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From the
perspective of the early 1980s, the British chemical weapons
expert reviews chemical warfare plans and their possible effects.
The subsequent 10 chapters were written by the political scientist
Hans Günter Brauch (Mosbach, Germany) and by the chemist
Alfred Schrempf (Munich, Germany who died in 1996 at the age
of 41).
Schrempf
offers a historical account of the chemical weapons development
in Germany, a survey of chemical and biological warfare agents,
and deals with tear gas agents used by police forces. Brauch
outlines the background of the new debate on a chemical weapons
modernisation and replacement of unitary by binary CW agents,
he reviews the history between President Nixon's chemical
production moratorium up to President Reagan's decision to
produce binary CW munitions, assesses the Soviet chemical
threat for Central Europe and the international negotiations
for a chemical and biological disarmament and he offers proposals
for a gradualist strategy for a global outlawing of poisons
as means of warfare.
Postscript:
Eleven years later, these efforts succeeded with the signing
of the Chemical Warfare Convention that requires for a global
and controlled destruction of all CW agents. For subsequent
articles by Hans Günter Brauch on the events since 1982
up to the present: press here for his comprehensive bibliography
and use the search tools of your browser for: 'chemical weapons'
or : 'chemical disarmament' and 'chemische Waffen' or 'chemische
Abrüstung'.
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