Notes can be found in the Bibliography.
ABBREVIATIONS OF SOURCES
FBIS Foreign Broadcast Informat
ion Service
FOIA Document declassified and released under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act
MHI Military History Institute, U.S. Army War College, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.
NARA National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md.
NSA National Security Archive, George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
PRO Public Record Office, Kew, U.K.
RG Record Group (U.S. National Archives)
SPRU CBW Archive, Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, U.K.
PROLOGUE: LIVE-AGENT TRAINING
4 Osama bin Laden quote: Jamal Ismail, “I Am Not Afraid of Death” [interview with Osama bin Laden], Newsweek, January 11, 1999, p. 37.
5 Chemical Defense Training Facility at Fort Leonard Wood: Staff Sergeant Kathleen T. Rhem, American Forces Press Service, “We’ve Got the Nerve,” August 1, 2000; “Battling an Unseen Enemy,” Retired Officer Magazine, March 2001, pp. 60–66; Steve Goldstein, “I Volunteered for the Front Lines of Chemical Warfare,” Inquirer Magazine (Philadelphia Inquirer), January 14, 2001; James Dao, “Pentagon’s Worry: Iraqi Chemical Arms,” New York Times, May 19, 2002.
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