Preventing Chemical and Biological Weapons Proliferation

The terms “non-conventional weapons” and “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD) relate to nuclear/radiological, chemical, and biological weapons. Chemical and biological weapons appeared on the scene many years before nuclear weapons and in fact were used in centuries past. In the fourteenth century, the city of Belgrade managed to defeat the Turkish invaders by burning fabric soaked with poison and creating a toxic cloud. Also in the fourteenth century, the Tatars used corpses infected by the bubonic plague to infect their Italian enemies, and in the eighteenth century, British forces spread blankets infected with smallpox among the Indians in America. In the modern period, chemical weapons were used during World War I by Germany, France, and England, and caused more than one million casualties.