Weapon of mass destruction
A weapon of mass destruction is a biological, chemical, radiological, nuclear, or any other weapon that can kill or significantly harm many people or cause great damage to artificial structures, natural structures, or the biosphere. The scope and usage of the term has evolved and been disputed, often signifying more politically than technically. Originally coined in reference to aerial bombing with conventional explosives during World War II, it has later come to refer to large-scale weaponry of warfare-related technologies, primarily biological, chemical, radiological, or nuclear warfare. Protective measures against weapons of mass destruction are known as CBRN defense.
The histories of biological and chemical warfare date from antiquity to the modern period, with toxic gases used on a vast scale in World War I. In World War II, the United States first developed nuclear weapons, and used them in war twice, in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nazi Germany's use of gases during the Holocaust killed approximately three million people, the largest death toll due to chemical weapons in history. The Empire of Japan used chemical and biological warfare on a large scale in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War, killing hundreds of thousands.
During the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union operated the largest programs for nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in history. The nuclear arms race saw the production of tens of thousands of thermonuclear weapons and delivery systems such as intercontinental ballistic missiles. Their chemical weapons programs focused on sarin, VX/VR, and mustard gas. Biotechnology was used by both countries to enhance pathogens, such as lethal agents that cause anthrax and incapacitating agents that cause glanders. Both countries briefly tested radiological weapons, but no state is known to have mass-produced or used them. The US Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program was largely successful in securing ex-Soviet weapons of mass destruction infrastructure and personnel following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and denuclearizing Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan.
The 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack, September 11 attacks, and 2001 anthrax attacks brought a heightened concern of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. Ba'athist Iraq had carried out mustard and nerve agent attacks in the Iran–Iraq War, killing thousands of civilians and troops. Following the 2002 Iraq disarmament crisis, false claims by a US-led coalition that Iraq was maintaining its weapons of mass destruction programs played a major role in justifying the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Ba'athist Syria used chemical weapons during the Syrian civil war, killing thousands and prompting US-led airstrikes in 2017 and 2018.
, nine countries possess nuclear weapons, while 185 countries pledge not to acquire them via the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty. The 1925 Geneva Protocol outlawed the use, but not stockpiling, of chemical and biological weapons. The 1972 Biological Weapons Convention and 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention seek complete elimination by all parties, but are challenged by violations and by a small number of non-signatory states such as Egypt, Israel, and North Korea.
Early usage
The first use of the term "weapon of mass destruction" on record is by Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1937 in reference to the bombing of Guernica, Spain:The term has been also modernly used for a primitive thermobaric weapon invented in 1905 by Spanish inventor Antonio Meulener, considering it possibly the first weapon of mass destruction in history.
At the time, nuclear weapons had not been developed fully. Japan conducted research on biological weapons, and chemical weapons had seen wide battlefield use in World War I. Their use was outlawed by the Geneva Protocol of 1925. Italy used mustard agent against civilians and soldiers in Ethiopia in 1935–36.
Following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II and during the Cold War, the term came to refer more to non-conventional weapons. The application of the term to specifically nuclear and radiological weapons is traced by William Safire to the Russian phrase "Оружие массового поражения" – oruzhiye massovogo porazheniya.
William Safire credits James Goodby with tracing what he considers the earliest known English-language use soon after the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki : a communique from a 15 November 1945, meeting of Harry Truman, Clement Attlee and Mackenzie King referred to "weapons adaptable to mass destruction."
Safire says Bernard Baruch used that exact phrase in 1946. The phrase found its way into the very first resolution the United Nations General assembly adopted in January 1946 in London, which used the wording "the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other weapons adaptable to mass destruction." The resolution also created the Atomic Energy Commission.
An exact use of this term was given in a lecture titled "Atomic Energy as a Contemporary Problem" by J. Robert Oppenheimer. He delivered the lecture to the Foreign Service and the State Department, on 17 September 1947.
It is a very far reaching control which would eliminate the rivalry between nations in this field, which would prevent the surreptitious arming of one nation against another, which would provide some cushion of time before atomic attack, and presumably therefore before any attack with weapons of mass destruction, and which would go a long way toward removing atomic energy at least as a source of conflict between the powers.
The term was also used in the introduction to the hugely influential U.S. government document known as NSC 68 written in 1950.
During a speech at Rice University on 12 September 1962, President John F. Kennedy spoke of not filling space "with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding." The following month, during a televised presentation about the Cuban Missile Crisis on 22 October 1962, Kennedy made reference to "offensive weapons of sudden mass destruction."
An early use of the exact phrase in an international treaty is in the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, but the treaty provides no definition of the phrase, and the treaty also categorically prohibits the stationing of "weapons" and the testing of "any type of weapon" in outer space, in addition to its specific prohibition against placing in orbit, or installing on celestial bodies, "any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction."
Evolution
During the Cold War, the term "weapons of mass destruction" was primarily a reference to nuclear weapons. At the time, in the West the euphemism "strategic weapons" was used to refer to the American nuclear arsenal. However, there is no precise definition of the "strategic" category, neither considering range nor yield of the nuclear weapon.Subsequent to Operation Opera, the destruction of a pre-operational nuclear reactor inside Iraq by the Israeli Air Force in 1981, the Israeli prime minister, Menachem Begin, countered criticism by saying that "on no account shall we permit an enemy to develop weapons of mass destruction against the people of Israel." This policy of pre-emptive action against real or perceived weapons of mass destruction became known as the Begin Doctrine., Nuclear Threat Initiative, updated May, 2014
The term "weapons of mass destruction" continued to see periodic use, usually in the context of nuclear arms control; Ronald Reagan used it during the 1986 Reykjavík Summit, when referring to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. Reagan's successor, George H. W. Bush, used the term in a 1989 speech to the United Nations, primarily in reference to chemical arms.
The end of the Cold War reduced U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons as a deterrent, causing it to shift its focus to disarmament. With the 1990 invasion of Kuwait and 1991 Gulf War, Iraq's nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs became a particular concern of the first Bush Administration. Following the war, Bill Clinton and other western politicians and media continued to use the term, usually in reference to ongoing attempts to dismantle Iraq's weapons programs.
After the 11 September 2001 attacks and the 2001 anthrax attacks in the United States, an increased fear of nonconventional weapons and asymmetric warfare took hold in many countries. The fear reached a crescendo with the 2002 Iraq disarmament crisis and the alleged existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that became the primary justification for the 2003 invasion of Iraq; however, American forces found none in Iraq. They found old stockpiles of chemical munitions including sarin and mustard agents, but all were considered to be unusable because of corrosion or degradation. Iraq, however, declared a chemical weapons stockpile in 2009 which U.N. personnel had secured after the 1991 Gulf War. The stockpile contained mainly chemical precursors, but some munitions remained usable.
Because of its prolific use and public profile during this period, the American Dialect Society voted "weapons of mass destruction" the word of the year in 2002, and in 2003 Lake Superior State University added WMD to its list of terms banished for "Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness".
In its criminal complaint against the main suspect of the Boston Marathon bombing of 15 April 2013, the FBI refers to a pressure-cooker improvised bomb as a "weapon of mass destruction."
There have been calls to classify at least some classes of cyber weapons as WMD, in particular those aimed to bring about large-scale destruction, such as by targeting critical infrastructure. However, some scholars have objected to classifying cyber weapons as WMD on the grounds that they "cannot directly injure or kill human beings as efficiently as guns or bombs" or clearly "meet the legal and historical definitions" of WMD.