Definition for the phrase weapons of mass destruction ?
The term “weapons of mass destruction” has been getting a lot of use lately; yet a concise definition of the what the phrase means is hard to come by.
When the subject is “star wars”, the term seems to include only chemical biological and nuclear weapons (see sec 1403 of http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1996/pl104-201-xiv.htm) but when the subject is limiting Iraqs’ ability to make such weapons, airplanes, cannon, lasers and missiles also seem to be included in the mix.
So, is there a single internationally agreed upon definition of the term, or is it merely shorthand for “weapons we don’t like, and want to make sure can’t be used against us” ?
When I was in the Army, “Weapons of Mass Destruction” were pretty much defined as any one weapon that could arbitrarily kill, maim, or severely injure large numbers of people, and cause widespread and total destruction or denial of territory, facilities, and equiptment. This is a Nuke, for the most part. However, some extremely persistent nerve gasses and bio-weapons also can fall into this category. Note that destruction or denial of things is a part of it. If it wasn’t, then an ordinary .45 caliber pistol could be defined as a “weapon of Mass Destruction”.
So, for the purposes of U.S. laws against terrorism, the term is pretty broad. Thus, Timothy McVeigh was charged with using a weapon of mass destruction.
In terms of international arms control agreements and non-proliferation treaties and the like, the term would probably be restricted to nuclear, radiological, biological, or chemical weapons, and would not include truck bombs or grenade launchers.
I’m surprised no one’s mentioned “virtual” attacks as weapons of mass destruction.
Communication and “jointness” is emphasized in Western militaries more and more each fiscal year. The smaller forces get the more they will rely on the ability see everything and communicate with everyone to survive. As a weapon that can “result in the total destruction of a combatant force”, “cyber attacks” (I hate that term)might be included.
While these attacks couldn’t cause real “structural” damage to civialn targets, they have the potential cause financial havok. it doesn’t take much to get large groups of people to panic far in access of warrant. The fall out of a series of concerted attacks could indirectly result in massive tangible destruction.
It appears that the phrase is a bit of legal shorthand that caught on, and is now being used in fuzzy and mysterious ways.
Everyone seems to agree that nukes and plagues are included, but beyond that things get sortof squishy.
That’s pretty much how I see it. It’s used in the same way as “liberal”, “conservative”, “radical left”, “religious right”, “assault weapons”, etc. These are all terms that used to have meaning but now just sound vaguely distasteful or frightening and are used as sound bites to brand a group of people or things that the narrator doesn’t like; this being done for the purpose of generating a prejudicial emotional response based, not on facts, but on the “scariness” of the label.
Seems to just me that landmines would be mass weapons of destruction, not weapons of mass destruction. This is because landmines can only cause mass casualties when they’re grouped together.
For military medical purposes, “mass casualties” or a “mass casualty” situation occurs when the number of casualites increases so suddenly as to potentially overwhelm the medical facility’s capacity to triage and treat them. MASCAL exercise scenarios do include biochemical attacks, but also bus wrecks and tanker truck explosions.
As was said, the definition of WMD is foggy. But given the idea of mass casualties as an overwhelming or potentially overwhelming number of casualties, a WMD would be one (a singel device) that causes (or can cause) destruction on a scale that is overwhelming or potentially so.
I think one common theme to “weapons of mass destruction” is a certain degree of indiscriminate killing. ABC (Atomic/Biological/Chemical) warfare counts because for all three there is no way to limit how far the death and destruction goes from the original target.
Anti-personnel land mines are also counted because many or most of them aren’t used in classic marked “minefields” anymore. Instead they are strewn randomly, often from the air, simply to cause entire regions to be hazardous to civilian populations. They can inflict casualties for years after the end of the conflicts that they were originally used in.