Countering the Use of Chemical Weapons in Syria PDF Download

Author: Una Becker-Jakob
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Chemical warfare
Languages : en
Pages : 15

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Book Description
Chemical weapons are banned by international law. Nonetheless, there have been numerous alleged and proven chemical attacks during the Syrian civil war. The international community has found ways to address this problem, but it has not managed to exclude the possibility of further chemical attacks once and for all. Nor has it created accountability for the perpetrators. The establishment in 2018 of the Investigation and Identification Team within the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is a step in the right direction, but it came at the price of increased polarization among member states. To maintain the OPCW’s effectiveness, move closer to accountability and uphold the international norm on the non-use of chemical weapons, the European Union and its member states should consider short- and longer-term steps, such as emphasizing the norm’s viability over potential threats, pressing the United Nations General Assembly to employ the Uniting for Peace principle, enhancing national criminal investigations or adopting universal jurisdiction pending the possibility of international legal prosecution for chemical weapon use, and supporting the OPCW and its ad hoc mechanisms in every possible way.

Author: Bretislav Friedrich
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319516647
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
This book is open access under a CC BY-NC 2.5 license. On April 22, 1915, the German military released 150 tons of chlorine gas at Ypres, Belgium. Carried by a long-awaited wind, the chlorine cloud passed within a few minutes through the British and French trenches, leaving behind at least 1,000 dead and 4,000 injured. This chemical attack, which amounted to the first use of a weapon of mass destruction, marks a turning point in world history. The preparation as well as the execution of the gas attack was orchestrated by Fritz Haber, the director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry in Berlin-Dahlem. During World War I, Haber transformed his research institute into a center for the development of chemical weapons (and of the means of protection against them). Bretislav Friedrich and Martin Wolf (Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, the successor institution of Haber’s institute) together with Dieter Hoffmann, Jürgen Renn, and Florian Schmaltz (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science) organized an international symposium to commemorate the centenary of the infamous chemical attack. The symposium examined crucial facets of chemical warfare from the first research on and deployment of chemical weapons in WWI to the development and use of chemical warfare during the century hence. The focus was on scientific, ethical, legal, and political issues of chemical weapons research and deployment — including the issue of dual use — as well as the ongoing effort to control the possession of chemical weapons and to ultimately achieve their elimination. The volume consists of papers presented at the symposium and supplemented by additional articles that together cover key aspects of chemical warfare from 22 April 1915 until the summer of 2015.

Author: Robert J. Bunker
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781651262689
Category : Chemical warfare
Languages : en
Pages : 86

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Book Description
This monograph focuses on an understudied, but yet a critically important and timely component of land warfare, related to the battlefield use of chemical weapons by contemporary threat forces. It will do so by focusing on two case studies related to chemical weapons use in Syria and Iraq by the Assad regime and the Islamic State. Initially, the monograph provides an overview of the chemical warfare capabilities of these two entities; discusses selected incidents of chemical weapons use each has perpetrated; provides analysis and lessons learned concerning these chemical weapons incidents, their programs, and the capabilities of the Assad regime and the Islamic State; and then presents U.S. Army policy and planning considerations on this topical areas of focus. Ultimately, such considerations must be considered vis-à-vis U.S. Army support of Joint Force implementation of National Command Authority guidance.

Author: Trent P. Mota
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781629484068
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 217

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Book Description
The U.S. intelligence community has assessed "with high confidence" that Syrian government forces used sarin nerve gas in limited attacks earlier this year and conducted a mass casualty chemical weapons attack against rebel held areas near Damascus on August 21, 2013. In June 2013, the Obama Administration stated that reported chemical attacks would lead the United States to offer more material support to the opposition. Secretary of Defense Hagel and Secretary of State Kerry have stated that the United States is providing lethal assistance to vetted members of the Syrian opposition. In response to the alleged chemical attack in August, the President is seeking congressional authorization for a punitive military response intended to deter the Asad regime from using chemical weapons in the future. Members of Congress have offered divergent views concerning the reported use of chemical weapons and proposed responses. The war in Syria and the debate over possible punitive U.S. military action against the Asad regime for its alleged use of chemical weapons pose a uniquely challenging series of questions for policy makers. The overarching questions remain how to define, prioritize, and secure the core interests of the United States with regard to Syria's complex civil war. The immediate questions are whether and how best to respond to the apparent use of chemical weapons in Syria and how such a response might affect U.S. interests and standing regionally and globally. In weighing these questions, Members of Congress and Administration officials are seeking both to protect concrete U.S. national security interests and to preserve abstract international security principles that may serve those interests. This book examines the background issues and U.S. response options in the armed conflict in Syria; the humanitarian respons; and includes remarks made by President Obama in an address to the Nation about Syria on September 10, 2013.

Author: Michelle Bentley
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526104741
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
This book analyses the Syria crisis and the role of chemical weapons in relation to US foreign policy. The Syrian government's use of such weapons and their subsequent elimination has dominated the US response to the conflict, where these are viewed as particularly horrific arms - a repulsion known as the chemical taboo. On the surface, this would seem to be an appropriate reaction: these are nasty weapons and eradicating them would ostensibly comprise a 'good' move. But this book reveals two new aspects of the taboo that challenge this prevailing view. First, actors use the taboo strategically to advance their own self-interested policy objectives. Second, that applying the taboo to Syria has actually exacerbated the crisis. As such, this book not only provides a timely analysis of Syria, but also a major and original rethink of the chemical taboo, as well as international norms more widely.

Author: Michael Crowley
Publisher: Royal Society of Chemistry
ISBN: 1788014723
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 672

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Book Description
The life and chemical sciences are in the midst of a period of rapid and revolutionary transformation that will undoubtedly bring societal benefits but also have potentially malign applications, notably in the development of chemical weapons. Such concerns are exacerbated by the unstable international security environment and the changing nature of armed conflict, which could fuel a desire by certain States to retain and use existing chemical weapons, as well as increase State interest in creating new weapons; whilst a broader range of actors may seek to employ diverse toxic chemicals as improvised weapons. Stark indications of the multi-faceted dangers we face can be seen in the chemical weapons attacks against civilians and combatants in Iraq and Syria, and also in more targeted chemical assassination operations in Malaysia and the UK. Using a multi-disciplinary approach, and drawing upon an international group of experts, this book analyses current and likely near-future advances in relevant science and technology, assessing the risks of their misuse. The book examines the current capabilities, limitations and failures of the existing international arms control and disarmament architecture – notably the Chemical Weapons Convention – in preventing the development and use of chemical weapons. Through the employment of a novel Holistic Arms Control methodology, the authors also look beyond the bounds of such treaties, to explore the full range of international law, international agreements and regulatory mechanisms potentially applicable to weapons employing toxic chemical agents, in order to develop recommendations for more effective routes to combat their proliferation and misuse. A particular emphasis is given to the roles that chemical and life scientists, health professionals and wider informed activist civil society can play in protecting the prohibition against poison and chemical weapons; and in working with States to build effective and responsive measures to ensure that the rapid scientific and technological advances are safeguarded from hostile use and are instead employed for the benefit of us all.

Author: Rebecca K.C. Hersman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442280786
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 69

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Book Description
In 2012, a 20-year moratorium on state employment of chemical weapons use was broken. Since then, there have been more than 200 uses, against civilians, military targets, and political enemies. These attacks have broken norms against the use of weapons of mass destruction and create a gap in the nonproliferation fabric—despite the robust international architecture of laws, treaties, agreements, and norms designed to restrain the proliferation and use of these weapons. Accountability for these recent attacks has been limited or nonexistent, which threatens the credibility of the nonproliferation regime and only encourages further use. Leaders must find the political and moral strength to use a full spectrum of tools to reestablish this system of restraint. By understanding the system—built on taboos, norms, deterrence, and a lack of benefits—and corresponding accountability approaches—military, legal, political, diplomatic, economic, and educational—leaders can utilize a menu of potential actions for building more diverse, flexible, scalable, and implementable options to hold accountable users of chemical weapons.

Author: Tobias Schneider
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Chemical weapons
Languages : en
Pages : 47

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Book Description
For years, the international community has struggled to understand how and why the Assad regime, in defiance of norms and threats, has persisted in its use of banned chemical weapons against civilian populations. In this report, we draw on the most comprehensive dataset of chemical weapons attacks in Syria compiled to date to illustrate the sheer scale of the problem – at least 336 confirmed attacks – and offer evidence-based analysis of the tactical and operational logic underpinning the use of chemical weapons as part of the Syrian regime’s wider strategy of punitive counterinsurgency. Once we appreciate the full strategic rationale and impact of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war, we are able to assess their true impact on humanitarian or strategic interests, and to develop more effective policy responses.

Author: Joby Warrick
Publisher: Doubleday
ISBN: 0385544472
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
In Red Line, Joby Warrick, the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Black Flags, shares the thrilling unknown story of America’s mission in Syria: to find and destroy Syria’s chemical weapons and keep them out of the hands of the Islamic State. In August 2012, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad was clinging to power in a vicious civil war. When secret intelligence revealed that the dictator might resort to using chemical weapons, President Obama warned that doing so would cross “a red line.” Assad did it anyway, bombing the Damascus suburb of Ghouta with sarin gas, killing hundreds of civilians, and forcing Obama to decide if he would mire America in another unpopular war in the Middle East. When Russia offered to broker the removal of Syria’s chemical weapons, Obama leapt at the out. So began an electrifying race to find, remove, and destroy 1,300 tons of chemical weapons in the midst of a raging civil war. The extraordinary little-known effort is a triumph for the Americans, but soon Russia’s long game becomes clear: it will do anything to preserve Assad’s rule. As America’s ability to control events in Syria shrinks, the White House learns that ISIS, building its caliphate in Syria’s war-tossed territory, is seeking chemical weapons for itself, with an eye to attack the West. Drawing on astonishing original reporting, Warrick crafts a character-driven narrative that reveals how the United States embarked on a bold adventure to prevent one catastrophe but could not avoid a tragic chain of events that led to another.

Author: Glenn Cross
Publisher: Helion and Company
ISBN: 191286696X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Dirty War is the first comprehensive look at the Rhodesia’s top secret use of chemical and biological weapons (CBW) during their long counterinsurgency against native African nationalists. Having declared its independence from Great Britain in 1965, the government—made up of European settlers and their descendants—almost immediately faced a growing threat from native African nationalists. In the midst of this long and terrible conflict, Rhodesia resorted to chemical and biological weapons against an elusive guerrilla adversary. A small team made up of a few scientists and their students at a remote Rhodesian fort to produce lethal agents for use. Cloaked in the strictest secrecy, these efforts were overseen by a battle-hardened and ruthless officer of Rhodesia’s Special Branch and his select team of policemen. Answerable only to the head of Rhodesian intelligence and the Prime Minister, these men working alongside Rhodesia’s elite counterguerrilla military unit, the Selous Scouts, developed the ingenious means to deploy their poisons against the insurgents. The effect of the poisons and disease agents devastated the insurgent groups both inside Rhodesia and at their base camps in neighboring countries. At times in the conflict, the Rhodesians thought that their poisons effort would bring the decisive blow against the guerrillas. For months at a time, the Rhodesian use of CBW accounted for higher casualty rates than conventional weapons. In the end, however, neither CBW use nor conventional battlefield successes could turn the tide. Lacking international political or economic support, Rhodesia’s fate from the outset was doomed. Eventually the conflict was settled by the ballot box and Rhodesia became independent Zimbabwe in April 1980. Dirty War is the culmination of nearly two decades of painstaking research and interviews of dozens of former Rhodesian officers who either participated or were knowledgeable about the top secret development and use of CBW. The book also draws on the handful of remaining classified Rhodesian documents that tell the story of the CBW program. Dirty War combines all of the available evidence to provide a compelling account of how a small group of men prepared and used CBW to devastating effect against a largely unprepared and unwitting enemy. Looking at the use of CBW in the context of the Rhodesian conflict, Dirty War provides unique insights into the motivation behind CBW development and use by states, especially by states combating internal insurgencies. As the norms against CBW use have seemingly eroded with CW use evident in Iraq and most recently in Syria, the lessons of the Rhodesian experience are all the more valid and timely.