Word: cb
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...would seem possible, of course, for the United States to develop a formula for inexpensive CB weapons without letting the secret out to the public. But once it is known that such a formula exists, people are more likely to have the initiative to duplicate it. Meselson does not carry his argument this far -- he simply implies that if we must have mass annihilators, expensive ones are less undesirable than cheap ones...
Against this indictment, the proponents of CB warfare offer basically one argument: that this new weaponry would create a more humane way of making war. Although CB weapons can be lethal, the emphasis is certainly on the non-lethal versions, because it is their ability to incapacitate without killing that makes them unique. If it is noble to kill only soldiers in war while sparing civilians, how much more noble it is to render the soldiers unable to conduct war, without killing anyone...
...lethal CB weapons would serve as an "opening wedge," Meselson fears, to a gradual movement along the spectrum in the direction of kill. This is not just a legal point -- although there are problems of which types of weapons are outlawed by which treaties -- but a practical one as well. The techniques of manufacture, the methods of distribution, and the logistics of employing the devices would be about the same for lethal and non-lethal CB weapons. Meselson says...
This distinction between the lethal and the non-lethal also leads to some touchy problems in international relations. If a country has a policy of using only non-lethal CB arms, Meselson says, only that country knows for sure it is a non-lethal policy. And there is, at this time, no biological equivalent for seismographic detection of nuclear testing, so suspicious nations could not find out what is actually being done in the enemy camp...
...CB warfare becomes conventional, Meselson believes it will be due primarily to the United States. Conversely, control of this style of war must also be America's responsibility. It is the U.S. which is now using chemical weapons in Vietnam, and it is the U.S. which refused to ratify the 1925 Geneva Protocol which deplores the use or even development of such weapons. The Protocol was written by the U.S., signed by the U.S., but not ratified by the Senate. America has nonetheless always had a "cautious respect" for the treaty, according to Meselson...