Nonlethal Weapons: A British Review

Hundreds of documents and articles have been published about nonlethal weapons (NLW) since the 1960s. However, few books had been published on the subject.1 As NLW significance becomes more recognized for the operational advantages they provide in Western urban and "failed-state" settings, more books are appearing. Malcolm Dando's book A New Form of Warfare: The Rise of Nonlethal Weapons and Nick Lewer and Steven Schofield's book Nonlethal Weapons: A Fatal Attraction? Military Strategies and Technologies for 21st-Century Conflict are two of the first books to appear.2 All three authors are academics with ties to the fields of peace studies and conflict resolution. In their own ways, both books represent significant contributions to NLW literature and, therefore, belong in every military officer's professional library. The books are useful overviews of recent NLW historical development and employment, do an excellent job of covering various NLW technologies, fully discuss the ethical and legal implications surrounding NLW, provide us with an "over-the-seas" perspective and are well researched. However, neither book contains an in-depth look at current NLW operational employment concepts-which is probably best, given this subject is outside the authors' research focus. The books have an undercurrent of NLW "arms control." These are not "how to" books for military and police officers. They are policy-- directed works attempting to influence the debate swirling around these weapons' fielding and future. As a result, readers must approach both books with the understanding that an implicit arms-control agenda exists. Therefore, I strongly caution readers to question the authors' inherent policy positions. Malcolm Dando's book focuses on US psychochemical incapacitants and their development. Dando holds a doctorate in neurophysiology and wrote Biological Warfare in the 21st Century.3 Given the focus of this current book, however, only the short second chapter, "Benign Interventions with Nonlethal Weapons?" provides an overview of more traditional NLW subjects. Other chapters cover peacekeeping and describe the Inhumane Weapons Convention and effects of delayed-action weapons such as land mines, which is meant to be an example of the human tragedy that psychochemical NLW can cause when they are not restricted by international agreements. The book also touches on chemical agents, the human nervous system, brain chemistry and US pyschochemical incapacitants. The author's concern is the need to rethink arms control and the implications of NLW incapacitants with regard to benign interventions or a new arms race. When thinking about the ideas in this book, I had the most trouble with the following quote: "[T]he development and fielding of many of these weapon systems will call into question the arms control regime we have so far managed to erect and will complicate efforts to proceed further with the necessary process of military de-escalation upon which stability and security will depend in the next century."4 While arms control may be viewed as a means to provide stability and security among some national groups, arms control is meaningless in regard to rogue states and nonstate groups. In 1957, Abba Eban, Israeli ambassador to the United States, said, "International law is the law which the wicked do not obey and which the righteous do not enforce."5 If some US scholars' predictions are accurate and NLW do turn out to be as militarily significant as the development of gunpowder-based weapons, it is imperative that US military forces continue to lead the field. Nick Lewer and Steven Schofield's book provides a more general treatment of NLW than does Dando's.6 As a result, for most readers it is a far more useful and informative work. Lewer and Schofield hold doctorates and have published many works on this subject. The book covers NLW and the post-Cold War environment; technology and the development of NLW; policy, doctrine, strategy and operations; the legal and ethical dilemmas posed by controls and constraints; and strategic implications and NLW's future role. …