PROLIFERATION OF CHEMICAL WARFARE

WHAT ARE THE EFFORTS THAT HAVE BEEN PUT IN PLACE SINCE THE SECOND WORLD WAR TO STOP THE PROLIFERATION OF CHEMICAL WARFARE IN REGIONAL WARFARE? Answer; 1. Chemical weapons treaty: the protocol for the prohibition of the use in war asphyxiating, poisonous or other gases, and the Bacteriological Methods of Warfare, or the Geneva Convention, is an international treaty which prohibits the use of chemical and biological weapons in warfabre. It was signed into international law at Geneva on June 17, 1925 and entered into force on February 8, 1928. 2. Chemical Weapon Convention: the most recent arms control agreement in International Law, the convention of the prohibition of the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons and destruction, outlaws the production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons. It is administered by Organisation for the prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), an intergovernmental organisation based in The Hague. Chemical Weapon Destruction: By 2005, from among six nations that had declared their possession of chemical weapons, India was the only country to meet its deadline for chemical weapons destruction and for inspection of its facilities by the Organisation for the prohibition of chemical weapons. India declared that it had a stockpile of 1044 tonnes of sulphur mustard in its possession. By 2006, India had destroyed more 75 percent of its chemical weapons and material stockpile and was granted an extension to complete a 100 percent destruction of its stock by April 2009. On May 14, 2009 India informed the United Nations that it has completely destroyed its stockpile of chemical weapons. Other nations like Iraq, Russia, Japan, and United States have started destroying their stockpiles of chemical weapons. BRIEFLY EXPLAIN THE EFFECT OF WATER ON A NAMED CHOKING AGENT. Answer: Phosgene is a colourless gaseous warfare agent. It has a suffocating odour. Phosgene is ineffective in wet weather because it is so readily decomposed by water. WHAT IS CHOLINESTERASE AGENT? Answer: Cholinesterase inhibitor is a compound that prevents the hydrolysis of acetylcholine acetylcholinesterase, so that high levels of acetylcholine accumulate at reactive sites. They are chemicals whose primary toxic effect is to block the normal breakdown of the neuro-transmitter acetylcholine. Surprise plays a very part in the success of chemical attacks, as individual protective measures provides a high degree of protection against chemical agent. The attacker must try to produce a lethal concentration of the agent in the target area before the target troops can gain full protection. To improve on surprise, an attacker may use chemical field weapons in a weapon encasement. Alternatively, chemical attack maybe made using our craft spray or high air burst missiles at last high. History of Chemical Weaponry Chemical weapons have been used for millennia in the form of poisoned spears and arrows, but evidence can be found for the existence of more advanced forms of chemical warfare in ancient and classical times. A good example of early warfare was the late Stone Age (10,000 BC) hunter. Gatherer societies in southern Africa, known as the San. They used poisoned arrows, tipping the wood, bone and stone tips of their arrows with poisons obtained from their natural environment. These poisons were mainly derived from scorpion or snake venom and some poisonous plants were also utilized. Some of the earliest surviving references to toxic warfare appear in the Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharata. Arsenical smokes were known to the Chinese as far back as c.1000bc and Sun Tzu’s “Art Of War” (c. 200BC) advices the use of fire weapons. The earliest recorded use of gas warfare in the West dates back to the fifth century BC; during the Peloponnesian war between Athens and Sparta. During the renaissance, people again considered using chemical warfare. One of the earliest references is form Leonardo Da Vinci, who proposed a powder of sulphite of arsenic and verdigris in the 15th century. In the late 15th century, the Taino threw gourds filled with ashes and ground hot peppers at the Spaniards to create the blinding smoke screens before launching their attacks. In the 17th century during sieges, armies attempted to start fires by launching incendiary shelves filled with sulphur, tallow, rosin, turpentine, salt peter and antimony. In 1845-1854 the British troops used chemical warfare against enemies. A general concern over the use of poison gas manifested itself in 1899 at The Hague conference with a proposal prohibiting shells filled with asphyxiating gas. WW1 The French were the first to use chemical warfare during the first WW 1 using the tear gases, ethyl bromoacetate and chloroacetate. One of Germany’s earliest uses of chemical warfare occurred on October 27th 1914 when shots containing the irritant dianisidine chlorosulforate, were fired at British troops. The first full-scale deployment of deadly warfare agents during World War 1, was at the second battles of Ypres, on April 22nd 1915, when the Germans attacked French, Canadian and Algerian troops with chlorine gas. After the war, most of the unused German chemical warfare agents were dumped into the Baltic Sea. Interwar Years In 1919, the royal air force dropped mustard gas on Bolshevik troops. After World War 1 chemical agents were occasionally used to subdue population and suppress rebellion. In 1920, the Arab and Kurdish people of Mesopotamia revolted against the British occupation which cost the British dearly. During the Rif war in Spanish Morocco in 1921-1927, combined Spanish and French forces dropped mustard gas bombs in an attempt to put down the Berber rebellion. In 1935, the Italian military dropped mustard gas in bombs, sprayed it from airplanes, and spread it in powdered form on the ground. 150000 chemical casualties were reported, mostly from mustard gas. World War 11 The chemical structure of Sarin nerve gas, developed in Germany (1939). According to historians Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Kentaro Awaya, gas weapons such as tear gas, were used only sporadically in 1937 but in early 1938, the imperial Japanese army began full scale use of sneeze and nausea gas (red) and from mid 1939, used mustard gas (yellow) against both Kuomintang and communist Chinese troops. They were also profusely used during the invasion of Changade. Those orders were transmitted either by Prince Kotohito Kan’in or General Hajimic Sugiyama. Imperial Japanese soldiers wearing gas masks and rubber gloves during a chemical attack in the battle of Shangai. Japanese also carried chemical weapons as they swept through south-eastern Asia towards Australia. The nerve agent Soman was later discovered by Nobel Prize laureate Richard Kuhn and kourad Henkel in 1944. North Yemen The first attack of the Yemen civil war took place on June 8, 1963 against Kaioma, a village of about 100 inhabitants in northern Yemen, killing about seven people and damaging the eyes and lungs of twenty-five others. This incident is considered to have been experimental, and the bombs were described as ‘home made, amateurish and relatively ineffective’. The Egyptian authorities suggested that reports incidents were probably caused by napalm, not gas. There were no reports of gas during 1964, and only a few were reported in 1965. The reports grew more frequent in late 1966 and 1967. Cold war After world War 11, the allies recovered German artillery shells containing the three German nerve agents of the day (tabun, sarin, and soman) prompting further research into nerve agents by all of the former allies. Although the threat of global thermonuclear war was foremost in the minds of most during the cold war.