October 2010 CSWMD Proceedings 1

Introduction

I

t is inherently speculative to address future foreign perceptions of chemical weapons (CW) utility. This is not 

only because it concerns things that may be, rather than 

things that already are, but also because those who might be 

considering or already pursuing CW capabilities for the future 

will not be openly sharing their views. Classified sources and 

assessments also cannot be addressed in this unclassified 

forum. This paper, therefore, offers some educated guesses 

about how rational actors might view the future utility of CW 

on the basis of open source information about relevant technological trends and assumptions about pertinent aspects of 

the future international security environment.

It is useful to briefly take stock of the present before speculating about the future. Almost all of the world’s countries 

are state parties to the CWC, which comprehensively prohibits chemical weapons, except nonlethal riot control agents 

used only for law enforcement purposes and declared as 

such. Today, only seven states have not acceded to the CWC: 

Angola, Egypt, Israel, Myanmar, North Korea, Somalia, and 

Syria.1 Of those seven, Syria and North Korea most evidently 

maintain active offensive CW programs. Of CWC state parties, the United States has expressed compliance concerns 

about China, Russia, and Iran.2 On the one hand, almost 

all of the world’s countries appear to have formally and sincerely foresworn chemical weapons. On the other hand, 

there appear to be a small number of countries that continue 

to place value on possessing, or at least keeping open their 

options to possess, CW.

For any type of weapon, and particularly for one proscribed by treaty, three factors should be assessed when 

attempting to gauge future foreign perceptions of that weapon’s utility: the nature of the future threat, effectiveness of the 

weapon in countering that threat, and opportunity costs of 

choosing that weapon over other means of response. These 

three factors are considered in turn.

The Future Threat

Three aspects of the future international security environment could increase the appeal of chemical weapons.

First, the emergence of the world’s currently most populous states as bigger, richer, stronger, and more assertive 

powers could precipitate greater interest among their smaller, 

poorer, and weaker neighbors for alternative means of defense. 

www.ndu.edu/WMDCenter

PROCEEDINGS

Future Foreign Perceptions of Chemical 

Weapons Utility

October 2010

By John P. Caves, Jr.

John P. Caves, Jr., is a Senior Research Fellow in the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction at the National Defense University. A 

version of this paper was presented in October 2010 at a conference on the future utility of chemical and biological weapons.
2 CSWMD Proceedings October 2010

For example, Russia may not be able to rely in the future upon 

superior conventional technology to offset China’s greater 

numbers as the latter should be able to afford at least comparable technology. If those other states have nuclear weapons, 

they will depend upon them to deter aggression by their more 

powerful neighbors, but may also look to chemical as well as 

biological weapons to forestall catastrophic nuclear escalation during an actual conflict, particularly if new and more 

effective forms of those weapons were to emerge. Iraq showed 

during its war with Iran that chemical weapons can counter 

superior numbers.

Second, the persistence of insurgent and terrorist threats 

to many states could increase those states’ interest in nonlethal 

and low-lethal chemical agents. As the United States once again 

learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, collateral damage to the local 

population by counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations can foster and sustain local support for the insurgents and 

terrorists. Russia has experienced similarly counterproductive 

results with its heavy-handed counterinsurgency operations in 

the northern Caucasus region. Tear gas is a chemical irritating 

agent already widely used for riot control, a purpose permitted 

by the CWC. Less evidently compliant with the CWC, Russia 

employed a chemical incapacitating agent to resolve the 2002 

Moscow theater hostage crisis, but clumsily so that over 150 

people died. Counterinsurgency and counterterrorism demands 

could motivate Russia and other states to further develop and 

employ nonlethal and low-lethal chemical agents. If challenged 

as to the legitimacy of such efforts, they may assert compliance 

under the broad law enforcement exemption of the CWC.

Third, the recent revision of U.S. negative security assurances 

(NSA) could influence some states seeking asymmetrical counters to opt for chemical and/or biological weapons over nuclear 

ones. The NSA revision withdrew the threat of a U.S. nuclear 

response to chemical and biological weapons use if the perpetrator is a nonnuclear member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation 

Treaty and in compliance with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations.3

 While nuclear weapons offer unsurpassed destructive 

power and deterrent value, their development is hard and risky: 

they are technologically sophisticated, they are expensive, they 

have telltale signatures, and they invite more passionate international responses than the pursuit of other forms of weaponry, 

whether of weapons of mass destruction or conventional types. 

External military action ended (or at least interrupted) Iraq’s 

and Syria’s nuclear weapons programs, and the specter of such 

action may have precipitated Libya to abandon its program. 

North Korea and Iran press on but at high economic and diplomatic cost. Syria, Burma, and perhaps even Venezuela could 

be influenced by the revised U.S. NSA in deciding where they 

go next in developing asymmetric counters to their actual or 

perceived security threats.

Future CW Technological Developments4

Today’s advanced countries have had decades to understand the effects of traditional chemical warfare agents and 

to develop effective defensive countermeasures. While there 

are still some significant knowledge and treatment gaps (for 

example, mustards and soman), U.S. military leaders probably would be correct to conclude that their forces could 

successfully “fight through” traditional chemical attacks, 

albeit while incurring increased casualties and delays. 

Capable military forces enter battlefields prepared for the 

possibility of chemical weapons use, shielded by protective 

equipment and medical treatments developed to defeat traditional agents. Civilian populations, on the other hand, are 

not prepared on a day-to-day basis to defend against chemical attack, and so would suffer heavy casualties if subject to 

attack. Traditional chemical agents thus remain a significant 

instrument of deterrence for their capacity to inflict largescale casualties against vulnerable civilian populations, but 

are less effective as a means of warfare.

The emergence of novel chemical agents could dramatically increase the military utility of chemical weapons. 

Former Soviet scientists have publicly asserted that the Soviet 

Union developed novel chemical agents that are more effective than traditional ones. If such agents exist and proliferate, 

even advanced military forces might find it difficult to successfully fight through chemical attacks.

Even more potent forms of chemical agents may emerge 

from future technological developments. New tools, including robotics, micro-reactors, and ever more powerful 

computing capabilities, have dramatically increased the number of new compounds that can be synthesized and the rate 

at which they can be synthesized and screened. Commercial 

entities are creating large libraries of new chemical compounds, some of which may be highly toxic and useful for 

weapons.5 Nanotechnology is a rapidly developing area that 

could have important implications for chemical warfare. 
October 2010 CSWMD Proceedings 3

Building on ongoing work to improve the delivery of drugs 

for therapeutic purposes, nanotechnology may be utilized to 

develop new or improved CW dissemination techniques.6

There is a growing convergence of chemistry and biology as 

biological and other scientific disciplines are applied to the 

search for new chemical compounds with particular effects 

on biological systems.7

More people in more countries will have the knowledge and 

skills to exploit new technological developments in the chemical arena. Chemical manufacturing has globalized. Production 

no longer is dominated by a few, mainly Western, multinational 

companies, but now occurs in many more facilities spread over 

many more countries. Growth has been particularly pronounced 

in Asia. Chemical production facilities are also getting smaller 

and utilizing new technology. Individual plants used to focus on 

the bulk production of just a few chemicals; modern plants can 

economically produce a wide range. It may be harder to detect 

illicit activity in smaller plants utilizing new technology.8

Much as in the biotechnology area today, the rapid pace 

and diffusion of chemical technology is creating new scope 

for the development of novel chemical weapons and for 

offensive applications to outpace defensive ones. States with 

existing offensive chemical weapons programs likely will be 

the first to exploit these developments for malign purposes. Technological diffusion, however, will make these novel 

chemical weapons capabilities available more broadly over 

time, including eventually to nonstate actors.

Future CW Opportunity Costs 

One opportunity cost for states considering the pursuit of 

CW is the risk of being exposed as, or at least being suspected of, violating the CWC. This risk is most clear for nations 

that are state parties to the CWC. States do not want to be 

seen as not complying with their international obligations. 

That attracts negative diplomatic attention, possibly sanctions, and calls into question such states’ reliability in other 

areas. With specific regard to CW, it can invite undesirable 

political-military countermeasures by neighbors and rivals. 

Even for states not party to the CWC, their CW pursuits are 

viewed as violating the international norm embodied by the 

CWC, and invite similar negative responses.

Yet illicit CW activity can be difficult to detect and expose. 

The dual-use nature of most chemical facilities, processes, 

and compounds provides cover for illicit pursuits. Research 

and development can be pursued under the cover of civilian 

laboratories. States no longer need to produce and stockpile 

large quantities of CW during peacetime; production can be 

undertaken shortly prior to and during wartime, mobilizing 

commercial chemical industrial infrastructure to that end. 

Greater use of micro-reactors in the future could expedite 

just-in-time production of a high-quality CW agent. 

The CWC established an intrusive monitoring and verification mechanism, administered by the Organisation for the 

Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), in an effort to 

address the dual-use problem, but its effectiveness is unclear. 

One impediment to OPCW monitoring and verification is 

state parties’ reluctance to invoke the CWC challenge inspection authority. Despite reports of illicit CW activity by some 

countries, no challenge inspection has even been requested, 

much less conducted.

The inspection regime also focuses on traditional CW 

agents. These are the agents specifically listed in the CWC 

Schedules of Chemicals and the ones that OPCW inspectors 

are trained and equipped to monitor for. If new types of agents 

emerge in the future, then the CWC Schedules will need to be 

updated to reflect these new compounds when they emerge and 

corresponding changes made to OPCW inspection equipment 

and procedures. This might not be easily accomplished. The 

OPCW operates by consensus, though it is not required to do 

so. If any CWC state parties are among those who in the future 

will be pursuing new types of agents, particularly if they include 

one or more of the convention’s major players, they will be in a 

position to block any move to add new agents to the Schedules. 

The Schedules have never been amended, and have had only 

two noncontentious technical changes made to them.

Another opportunity cost of pursuing CW is the corresponding reduction in the resources available to pursue other 

military capabilities, whether conventional or unconventional. Two effects that states would likely assess in deciding 

whether to invest a certain amount of resources into CW or 

into other capabilities are those various capabilities’ respective contributions to deterring aggression and prosecuting a 

conflict. Nuclear weapons generally are considered to have 

unsurpassed deterrent value but very limited applications 

during conflict given their high threshold for employment. 

The inverse applies for conventional weapons. CW lie somewhere between these two ends of the deterrence-warfighting 
4 CSWMD Proceedings October 2010

spectrum. As weapons of mass destruction, they are perceived 

as having greater deterrent value than conventional weapons, but not as much as nuclear or some biological weapons, 

which can inflict more casualties for any given attack size. 

CW’s lesser capacity for catastrophic destruction plus the 

fact that they have been employed more often than nuclear 

or biological weapons arguably make their future use, especially on the battlefield, less abhorrent and therefore more 

conceivable. Moreover, unlike nuclear or biological weapons, 

CW has been shown to be effective on the battlefield.

Conclusion

The perceived utility of chemical weapons will increase 

in the future with the emergence of novel chemical agents. 

Some of these agents are likely to be responsive to increased 

demand for highly lethal weapons that can defeat superior 

conventional military forces and for non/low-lethal weapons 

effective for counterinsurgency/counterterrorism missions. 

Offensive applications likely will outpace defensive countermeasures. CW programs utilizing novel chemical agents 

may appeal to some states as a viable alternative to expensive and risky nuclear weapons programs. The Chemical 

Weapons Convention and Organisation for the Prohibition 

of Chemical Weapons will not pose major obstacles to states 

determined to acquire these CW capabilities, but they will 

cause those states to pursue those agents on a covert basis.

Notes 1

 Angola, Egypt, North Korea, Somalia, and Syria have not signed the CWC. 

Israel and Myanmar have signed the convention but have not ratified it. See 

Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, “Non-Member States,” 

available at <www.opcw.org/about-opcw/non-member-states/>.

2

 U.S. Department of State, Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, 

Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments, July 2010, 37–51. 

The United States also has indicated that Libya has not yet met its CWC, Article VII, 

obligations, but at this point this appears more indicative of a slow or incompetent 

bureaucratic process than a possible interest in maintaining an offensive CW program.

3

 U.S. Department of Defense, Nuclear Posture Review Report (Washington, 

DC: U.S. Department of Defense, April 2002), 15.

4

 Much of the following section is excerpted or adapted from John P. Caves, 

Jr., and W. Seth Carus, “Problems of Proliferation,” Global Strategic Assessment 

2009: America’s Security Role in a Changing World, ed. Patrick M. Cronin 

(Washington, DC: NDU Press, 2009).

5

 As noted in the February 2008 Report of the Scientific Advisory Board on 

Developments in Science and Technology for the Second Special Session of the 

Conference of the States Parties to Review the Operation of the Chemical Weapons 

Convention (Second Review Conference): “New biologically active molecules are 

being discovered at an unprecedented rate. . . . The tools for such techniques are 

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Defense University symposia, workshops, and strategic exercises. The opinions, 

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Dr. John F. Reichart Director

becoming widely available and could be selectively targeted at toxic moleculres,” 9, 

available at <www.opcw.org/index.php?eID=dam_frontend_push&docID=1871>.

6

 Ibid., 11.

7

 Alexander Kelle noted in his introduction to a 2006 report on preventing 

the misuse of 21st-century chemistry: “The chemistry of the 21st Century is a far 

cry from the one of the 1980s. . . . The new chemistry is utilizing other scientific 

disciplines and technologies to a much higher degree in its quest for new chemical 

compounds.” See Alexander Kelle, The Changing Scientific and Technological Basis 

of the CBW Proliferation Problem, ed. Alexander Kelle, 7, available at <www.brad.

ac.uk/acad/sbtwc/ST_Reports/ST_Report_No_7.pdf>. This report was the result of 

the workshop “Preventing the Misuse of 21st Century Chemistry: State of the Art 

of Drug Development and Delivery, and Selected Enabling Technologies,” Belfast, 

Ireland, January 13–14, 2006.

8

 As the Director-General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of 

Chemical Weapons noted in April 2008, “important changes are taking place. The 

layout, design, and characteristics of plant sites are under continued review by 

industry. Very importantly, globalization is bringing about a massive redistribution 

and regional migration of chemical production and trade in the world. In parallel with these movements, there has been an exponential growth in the number 

of declared Other Chemical Production Facilities. . . . Due to their technological 

features . . . a number of [these facilities] could easily and quickly be reconfigured for the production of chemical weapons. . . . This is all the more pertinent 

in view of the evolving threat posed by terrorism.” See Opening Statement by the 

Director-General to the Second Special Session of the Conference of the States 

Parties to Review the Operation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, April 7, 

2008, The Hague, The Netherlands, available at <www.opcw.org/news/article/

opening-statement-by-the-director-general-to-the-second-review-conference/>.