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The French were the first to use chemical weapons during the First World War, using the tear gases ethyl bromoacetate and chloroacetone. They likely did not realize that effects might be more serious under wartime conditions than in riot control. It is also likely that their use of tear gas escalated to the use of poisonous gases. [21]
The use of toxic chemicals as weapons dates back thousands of years, but the first large-scale use of chemical weapons was during World War I. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] They were primarily used to demoralize, injure, and kill entrenched defenders, against whom the indiscriminate and generally very slow-moving or static nature of gas clouds would be most ...
Chemical warfare (CW) involves using the toxic properties of chemical substances as weapons.This type of warfare is distinct from nuclear warfare, biological warfare and radiological warfare, which together make up CBRN, the military acronym for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (warfare or weapons), all of which are considered "weapons of mass destruction" (WMDs), a term that ...
A chemical weapon (CW) is a specialized munition that uses chemicals formulated to inflict death or harm on humans. According to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), this can be any chemical compound intended as a weapon "or its precursor that can cause death, injury, temporary incapacitation or sensory irritation through its chemical action.
A chemical weapon agent (CWA), or chemical warfare agent, is a chemical substance whose toxic properties are meant to kill, injure or incapacitate human beings.About 70 different chemicals have been used or stockpiled as chemical weapon agents during the 20th century, although the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has an online database listing 35,942 chemicals which ...
Chemical arms control is the attempt to limit the use or possession of chemical weapons through arms control agreements. These agreements are often motivated by the common belief "that these weapons ...are abominable", [1] and by a general agreement that chemical weapons do "not accord with the feelings and principles of civilized warfare."
Chemical weapons have been used around the world by various civilizations since ancient times. The oldest reported case of a chemical substance being used as a weapon was in 256 AD during the siege of Dura-Europos. A mixture of tar and sulfur was used to produce sulfur oxides, which helped take control of the city.
This was the first operative international treaty on chemical weapons that the United States was party to. In May 1991, President George H. W. Bush unilaterally committed the United States to destroying all chemical weapons and renounced the right to chemical weapon retaliation. In 1993, the United States signed the Chemical Weapons Convention ...