“The mere acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by a rogue nation is an act of aggression. Given the nature of these weapons, the traditional rules requiring a threat of imminent attack are either satisfied by such attempted acquisition, or should n

Introduction

Although the term weapons of mass destruction ' was first used by the London Times in 1937 to describe the carnage resulting from a German Air Force attack on a town situated in Guernica , Spain , the term itself is now widely associated with non-conventional weapons with devastating capacity . Following the use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki , Japan at the conclusion of the Second World War the term weapons of mass destruction ' became synonymous with the atomic bomb and later with the hydrogen bomb . Today , all biological , chemical radiological

and nuclear weapons constitute weapons of mass destruction

The US Department of Defence in its Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms describes weapons of mass destruction as follows

Weapons that are capable of a high of destruction and /or of being used in such a manner as to destroy large numbers of people Weapons of mass destruction can be high explosives or nuclear biological , chemical , and radiological weapons , but exclude the means of transporting or propelling the weapon where such means is a separable and divisible part of the weapon

History of the Use of Weapons of Mass Destruction

Although the first use of nuclear weapons was the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the close of the Second World War , there have been numerous accounts of the use of chemical weapons throughout history . As noted previously , chemical weapons are defined by the US Department of Defence 's Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms as falling under the head of weapons of mass destruction

During World War I , the Germans were singlehandedly responsible for the first all out chemical attack when in April of 1915 they released chlorine gas on both French and Algerian troops at Ypres , Belgium According to author Jonathan Tucker the results were devastating causing soldiers to cough blood and to produce green froth . Some collapsed from the agony of the suffering . Within five months the British retaliated against the Germans in kind and the following year both sides engaged in the First World War resorted to the use of chemical weapons . The 1898 Hague Convention was powerless in the face of this type of aggression

In the years that followed world leaders attempted once again to contain the use of chemical weapons and the Geneva Protocol of 1925 banned the use of chemical warfare . The protocol which came into force in February of 1928 reads in part as follows

Whereas the use in war of asphyxiating , poisonous or other gases , and of all analogous liquids , materials or devices , has been justly condemned by the general opinion of the civilised world and Whereas the prohibition of such use has been declared in Treaties to which the majority of Powers of the world are Parties and To the end that this prohibition shall be universally accepted as a part of International Law , binding alike the conscience and the practice of nations

Jonathan Tucker observes that while the Geneva Protocol banned the use of chemical...