Riot Control Agents

Riot Control Agents
Author: Eugene J. Olajos
Publisher: CRC Press
Total Pages: 543
Release: 2004-01-27
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1134424930

The proliferation and sophistication of riot control chemicals mean that all parties need to understand the responsible use and effects of such compounds. This book provides practical information on the history, chemistry, and biology of riot control agents and discusses their biological actions, risk assessment issues, and recent technical develop

Chemical Warfare During the Vietnam War

Chemical Warfare During the Vietnam War
Author: D. Hank Ellison
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2011-04-06
Genre: History
ISBN: 113682720X

Chemical Warfare during the Vietnam War documents the use of antipersonnel chemical weapons throughout the Vietnam War, and explores their effectiveness under the wide variety of circumstances in which they were employed. The short, readable account follows the US program as it progressed from a focus on the humanitarian aspects of non-lethal chemicals to their use as a means of increasing and enhancing the destructiveness of traditional weapons. It also presents the efforts of the North Vietnamese to both counter US chemical operations and to develop a chemical capability of their own. This largely overlooked facet of the Vietnam War provides an opportunity for students and scholars to examine many of the potential issues surrounding the use of non-lethal chemical agents in modern military operations, and serves as a backdrop to discussion of broader issues associated with chemical warfare, including the power of public perception. Chemical Warfare during the Vietnam War is a comprehensive and thoroughly fascinating examination of riot-control agents during the Vietnam War.

The Chemical Weapons Taboo

The Chemical Weapons Taboo
Author: Richard MacKay Price
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 254
Release: 1997
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780801433061

Richard M. Price asks why, among all the ominous technologies of weaponry throughout the history of warfare, chemical weapons carry a special moral stigma. Something more seems to be at work than the predictable resistance people have expressed to any new weaponry, from the crossbow to nuclear bombs. Perceptions of chemical warfare as particularly abhorrent have been successfully institutionalized in international proscriptions and, Price suggests, understanding the sources of this success might shed light on other efforts at arms control.To explore the origins and meaning of the chemical weapons taboo, Price presents a series of case studies from World War I through the Gulf War of 1990-1991. He traces the moral arguments against gas warfare from the Hague Conferences at the turn of the century through negotiations for the Chemical Weapons Convention of 1993. From the Italian invasion of Ethiopia to the war between Iran and Iraq, chemical weapons have been condemned as the "poor man's bomb." Drawing upon insights from Michel Foucault to explain the role of moral norms in an international arena rarely sensitive to such pressures, he focuses on the construction of and mutations in the refusal to condone chemical weapons.

Toxic War

Toxic War
Author: Peter Sills
Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2014-02-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0826519644

The war in Vietnam, spanning more than twenty years, was one of the most divisive conflicts ever to envelop the United States, and its complexity and consequences did not end with the fall of Saigon in 1975. As Peter Sills demonstrates in Toxic War, veterans faced a new enemy beyond post-traumatic stress disorder or debilitating battle injuries. Many of them faced a new, more pernicious, slow-killing enemy: the cancerous effects of Agent Orange. Originally introduced by Dow and other chemical companies as a herbicide in the United States and adopted by the military as a method of deforesting the war zone of Vietnam, in order to deny the enemy cover, Agent Orange also found its way into the systems of numerous active-duty soldiers. Sills argues that manufacturers understood the dangers of this compound and did nothing to protect American soldiers. Toxic War takes the reader behind the scenes into the halls of political power and industry, where the debates about the use of Agent Orange and its potential side effects raged. In the end, the only way these veterans could seek justice was in the court of law and public opinion. Unprecedented in its access to legal, medical, and government documentation, as well as to the personal testimonies of veterans, Toxic War endeavors to explore all sides of this epic battle.

Arms Control Law

Arms Control Law
Author: Daniel H. Joyner
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012
Genre: Arms control
ISBN: 9780754629535

This volume features a selection of the best scholarship on international law as it is relevant to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The essays consider the nonproliferation legal regime as a normative system and offer a more discrete consideration of international law in each weapons of mass destruction technology area. The role, authority and track record of the UN Security Council in this area are also evaluated.

A History of Chemical Warfare

A History of Chemical Warfare
Author: K. Coleman
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2005-05-23
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0230501834

This book provides an analysis of the development and deployment of chemical weapons from 700BC to the present day. The First World War is examined in detail since it remains the most significant experience of the chemical threat, but the Second World War, and post-war conflicts are also evaluated. Additionally, protocols attempting to control the proliferation and use of chemical weapons are assessed. Finally, the book examines the threat (real and imagined) from a chemical warfare attack today by rationally assessing to what extent terrorist groups around the world are capable of making and using such weapons.

Poisoning the Pacific

Poisoning the Pacific
Author: Jon Mitchell
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2020-10-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 1538130343

In this devastating exposé, investigative journalist Jon Mitchell reveals the shocking toxic contamination of the Pacific Ocean and millions of victims by the US military. For decades, US military operations have been contaminating the Pacific region with toxic substances, including plutonium, dioxin, and VX nerve agent. Hundreds of thousands of service members, their families, and residents have been exposed—but the United States has hidden the damage and refused to help victims. After World War II, the United States granted immunity to Japanese military scientists in exchange for their data on biological weapons tests conducted in China; in the following years, nuclear detonations in the Pacific obliterated entire islands and exposed Americans, Marshallese, Chamorros, and Japanese fishing crews to radioactive fallout. At the same time, the United States experimented with biological weapons on Okinawa and stockpiled the island with nuclear and chemical munitions, causing numerous accidents. Meanwhile, the CIA orchestrated a campaign to introduce nuclear power to Japan—the folly of which became horrifyingly clear in the 2011 meltdowns in Fukushima Prefecture. Caught in a geopolitical grey zone, US territories have been among the worst affected by military contamination, including Guam, Saipan, and Johnston Island, the final disposal site of apocalyptic volumes of chemical weapons and Agent Orange. Accompanying this damage, US authorities have waged a campaign of cover-ups, lies, and attacks on the media, which the author has experienced firsthand in the form of military surveillance and attempts by the State Department to impede his work. Now, for the first time, this explosive book reveals the horrific extent of contamination in the Pacific and the lengths the Pentagon will go to conceal it.

Nature at War

Nature at War
Author: Thomas Robertson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2020-04-02
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1108419763

"World War II was the largest and most destructive conflict in human history. It was an existential struggle that pitted irreconcilable political systems and ideologies against one another across the globe in a decade of violence unlike any other. There is little doubt today that the United States had to engage in the fighting, especially after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The conflict was, in the words of historians Allan Millett and Williamson Murray, "a war to be won." As the world's largest industrial power, the United States put forth a supreme effort to produce the weapons, munitions, and military formations essential to achieving victory. When the war finally ended, the finale signaled by atomic mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, upwards of 60 million people had perished in the inferno. Of course, the human toll represented only part of the devastation; global environments also suffered greatly. The growth and devastation of the Second World War significantly changed American landscapes as well. The war created or significantly expanded a number of industries, put land to new uses, spurred urbanization, and left a legacy of pollution that would in time create a new term: Superfund site"--