What defines a WMD? I ask this in light of more news about the contraversial missing weapons are non-conventional. If non-conventional, isn’t this WMD? Is there a middle ground, like quasi-WMD? - Jinx
Maybe this should be in GD. I don’t think this has a definite answer. WMD is not a military term. It is just something politicians made up to promote their agenda. :rolleyes:
The term seems to be first used in UN Security Council Resolution 687, which says:
“Conscious of the threat that all weapons of mass destruction pose to peace and security in the area…”
and
Even though the term isn’t specifically defined in the resolution, looking at the resolution as a whole, it refers to nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
From before 9/11 and the current WMD fad: Definition of the phrase - weapons of mass destruction ?
More: Weapons of Mass Destruction
The hmx and rdx at al Qaqaa were in powdered form, suitable for molding into lenses for triggering nukes, or processing into plastic explosives, or using as is to build IED’s. It’s starting material, not a WMD.
See yesterday’s David Kay interview:
The earliest book title that I can find with the phrase is The Christian conscience and weapons of mass destruction : report of a special commission appointed by the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, published in 1950. The second is Proposal for the conclusion of an International Convention (Treaty) on Reduction of Armaments and Prohibition of Atomic, Hydrogen and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction, by Andrey Yanuaryevich Vyshinsky, published in 1954.
Back then, I suspect that it just referred to nuclear weapons, especially sch Hiroshima and Nagasaki were relatively recent.
The term might be derived from the US policy that reserved the right to respond with nuclear weapons if attacked with chemical or biological weapons. This was necessary because the US no longer had the capability to respond in-kind to an attack with biological or chemical weapons, due to treaties it had signed. By declaring nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons as members of the class “weapons of mass destruction”, the groundwork was laid for a policy of responding to an attack with WMDs with the use of WMDs.
I know I knew the term long before it became a household phrase. I probably got it from a book or a computer game manual, but it may have been an actual military term. A less ambiguous military term is NBC for ‘nuclear, biological, chemical’ (formerly ABC for 'atomic, biological, chemical). These are both American television networks, which might be part of the reason they called them WMDs on the news; of course, WMD is also a more politically charged term.
Nuclear weapons cause far, far more destruction than biological or chemical weapons. It may be true, for example, that a pound of nerve agent could kill 100,000 people, but they would have to obediently line up to be weighed and given a fatal dose. Chemical weapons can’t really be spread over a large area; certainly it would be difficult to spread them over the miles-wide area that a nuclear weapon would destroy. There are also cheap, effective countermeasures against chemical weapons. Biological weapons have many of the same practical limitations that chemical weapons have, and they can also be counteracted by medical means including vaccines.
Most military doctrine regarding chemical and biological weapons admits that they are not particularly good at killing people. They may be effective at denying a large area by contaminating it, like a sort of very large minefield. They also might be effective at overloading an enemy’s medical resources by producing a very large number of wounded. (The US and many other countries which formerly possessed chemical and biological weapons have signed treaties not to use them and so these weapons would not be part of their strategy.)
A single nuclear weapon, on the other hand, can instantly or rapidly kill tens or hundreds of thousands, even millions of people across a distance of hundreds or thousands of miles. It can destroy a city in seconds and make it uninhabitable for years. It causes lasting health effects, sometimes fatal, in the form of radiation disease and cancer caused by fallout.
Nuclear weapons are, in terms of their destructive capacity, a wholly different category from biological and chemical weapons. So, some people will argue that only nuclear weapons are really WMDs; I would accept using WMDs for all three for lack of a better broad term. But it’s very important to consider which WMDs are involved before making policy decisions, and especially before making a retaliatory strike.
mks57: Do you know when this doctrine was introduced? It would seem plausible in the 50s or 60s (maybe even the 70s) when a lot of policymakers thought nuclear weapons were the greatest things since machine guns. Now, it seems very dangerous, since it might start a nuclear war (even a limited one) in the absence of a nuclear threat against the US. I wouldn’t be surprised if it had been changed.
I couldn’t find a good citation for you. It became a news item during the first gulf war, when the use of chemical weapons by Iraq was a serious threat. The administration “let it be known” that the consequences of Iraqi use of chemical weapons could include nuclear retaliation. Iraq had used substantial amounts of chemical weapons in their war with Iran.
President Nixon announced a moratorium on the development and production of chemical weapons in 1970. That was the beginning of the end of US offensive capabilities for chemical warfare. The Army Chemical Corps was disbanded and later reinstated as a defensive organization.
As far as the destructiveness of nonconventional weapons are concerned, biological weapons should not be underestimated. The USSR/FSU had an extensive and sophisticated biological weapons program that created weaponized versions of some extraordinarily virulent and deadly bugs. These scare me far more than a few nukes. Think about what happened to the American Indians when smallpox, influenza and other Old World illnesses were brought to America. Many tribes just disappeared. We would be in a similar situation if attacked with bugs that had been genetically engineered to be weapons.
They managed just fine in WW1.
My personal view of the definition is a weapon which will kill and/or maim beyond the time and place of detonation. As big as conventional bombs are, they go “boom” and then are over. Destruction and devastation are limited to the blast radius. Projectile weapons are even more limited in their destructive range. WMD injure and kill outside the moment in time of detonation, and/or outside a defined radius. Napalm is outside this definition of conventional in that is destroys outside the moment of detonation, so this may be a grey area type of device. WMD stuff lingers, moves with air currents, renders areas uninhabitable, etc…
Not a 100% precise definition, but it’s the best one I’ve got.
As it’s currently being used, a WMD is a chemical, nuclear, or biological weapon. I’m not sure about napalm; it’s certainly not in the same class as sarin nerve gas or a blistering agent.
You know, actually, I remember hearing that “napalm,” as such, is some kind of prohibited weapon nowadays. But the U.S. can and does use some kind of incendiary liquid that functions the same way, but is slightly different chemically, and isn’t actually called napalm.
I’ll try to find a cite. Or if anyone else can find one (or can debunk this—either way. The truth is what matters.), I’d be obliged.
US Federal law defines the term WMD in several places. Naturally, not all the definitions are the same.
In the event that URL doesn’t work, go to http://uscode.house.gov/search/criteria.php , enter “50” in the title box and “2302” in the section box & click [Search].
A search through the entire US Code for [weapons “mass destruction”] produces some 600 hits. Not all 600 references are definitions, but it does indicate that the term is much used by the bureaucracy and is not merely a politician’s scare-word as some posters have suggested.