Advantages of Chemical and Biological Weapons Essay

Chemical and Biological Weapons are Your FriendsAs we go on our daily lives, terrorists are buying and developing dangerous and hazardous biological and chemical weapons to obliterate us. They do not care who they harm; their mission is to cause terror, to spread chaos, to engulf the world in anarchy. They want to know that they are making people terminally ill and sick. They will be enjoying a job well done while your skin is covered with excruciating painful blisters, or while you tell your loved ones that everything will be fine when there will clearly be a fatal result. Chemical and biological warfare has been around for many centuries. This type of warfare is not new. The Chinese, Greeks, and indigenous groups from South America used it. Whether it was arrows tipped with toxins, or the catapulting bacteria infested bodies, or the burning of toxic chemicals, each had its own deadly way of taking out the enemy. (Solomon 5-6) The U.S. should not stop developing biological and chemical weapons. Chemical and Biological warfare is most useful for taking out enemy personnel behind enemy lines. Al Mauronis book, Chemical and Biological Warfare, states, The larger artillery projectiles [] might use mustard, VX, or thickened GD to contaminate areas behind enemy forces, threatening their ability to resupply or to reinforce a particular sector (108). It is an inexpensive way to eliminate foes compared to sending in an army battalion and risk losing human lives. The biggest benefit from using biochemical weapons, as opposed to sending in persons to do the attacking, is that you can be far away from the danger of combat, and thereby limit exposure to your own troops. The biochemical strike can be executed from either a long-range cruise missile or you can have a stealth bomber deliver it to the exact point where the enemy is situated. This way the U.S. military have less casualties and losses. To further understand how to protect ourselves, we must develop these weapons and test them. There is no way of knowing when a terrorist cell in hiding is planning an attack so we must be prepared with full comprehension of these destructive weapons. How are we supposed to defend ourselves without any knowledge whatsoever of these weapons? We must not only protect ourselves  with precautionary weapons and plans but we must also arm ourselves with knowledge of these weapons. The U.S. must develop, research, and execute defensive plans so we can be safe. There are countries that will use these weapons, but they are also fearful of those weapons being used against them. That is why it crucial for the U.S. to have these weapons at hand. You can prevent a war and make a nation surrender with just the threat of launching a biochemical strike. Saddam Hussein stalled the US for a total of six months from invading Iraq by just mentioning that the country was willing to use biochemical weapons if the U.S. tried to invade. This is called brinkmanship. Just having biochemical weapons is like having a temporary shield that protects against invasion from an opposing country. Countries are fearful of brinkmanship and usually one country will back down for fear of total annihilation- annihilation, a reality that our generation must now try in order to do everything in our power to prevent it from happening. One may think that these weapons of mass destruction will only cause, well destruction, but what people dont know is that they have already done some good. Smallpox has been eradicated because it was proven to be extremely deadly in weapons tests and so it was practically wiped out. It now exists only in two heavily guarded facilities in Russia and the United States. They are not to be destroyed because these weapons of mass destruction may be useful in developing vaccines, antiviral drugs, and diagnostic tests. Bibliography: Mauroni, Al. Chemical and Biological Warfare. Contemporary World Issue. California: Santa Ana, 2003Solomon, Brian, ed. Chemical and Biological Warfare. New York: Dublin, 1999. Stone, J.D.. Free Republic 10/8/2008 .