As recent debates swirl around nuclear weapons, chemical weapons have the potential to cause great harm -- especially in Asia.
Thus far Asia has largely evaded the chemical weapons challenge now confronting Middle Eastern and NATO countries as they contemplate how to respond to the civil war in Syria and consolidate peace and security in Libya and Iraq. For good reason, most attention has focused on the emerging nuclear weapons powers of Iran and North Korea as well as the tense relations among the existing nuclear weapons states in Asia.
The recent angst surrounding the possible use of chemical weapons stockpiles by regime diehards in Syria, or their seizure by extremist elements among the insurgents, underscore the continued danger of chemical weapons proliferation and the need to take stronger measures to oppose it.
Allied leaders have adopted strong declarations against Assad using chemical weapons even while they contemplate unpleasant contingency plans to secure or eliminate the material on their own. Last month President Obama said that his administration had “increased concern” that Syria would engage in the “totally unacceptable” use of chemical weapons. “If you make the tragic mistake of using these weapons,” he warned, “there will be consequences and you will be held accountable.”
Syria is widely suspected of having one of the world’s largest chemical weapons arsenals, including a range of chemical agents (from unsophisticated choking agents to advanced nerve agents), several delivery systems (such as missiles, bombs, and shells), and multiple stockpiles in which the chemical precursors can be rapidly combined to arm the weapons. These could prove very effective if used against the rebel forces, which lack any protection against chemical weapons. Additionally, the Assad regime could use them against foreign nations such as Turkey which has strongly backed the rebel forces.
Perhaps the most serious danger is that, when the Assad regime falls, malicious non-state actors will seize Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles. Despite its desire to stay out of the Syrian conflict, the Obama administration may need to send U.S. troops to Syria to secure the chemical agents and related infrastructure to prevent terrorists from gaining control of them.
Even if these stocks are secure, the agents required to produce chemical weapons are widely available. Many countries possess industries capable of producing large quantities of such chemicals. Additionally, poorly secured caches of weaponized chemical compounds in the former Soviet Union offer potential weapons to for terrorist organizations, criminal groups, or rogue regimes.
Improvised chemical explosive devices can be produced with widely available chemicals and without much chemical expertise. Under certain conditions, even a minor CW attack could cause widespread panic and immense economic losses, transforming limited attacks into major incidents.
Asia received a warning two decades ago about how a significant quantity of a chemical agent in a concentrated area could be extremely deadly. The Aum Shinrikyo cult, which was based in Japan but operated in many Asian countries, undertook a large-scale program to develop weapons of mass destruction in the 1990s. Notwithstanding its vast resources, the cult proved unable to develop biological or nuclear weapons, but it did manage to make sarin. Although its 1995 operation in the Tokyo Subway resulted in only a dozen deaths, more than 5,000 people were hospitalized. Many more people might have died had AumShinrikyo used the gas more effectively, had conducted the operation in more favorable weather conditions, or used an even more deadly chemical agent.
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denis the menace
There is a TON of evidence available on the Internet pointing to deep Amerikan complicity in the supply of chemical substances to Iraq but this information has been suppressed and censored by TheDiplomat. Speaks huge volumes about the lack of moral integrity about those claiming their right to hold the moral high ground and lecture other people. Man, what is the world coming to ?
Kanes
Some countries may need them for a MAD (mutually assisted destruction) defence. National security comes first for all countries, east or west.
ram
what about india
Washington’s Double Standards
Why does Western writers like to focus on Asia and not Europe and North America and Israel? As though they have no chemical weapons? Or the capacity to rapidly produce it when the a decision is made to make it? Which is just as culpable as having stockpiles of the chemicals itself. Why are the same standards not applied to the West?
The West are like the policeman who insisted on charging a woman reading a book in the middle of a lake on the basis that her boat had all the necessary equipment to enable her to conduct illegal fishing and that she could do it any second he was gone. The woman countered with a threat to sue the policeman for sexual harassment. "Why? Asked the shocked policeman. "I have not even thought nor entertained such an action". "Yeah," says the woman. "But you have all the necessary equipment to do it any second you want".
Kangmin Zheng
@Washington’s Double Standards,
The obvious double standards are CCP wants to bring Senkaku to UN Court but refuses to do the same for South China Sea.
Diverting Issue As usual
What has Senkakus got to do with what was commented, you bl**dy CIA troll? When rational and good points arremade, your standard tactic is to divert the issue and take potshots at your target. What a d*ckhead! Get an honest job, bud.
American Patriot
@ wumao trolls
There exists a double standard because the USA has been well-established for 70 years as the world's policeman and as such, it is our responsibility to ensure that chemical weapons do not get into the hands of irrational actors such as Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Without the US security umbrella the proliferation of WMD's would be much greater and pose a huge threat to the continuation of the current international order. It's a tough job to carry out but you should be thanking America for taking on such a noble role.
denis
There is a ton of irrefutable evidence on the Internet pointing to deep Amerikan complicity in the supply and usage of chemical weapons by Iraq yet this information has been deliberately and severely suppressed by the editors of TheDilomat. Speaks volumes about the lack of integrity here.zo
As for why this article in particular focuses on the Asia Pacific, I draw your attention to the fact that “The Diplomat is the premier international current-affairs magazine for the Asia-Pacific region” (from the ‘About’ page).
VF89
You don't wanna know what kind of ingredients they used to make food from meat bun to 'fresh' egg.
Lnrds
The only chemicals I see in Asia is China's pollution and milk scandal.