Defense Articles

It’s small interactions like these that make Gears of War such a bloody pleasure to play with your friends. From deciding whether to revive a friend or execute a foe…whether to go melee-attack crazy or to snipe from afar…when each kill is so important (multiplayer supports only up to 4-on-4, with everyone getting one life per match), the intensity and excitement are so much greater here than in most other shooters. And with each death being so viscerally violent—heads explode, guts spill—the fist-pumping-in-air “aw, yeah!” victorious moments never seem to end. Two weeks straight of playing Gears of War over Live, and my friends and I are still whoopin’ and hollerin’ after a match ends on a particularly vicious hit.
Shoe: Bryan’s keeled over and helpless, desperately hanging on to his remaining pints of blood. Decision time. I could go over and stomp his head into the ground and earn extra points in the process, or I could play it safe and finish him off with my assault rifle from behind this stone pillar before his buddy can save him. Ah, screw it. Safety be damned—I want those style points. I run over to him, and as I’m performing the up-close execution move, I notice his teammate charging out from around the corner with a chain saw revved up and ready for my soft chest. Most of my insides end up covering the television screen, but I don’t mind. I knew the risks and was just happy to have a chance to humiliate my coworker.
Don’t like playing with others? That’s too bad, because co-op campaign mode is also an awesome experience. Most co-op shooters artificially insert a second player into an existing single-player framework. Like Halo 2…its campaign mode and story line were never about Master Chief and his buddy, right? In Gears of War, however, you always have a partner, whether he’s A.I. or human controlled, and many scenarios work around that dynamic (such as a scene where one player must use a spotlight to keep the other one lit so he doesn’t get eaten up by the light-phobic Kryll). I’m envious of gamers who get to face the blind, rampaging Berserker (who hunts by sound and smell) or screeching Wretches (whose f’ed-up scream still haunts my eardrums) for the first time with a friend on the other end of the headset. Playing through the story by yourself is great, too—the Doom 3–style frights, the Resident Evil 4–ish boss moments are exciting enough—but your A.I. teammate seems to need more help than he’s able to offer (though he’s never as bad as we’ve seen in a series like Ghost Recon).

I can go on and on about the exciting action in the campaign mode (like dropping a Locust drone to his knees in the dark to let the Kryll feast on him), the great moments I’ve experienced in multiplayer matches (exploding three foes at once with one orbital laser beam), and the insane graphics (best I’ve seen on a console, period)…but I have other things on my plate right now. Bryan’s bleeding out again…. I have to go stomp his head.

Bryan: I should absolutely hate Gears of War. Tactical combat, a big emphasis on using cover, one-death-and-your-done multiplayer—all three have always been high on my list of gaming pet peeves. But ironically, these aspects make up much of the reason why I absolutely love it.

While Gears is totally a thinking man’s shooter, it feels way less methodical than, say, a Ghost Recon. Whenever I describe my encounters here—whether it be from the rockin’ (albeit brief) campaign mode or multiplayer—I end up comparing them to a game of chess…but one that’s haulin’ ass at about 120 miles per hour with a ton more gore. Enemy-spawning emergence holes have completely surrounded my built-like-a-brick-s***house supersquad—quick, what’s the plan? A fugly Locust mans a turret, but I can’t get to him because if I step into the darkness, those flesh-eating Kryll will tear me to pieces—think, dammit, think! Surprisingly, coming out alive in these wonderfully intense situations doesn’t revolve around who’s fastest on the trigger. Rather, it’s all about who’s fastest at learning the lay of the land (which the game does an unbelievable job at varying throughout) and discovering its strengths and weaknesses before your opponent. And because Gears is structured as so, its self-proclaimed “stop-and-pop” gameplay works perfectly here. Even after finishing the game twice, I still get a kick outta watching the camera violently rock as I “roadie run” to cover, bouncing up only for a mere moment to blow someone to bits with my John Rambo–esque Torque Bow, and then quickly moving on to the next safe zone. And everything I’ve mentioned just makes the multiplayer portion, where one wrong move will earn you a seat in the spectator lobby (usually with a severed body or crushed skull), that much more stressful…yet in the best possible way.

Mark Wheelis has written an article of fundamental importance (”‘Nonlethal’ Chemical Weapons: A Faustian Bargain,” Issues, Spring 2003). He emphasises that nonlethal chemical weapons inevitably-and therefore predictably-carry a certain lethality when they are used; he offers as evidence the outcome of the Moscow theater siege in October 2002. He has also informed the current debate about whether use of such an agent in a domestic legal context would be a contravention of the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). His reasoning on the potential for misuse should sound an alarm bell in the minds of all proponents. In projecting into the future, he rightly indicates that the responsibility for ensuring that such agents are not developed, produced, transferred, or used rests with the country with the greatest military, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical power. Wheelis concludes that a “robust ethical and political system” is needed to prevent future deployment of such weapons.
Nonlethal chemical weapons are not envisioned as alternatives but as complements to the use of conventional weapons. This means that the legal debate should not hinge uniquely on whether such weapons are prohibited by the CWC; there are implications for other bodies of international law. If they were used in military conflicts, such weapons would serve only to increase the vulnerability of the affected people to other forms of injury. This is a serious consideration under international humanitarian law (the law of war). A fundamental premise of this body of law is that a soldier will recognize when an enemy is wounded or surrendering; in strategic contexts, neither would be easy if a chemical agent was used for incapacitation. It is then easy to see how such nonlethal agents when used in conjunction with other weapons would serve to increase the lethality of the battlefield. In a domestic context, the use of such agents in conjunction with other weapons brings human rights law into the picture in relation to whether the use of force in a given context is reasonable.
Wheelis has not referred to the time it takes for such agents to take effect. Would they really incapacitate people as proponents frequently claim? The medical literature reveals that opiate agents delivered by inhalation take some minutes rather than seconds to take effect. Even assuming delivery of a sufficient dose, incapacitation cannot be immediate. This is a serious disadvantage that proponents choose to ignore; much can happen in those minutes, including the execution of hostages or detonation of explosives. To sum up: Nonlethal chemical “knockout” agents do not exist.

In his Art of War, written 2,000 years ago, Sun Tzu observed, “Those who are not thoroughly aware of the disadvantages in the use of arms cannot be thoroughly aware of the advantages in the use of arms.” Do we have evidence that this observation is invalid?

ROBIN COUPLAND

Legal Division

International Committee of the Red Cross

Geneva, Switzerland

Against the backdrop of the Moscow theater catastrophe, Mark Wheelis argues the political practicality of U.S. leadership in order to prevent development of these arms. Achieving more robust controls requires eliminating the secrecy that surrounds research on incapacitating chemical weapons.

Wheelis’ concern that “short-term tactical considerations” will get in the way of good judgment is well-founded. Currently, federal officials are thwarting multilateral discussion about “nonlethal” chemical weapons and restricting access to unclassified information on government research. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) itself has proven to be amenable to the government’s efforts to short-circuit debate.

Internationally, there have been two recent civil society efforts to secure a foothold on the international arms control agenda for incapacitating chemical weapons. Both have been quashed by the U.S. State Department, which brooks no discussion of the subject. In 2002, the Sunshine Project attempted to raise the issue at a meeting of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in the Hague. The U.S. delegation blocked our accreditation to the meeting. It was the first time that a nongovernmental organization had ever been banned from the CWC because of its arms control stance. Even more tellingly, the United States next prevented the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) from speaking up at the CWC’s Review Conference earlier this year. U.S. diplomats were unable to bar the ICRC from the meeting, but did stop the international humanitarian organization from taking the floor and elaborating its concerns.

The State Department’s effort to stymie international discussion is paralleled inside the United States by the Pentagon’s work to prevent public disclosure of the full extent of its incapacitating chemical weapons work. One of the largest and most up-to-date troves of information about this research can be found in the Public Access File of the National Academies. Mandated by the Federal Advisory Committees Act (FACA), these files provide a public window on the activities of committees advising the government.

THE LEBANESE Presbyterian community is faithfully lighting candles on an Advent wreath this Sunday–and waiting. Disillusionment and desperation are growing all around them in Beirut, but, as Pastor Joseph Kassab says, “We have no choice here but to hope in a better future.” Then he adds: “Unfortunately, we don’t control it.”

Besides being a pastor, Kassab is the general secretary of the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon (NESSL), a body of 38 Presbyterian congregations headquartered in Beirut. Like other Lebanese pastors, Kassab continues to make the case for hope amid a political chaos that has reduced Beirut to rubble and pushed Christians out of the region as they seek employment elsewhere.
Lebanon itself is a metaphor for Advent. Here Christians are waiting to see concrete acts of God within history even though they have little evidence that deliverance is at hand, and even though they are too depleted to imagine what deliverance would look like.

“The future here is in the hands of the superpowers, in the hands of other countries,” sighs Kassab as he muses over the meddling in Lebanon of outsiders–Iran, Syria, Israel, France, other Arab countries, the United States. “Again, Lebanon is caught between all kinds of … factions.”

The fallout of last summer’s 34-day Israeli-Hezbollah conflict is weighing heavily on Lebanon’s national unity government, a fragile entity that represents Lebanon’s nationalist aspirations. It came into being when Syrian troops withdrew after a 29-year military presence.
Major Shi’ite cabinet ministers–most notably Hezbollah members–have walked out of the government, raising anxiety about the country’s unity. Lebanon’s independence is just one of the casualties of violence that has laid waste to Beirut and left Lebanon’s southern area in ruins. Since the early 1970s the country has endured ethnic and religious carnage, a civil war, an influx of Palestinians (including fighters from the Palestine Liberation Organization), invasion and occupation by Israel, and quasi-occupation by Syria.

“You can’t tell people not to be afraid. There is real physical danger,” says Adeeb Awad, Presbyterian pastor and NESSL director of church life. “So we sit with them and try to figure out the best way to deal with the situations that they’re in. We have to be realistic. We’re not living in a dream. The situation is very bad. But we are called to be here.”

Christians in Lebanon constitute 30 percent of the population at most, and Protestants represent about 2 percent of the Christians. But the 30 percent figure is dropping, as the latest round of violence drives more young Christians out of Lebanon in search for jobs. The church laments the flight and perceives the rising number of departing Lebanese, Iraqi and Palestinian Christians as a threat to the continued existence of Christians in the region.

In the wake of the summer’s strife, human rights groups are accusing both Hezbollah and Israel of abusing civilians. Human Rights Watch says that Israel systemically failed to distinguish between combatants and civilians, engaging in some missions with “dubious military gain and extreme human cost.” The organization condemns Israel’s use of cluster bombs, thousands of which remain unexploded in Lebanon. The weapons lie in fields and from trees, ready to explode and cause more civilian deaths and maimings. Human Rights Watch accuses Hezbollah of abuse too, pointing to the storing of rocket launchers and weapons in populated areas, the use of human shields and the firing of rockets into civilian areas in northern Israel. Hezbollah also used cluster bombs, Human Rights Watch says, but not nearly to the same degree as the Israeli army.

“We’re just tired of war,” says 67-year-old Jamil Zorab, mayor of Alma Ashaab, a tiny Christian town just north of the Israeli border. “That’s what we’re asking God for [this Advent]–no more war.” Zorab says that 85 houses were damaged last summer in his town, with repairs costing up to $30,000 per house. Destruction to crops is inestimable, although he figures that he himself has lost $10,000 in an unharvested melon crop.

Humanitarian groups estimate that more than 120,000 Lebanese houses were damaged in the summer blitz and 20,000 destroyed. One thousand civilians were killed, many of them children, women and elderly people.

Witnessing in the midst of such ongoing destruction and despair is hard work. “As people of faith, we don’t rely on hope in the situation around us,” says Kassab. “It is very politicized, and there is no hope in that. Our hope comes from believing that history is firmly in the hands of God.

“Who knows what is the will of God?” he asks. “Once there were Christians in Antioch and Philippi and Thessaloniea and now there are none. But then there was no Christian church in the U.S. or in China. We have to look at our faith from a wide angle.”

Since its debut last year, the cosmetic-surgery show “Extreme Makeover” has drawn runaway ratings, its many viewers at once fascinated and appalled by the needles, incisions, and bandages the mostly female participants will endure in order to climb a few notches on the beauty totem pole. This fall, ABC moved its Nielson heavyweight into televisions’ kingpin slot, Thursday evenings, while wincing critics sounded an alarm that Americans’ fundamental understanding of nature, beauty, and artifice has changed.

Nonsense, darling. In the pursuit of beauty, American women have variously plumped breasts with toilet-plunger-like suction devices (1890s), strapped themselves into fat-roller machines to press away the pounds (1910s), endured “electrode” shock treatment to zap away wrinkles (1920s), worn wire headsets to pull back cheek waddles (1960s), popped “youth” pills, and slathered on anti-cellulite lotions for generations. Today’s ladies have no greater drive to become beautiful, and defy the effects of timer than their mothers did. But the technology has sure come a long way.

In Inventing Beauty: A History of the Innovations That Have Made Us Beautiful, New York Times patent writer Teresa Riordan gives readers a delightful, quirky account of American cosmetic innovations, from lipstick to silicon implants, from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th. She avoids swerving into pro-feminist or antifeminist polemics, and instead simply accepts that the desire to be fairest-of-them-all is an impulse as mythic and enduring as a fairytale. With a little Cinderella-magic of her own, Riordan transforms patent history into an almost titillating subject, while reminding readers that tanning creams, breast implants, and nail polishes are “not merely articles of fashion but legitimate inventions”–and serious business.

A skilled hostess, Riordan sees the “emotional landmines” she’s tiptoeing around. To ease progressive minds, she suggests that lipstick, hair dye, and Wonderbras may in fact be a force for some social good–helping women born with lesser physical endowments make up for nature’s neglect through a combination of cunning, creativity, and financial investment: “When successful, the artifice of beauty is a great leveler.” That’s true, if you’re talking about evening the playing field among Women. But let’s not be uncivil–it’s well worth setting aside ideology long enough to enjoy her splendid romp through the dusty attic of the Patent Office archives. Before the push-up bra appeared in anyone’s closet, someone had to invent, patent, and perfect it. And Riordan’s strictly-business eye on the beauty industry inevitably turns up ample grist for other debates.

In the century covered by her research, for instance, she found that only 1 percent of all patents were awarded to women. But in the field of “breast enhancers”–that is, cushions and contraptions that allow a lady to look hustler under her sweater than she does ha the shower–nearly two thirds of the patent holders were women. Does this suggest that women, not men, have historically enforced the standards of female beauty? Or that more than a few businesswomen will take advantage of their sisters’ insecurities? The question at least might bring a blush to third-wave feminists fond of placing all the blame for the objectification of women’s upper half on husbands, Hustler, and Hooters.

It turns out that the patent history of human beauty products resembles that of natural selection. Once a new species emerges, variations flourish, until one version with a clear competitive advantage triumphs. In the first half of the century, women fumbled with myriad products to darken their eyelashes–patented tongs to apply cake powders, tweezers to paint on commercial creams, miniature combs to brush in tinted jellies–but once mascara wands took off in the 1950s, no woman or inventor cast a painted eye backward.

Not only does the beauty industry drive invention, but new technology can also push the limits of what is possible, and therefore potentially beautiful. Riordan recounts early 20th century patent applicants’ vexing experiments with shapes, materials, and suspension systems for supporting and shaping the female chest–pointed rubber harnesses, flattening wrap-around bandage bras, and horizontal straps that buckled into garters at the waist. In 1931, a mini-manufacturing revolution took place when a new blend of elastic and cotton fibers allowed suppliers to create stretchy and washable bras, which pumped life into a dismal Depressionera undergarments industry. With better materials and a growing market, bra retailers soon developed the standardized cup-system of A, B, C, and D sizes. If you’ve ever puzzled over the disappearance of fashionable silhouettes of previous decades–the bunker-chested Gibson Girl of the 1910s, the boyish flapper girl of the 1920s–remember those styles peaked before the invention of bra cups for suspending each breast individually made the idea of both a bosom (singular) and a flat chest obsolete.

Many international online observers are not impressed by the announcement this week of blue-ribbon inquiries seeking to learn how U.S. and British intelligence agencies managed the intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s apparently non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

In much of the world, commentators expect a double dose of stalling and dodging designed to scapegoat the intelligence agencies and protect President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair. A minority of observers call for a thorough accounting of what they regard as a profound but honest mistake.

The commentary on the parallel probes points to the continuing convergence of postwar politics in London and Washington.

In each capital, doubts about the Iraq war were stoked last summer by media scandals, starring characters distinctive to their cultures.

The British version focused on David Kelly, a shambling weapons expert who committed suicide after being exposed as the source of an inaccurate BBC story highly critical of Blair. The American scandal featured Valerie Plame, a comely CIA undercover officer outed by unknown White House officials eager to discredit her husband, a critic of the Iraq war.

In both countries, these doubts culminated in the conclusion of former U.S. weapons inspector David Kay that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction at the time of the coalition attack. Now, both Bush and Blair have been forced to accept outside scrutiny of their handling of pre-war intelligence.

For the Madrid daily, El Pais (in Spanish) , the two investigations will mainly serve “as a shield to protect Bush and Blair, for they won’t discover the political reasons for invading Iraq. Moreover, their findings, whose independence stands in doubt, will not be issued in the case of Washington until after the elections in November.”

The editors of the Hindustan Times in India, say that Bush and Blair “may still try to change the argument by saying that, whether there were WMD or not, the world is a safer place with Mr. Hussein behind bars. But such ploys will not dilute the main charge against them — that they launched a pre-emptive strike on the basis of wrong information.”

Attempting to blame the intelligence agencies, the editors add, “may backfire if it comes to light that the White House and 10 Downing Street put pressure on the agencies to provide the information which Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair wanted to hear.”

But Bush and Blair’s defenders warn against politicizing the inquiries.

“The most you can say is that Blair and his ministers presented information they thought to be true in a fashion designed to be supportive of their general argument for war,” argues The Australian. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“This mystery has many layers yet to be uncovered. But on the evidence, Bush, Blair and (Australian President John) Howard told no lies and deserve no censure.”

The Madrid daily, ABC (in Spanish, registration required) says, “the still undiscovered weapons of mass destruction have highlighted not deception but a collective error. Finding out how everyone was mistaken is a necessary exercise.”

Some commentators say the investigations call into question Bush and Blair’s ability to effectively carry out the war on terrorism.

Analyst Stefano Silvestri, writing in the Milan daily Il Sole 24 Ore (in Italian) , says Kay’s admission had “a devastating political impact” on Bush by forcing him “to run for the shelter” of an independent inquiry.

Bush’s biggest problem now, Silvestri argues, is that people question his grand strategy for the war on terrorism. Waging preemptive wars on the basis of intelligence is “clearly impossible, or at least far more difficult, if the intelligence provided is not genuinely credible.”

“The result of this creeping crisis,” he concludes, “could turn out to be highly dangerous for the security of all of us. International terrorism may well emerge the stronger.”

In South Africa, The Sowetan , a Johannesburg daily with a mostly black readership, is harsher, saying the justification for the Iraq war “has never been weaker” and U.S. image “as a defender of human rights and democracy has never been more vulnerable.”

Bush and Blair, the editors say, “stand criminally liable for the death of thousands of defenseless Iraqi civilians killed in US and British bombing raids. Both should rightly be held accountable before an international tribunal. For obvious reasons, that will not happen.

“But this does not render the development insignificant,” they conclude. “On the contrary it vindicates the majority in the world who were opposed to the war. ”

In London, columnist John Pilger of the tabloid The Mirror echoes the angry tone. The American and British leaders, he writes, “ordered an unprovoked invasion of another country on a totally false pretext. [The] lies and deceptions manufactured in London and Washington caused the deaths of up to 55,000 Iraqis, including 9,600 civilians.”

The 2006 Army Green Book Weapons and Equipment Directory continues its own transformation process.

Examples of the changes are evident in the consolidation of rocket and missile programs under a new heading, as well as the expansion of the section, established in the 2005 book, for Future Combat Systems (FCS).

Over the coming years, it is anticipated that the FCS section will continue to expand in parallel with the 18 system categories, all working within a single network in support of every soldier.

As in past years, program changes in this year’s reference reflect the invaluable support provided by various public affairs organizations in industry, the Army and various Joint Program Executive Offices.

Conversely, there were other areas where support was not provided. Moreover, there were even some areas where individuals expressed personal operational security concerns. The listings have remained largely unchanged in those instances.

As with past issues, the 2006 Weapons Directory remains a work in progress. It is not a complete listing of all equipment fielded but rather a selective listing of representative equipment capabilities. As with the successful transformation of the U.S. Army, the Weapons Directory will continue its own transformation in coming years.

Comments and suggestions regarding the reference transformation are always appreciated. .

AIRCRAFT

Rotary Wing

The AH-6/MH-6 Little Bird (Cayuse) Helicopter is in service with the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) (SOAR). Following service in Vietnam, the Army’s fleet of OH-6 light observation and command helicopters (LOACH) was reassigned to Army National Guard units. With their excellent roll-on/roll-off mobility and extremely high power-to-weight ratios, however, the aircraft subsequently were tapped for special operations applications in 1980.

Capability upgrades include performance, avionics, navigation, communications, targeting, weapons and night operations. Although primarily equipped with the 7.62 mm minigun or Hydra 70 (2.75-inch) rocket system, the AH-6/MH-6 can accommodate a range of gun and rocket options.

The AH-6J/MH-6J mission-enhanced Little Bird (MELB) program is a major modification to the existing AH-6/MH-6 fleet. The modification is packaged as a kit that replaces existing components on the aircraft. The new MELB aircraft will have a six-blade main rotor system, a four-blade tail rotor, an improved drive train and the Allison 250-C30R3 full-authority, digital-engine control (FADEC). The MELB also incorporates an improved landing gear, crashworthy fuel cells, enlarged rear doors and external extended-range fuel tanks. The MELB modifications will change the look and performance of the AH-6/MH-6 aircraft.

The MELB program increases the performance and safety margins of the existing Little Bird aircraft. The modifications increase the maximum gross weight of the aircraft to 4,700 pounds; improve the high/hot performance capabilities of the aircraft; and move the extended-range fuel tanks from inside the cabin area, thereby increasing the cabin space available to the supported ground commander. In addition, there is a concurrent program to improve the weapon management system for the AH configuration. The MELB program boosts the performance and extends the life of the AH-6/MH-6 aircraft.

The AH-64A Apache Helicopter provides day, night and adverse weather attack helicopter capability. The Apache is the Army’s primary attack helicopter. It is a quick-reacting, airborne weapon system that can fight both close and deep to destroy, disrupt or delay enemy forces. The Apache first entered service inventories in 1984.

The aircraft is designed to fight and survive throughout the world. It is equipped with a target acquisition designation sight and a pilot night-vision sensor that permit its two-man crew to navigate and attack in darkness and adverse weather. The Apache’s principal mission is to destroy high-value targets with the Hellfire missile. It also is capable of employing a 30 mm M230 chin-mounted automatic cannon and Hydra 70 rockets that are lethal against a variety of targets.

The Apache has a maximum speed of 145 knots. It has a maximum gross weight range of 240 nautical miles (A model) and 230 nautical miles (D model) with range extension capability using internal and external tanks. The Apache has a full range of aircraft survivability equipment and the ability to withstand hits from rounds up to 23 millimeters in critical areas. Apache ordnance consists of the Hellfire Missile (RF/SAL versions), 2.75-inch rockets (all versions), and 30 mm HEI rounds.

The AH-64D Longbow is a remanufacture program of the AH-64A, incorporating the fire-control radar (FCR), capable of being used day or night, in adverse weather and through battlefield obscurants. The AH-64D consists primarily of the integration of a mast-mounted millimeter-wave fire-control radar, a radar frequency interferometer and a radar frequency fire-and-forget Hellfire missile.

Chemical weapons War of Nerves: Chemical Warfare from World War I to Al-Qaeda by Jonathan B. Tucker. New York: Pantheon Books, 2006, 479 pp.

The issue of chemical warfare has frayed the nerves of policymakers for the past century. Most recently, the U.S.-led coalition fully expected to find stockpiles of chemical weapons when it invaded Iraq (it did not). The United States and others worry that terrorists may figure out how to make them and then use them.

Yet as Jonathan B. Tucker makes clear in this highly readable and authoritative history, the current situation regarding chemical warfare is far brighter than many thought possible two or three decades ago. Back then, the United States and the Soviet Union were building up their chemical weapons stocks, and their use was considered likely if the Cold War turned hot. In the 1980s, Saddam Hussein unleashed chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq War, as well as against the Kurds in northern Iraq. Today, by contrast, in the wake of the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and its strict enforcement provisions, there is a clear international taboo against the use, production, development, and stockpiling of such weapons.

Despite this analysis, however, Tucker makes it clear that it would be dangerous to believe that the chemical warfare problem has been solved. Few analysts would disagree with his conclusion that the international norm against chemical warfare remains fragile.

The book charts chronologically the development of chemical weapons and their use from World War I to the mid1990s, when the group Aum Shinrikyo released Sarin (a nerve agent) in the Tokyo subway system. Although AlQaeda is identified in the book’s subtitle, that terrorist group is featured only in the last 20 pages as one of several emerging threats. But this is not a policy book; it is a history, and in that regard, it should be the first pick off the shelf for anyone who seeks an indepth account of the history of chemical warfare.

The first 100 pages chart the development of chemical weapons and chemical warfare during World War I, the interwar period (1919-1939), and World War II. Widespread use of chemical weapons in World War I and more limited use during the interwar period (for example, Italy against Abyssinia) occurred despite the moral taboo, normative codes, and legal agreements against them. During World War 1,39 different toxic agents were used, causing nearly 1 million casualties and an estimated 90,000 deaths. More than half those fatalities were suffered by Russia (56,000), and chemical warfare casualties are estimated to have accounted for about a quarter of the estimated 272,000 U.S. injuries.

The disproportionate numbers of deaths in Russia and casualties in the United States may have had an impact on later U.S. and Russian/Soviet thinking about chemical weapons and their utility. Certainly, the continued use of chemical weapons was expected, and General Amos A. Fries (later chief of the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service) believed not only that chemical warfare was something every state would have to reckon with, but also a form of warfare “civilized nations should not hesitate to use,” Tucker writes.

Despite the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which prohibited the use but not the development, production, or stockpiling of chemical weapons, the weapons retained their appeal. Thus, although the U.S. government supported the protocol, Fries was instrumental in the coalition of veterans’ groups, chemical manufacturers, and the American Chemical Society that lobbied against the treaty, ensuring that it did not come to a vote in the Senate. Support for the maintenance of a chemical weapons option in warfare remained strong in the military. The chemical genie was out of the bottle, and few believed it would be easy to prevent future use and proliferation. The United States finally ratified the Geneva Protocol in 1975. (Industry attitudes about chemical weapons have changed drastically since the 1920s. By the late 1980s, the U.S. government’s effort to develop chemical weapons was hindered by an inability to secure the necessary chemicals. Tucker quotes one industry spokesman as saying: “In this day and age, who wants to be involved in providing chemicals that go into chemical weapons?”)

In the next 150 pages of the book, Tucker examine events through the 1980s, including the development of the extensive U.S. and Soviet chemical weapons programs as well as the programs of other states, including France and Egypt. Because of the book’s emphasis on chemical warfare, the reader learns more about the programs of states that actually used these weapons than those of states believed to have developed stockpiles. Hence, whereas Iraq’s chemical warfare capability and its use of the weapons are fully documented, Syria’s chemical weapons program receives scant attention. In addition, the ambiguities between defensive activities (protective measures such as respirators) and offensive chemical weapons research in Israel’s program are brought to light only in relation to the investigation into a 1992 accident in Amsterdam involving an El Al cargo plane that was carrying precursor chemicals for nerve agents.

Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation by Lynn Eden. Cornell University Press (http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu), Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850, 2005, 384 pages, $32.50 (hardcover).

Lynn Eden’s book examines the devastating firestorms that would follow the detonation of nuclear weapons, a topic largely ignored in the prodigious literature on nuclear policy and strategy. She begins her quest by raising an intriguing question: how and why did the US government ignore the possibility of catastrophic atomic firestorms as it developed plans for nuclear war fighting, especially in light of its World War II experience with firebombing and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

The author begins her search for an answer with an empirical inquiry into why the US government routinely underestimated the damage caused by nuclear weapons. Her methodology compares damage predictions of the combined effects of blast and fire with much lower levels of damage expected if only blast effects are measured. Eden discusses and critiques alternative explanations of organizational routines that have seen use in predicting only blast damage. Her research shows that frames used by organizations, particularly the Air Force, to define problems and seek solutions lead to the acquisition of certain types of expertise as well as the emergence of both specialized research programs and knowledge-laden routines. In sum, this process of organizational problem solving causes actors to make critical choices about predictions of blast damage but not fire damage–predictions divorced from attributes of the actual physical environment.

Eden’s inquiry into this organizational phenomenon begins with US bombing doctrine shaped in the 1930s and applied during World War II. US Army Air Corps officers believed that bomb damage resulted primarily from blast effects. Although American planners did not entirely ignore the potential for fire damage, they paid far greater attention and applied more resources to predicting and optimizing blast damage.

The blast-damage frame, which carried over into the post-World War II era, strongly influenced the earliest attempts in 1947 and 1948 to predict damage from atomic bombing. Because of the historical association of blast damage with bombing and because analysts and planners believed it more predictable than fire damage, experts, research programs, and knowledge-laden routines focused exclusively on understanding blast damage. By the early 1950s, an extensive research program had arisen for the purpose of acquiring detailed knowledge about the effects of an atomic blast. Consultants hired to conduct this research helped shape the agenda, interpreted data, and developed analytical tools to better predict blast damage. However, no comparable activity sought to understand fire damage from atomic attacks.

US nuclear tests conducted in the early 1950s generated new data that verified and expanded the Vulnerability Number system, a blast-damage model developed in 1951. Although the Air Force commissioned a single study during this period to predict atomic fire damage, the effort did not yield compelling predictions. Other government organizations concerned with civil defense and the protection of equipment during war performed extensive experiments, but none studied or predicted damage from mass fires. Detonation of the first hydrogen bomb by the United States in 1952 created new problems for measuring blast effects due to the longer duration of the blast wave. Accordingly, by the mid-1950s analysts had devised a new method for calculating blast damage for higher-yield weapons. By the late 1950s, they had incorporated this method into a new knowledge-laden routine for predicting blast damage: the VNTK system (VN = vulnerability number, T = type of structure attacked, and K = sensitivity to the duration of the blast wave). Although fire damage increased dramatically compared to blast damage for higher-yield weapons, no one attempted to measure this effect.

From the mid-1950s through the 1970s, a small fire-research community funded by US government agencies interested in civil defense produced computer models of house fires, forest fires, and nuclear mass fires; however, their research failed to produce consistent, reliable predictions. Thus, this work effectively confirmed the organizational beliefs and knowledge-laden routines of individuals oriented toward asserting blast damage as the key metric for understanding the effects of nuclear weapons.

In the 1980s, the Defense Nuclear Agency undertook an effort to predict mass fires for use in nuclear war planning. This study was based on the work of Harold Brode, a scientist at the Pacific-Sierra Corporation, who used an approach which differed markedly from that of the fire-research community. By the early 1990s, Brode and his collaborators had developed a method for predicting both blast and fire damage, and the US government nearly adopted this model for its nuclear war plans. Despite Brode’s conclusions, the fire-research community continued to claim that mass fire damage could not be predicted accurately. The group’s view, which coincided with the end of the Cold War, proved influential in government circles. This confluence of organizational choice, bureaucratic influence, and historical change halted the US government’s interest in developing models to incorporate both blast- and fire-damage models into its nuclear strategy.

A light infantry company’s medium machineguns, 60mm mortars, and antiarmor weapons are key to its ability to succeed in combat. The machineguns and mortars allow it to achieve fire superiority and provide a base of suppressive fire for maneuver elements to close with the enemy by reaching positions in defilade with high explosive, obscuring enemy fires with white phosphorus, or desynchronizing the enemy’s ability to fight by well-placed indirect fire. The Dragon or Javelin will provide the company’s only organic antiarmor capability. When positioned properly, these weapons can initiate a well-placed antiarmor ambush or defense of an obstacle. To reach their full potential, however, these squads must have training that goes beyond qualification and sustainment.

Weapons squads are a part of the task organization of the rifle platoon. Generally, this translates into a weapons squad leader (staff sergeant) and two gun teams, each consisting of a gunner (corporal), an assistant gunner (private first class), and an ammunition bearer. These are the same soldiers who often wind up as the antiarmor teams, because dedicated personnel for the teams are not available.

The training of the weapons squad is the primary responsibility of the weap ons squad leader, the platoon sergeant, and the platoon leader. They provide the platoon with its base of fire and constitute a sizable amount of its firepower. But they do not reach their potential because operating tempo and lack of experience at the junior officer level make it hard just to maintain qualifications and support maneuver exercises.

The second lieutenant usually takes a rifle platoon as his first assignment. In the best cases, he has three rifle squads, a weapons squad, and a headquarters, consisting of the platoon sergeant, a medic, a radiotelephone operator, and himself. He probably gets about 12 months in this job, but not always.

In a garrison environment, he and the platoon sergeant manage all the administrative aspects of the platoon, from awards, physical training, equipment accountability and serviceability, weapons qualification, and a host of other things to get ready for a readiness cycle or a training deployment. He is also involved in planning training for his squads during upcoming tactical environments if the training exercise permits.

In a tactical or field environment, he supervises squad training (both force-on-force and maneuver live-fire exercises) and executes platoon training as part of a company or battalion directed event. Most of what the platoon does consists of battle drills at the squad and platoon level. The average second lieutenant is leaving his first job about the time he really begins to understand what needs to be done. The thinking is that he can rely on the real constants in a company–the NCOs–to help him ensure that things are done to standard. But what about time to take that training to a level beyond qualification, to a higher standard?

On the other hand, the rifle company executive officer (XO) probably has had a specialty platoon that gave him an appreciation of mobility and counter-mobility, integration of an assortment of direct and indirect fire weapons into the fight, and most of all, experience. The average XO has about two years of experience in the battalion. He understands the commander’s intent better, can formulate a solid training plan within the commander’s guidance, and can conceptualize nonstandard training events. He understands relationships between time available for training due to battalion driven events, how to obtain training areas and ammunition, and how the battalion functions. He is one step away from a company command. What better officer to put in charge of training the soldiers who constitute the company’s organic firepower?

The platoons will still be task organized with two machinegun teams if the mission requires it. I am not advocating removing the platoon’s base of fire, but not every mission requires two machinegun teams, or an antiarmor capability at platoon level. Often the mission is better served with the company’s firepower concentrated and directed to best support the momentum of the attack.

As many times as we practice a platoon mission, it does not require many casualties to make a platoon ineffective. A company stands a much greater chance of succeeding than a platoon, no matter what the odds might be. Platoons seize parts of an objective or allow another portion of the platoon or company to move forward. A habitual relationship should be formed between platoons and weapons squads, but they should be consolidated at the company level for training and tasked out as directed in the commander’s order.

Consolidating the weapons squads under the XO has other benefits as well. The company mortars and machineguns can be synchronized by the XO from a consolidated support-by-fire (SBF) position. An appropriate weapons mix within the SBF has a better chance of suppressing or destroying key aspects of the enemy’s defenses. Four M240 machineguns and two Javelins initiating the direct-fire portion of an attack–while 60mm fires harass enemy positions, or screen the maneuver element attempting to gain a foothold–stand a better chance if they are well coordinated

The attention given in recent years to the problem of the illicit manufacture, transfer and circulation of small arms and light weapons, and their excessive accumulation, has certainly grown, permitting substantial progress to be made, particularly at the regional level. Nevertheless, much remains to be done in order to develop and implement concrete programmes, policies and laws to effectively combat, prevent and eradicate the spread of those weapons.

Acceptance of the magnitude of the problem, as well as its global and multidimensional character, was indeed an achievement during the 2001 United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, which was also a fundamental step towards a collective undertaking based on the principle of shared responsibility. The full understanding of the problem, not only from its disarmament perspective but also as a tool to fight crime and terrorism and protect human rights and humanitarian law, invited us to work simultaneously in different fields and fora.

Now it is time to adopt measures to control and, in some cases, prohibit the manufacture and trade of small arms and light weapons, as well as their acquisition and possession by Governments or individuals, including through the development of legally binding instruments, common policies and other actions, and by strengthening international cooperation in this field.

In this context, it is important to identify crucial issues that remain to be solved, such as those referring to a global system for marking and tracing small arms and light weapons, the need for universal rules to control the activities of brokers and other intermediaries, the establishment of strict limitation or prohibition for the acquisition and possession of these weapons by civilians, or the prohibition of transfers and other transactions from or between States and non-State actors. Adequate marking is at the core of any effort to control small arms and light weapons. It is indispensable for identification, as well as for tracing, as recognized by all States, even though some of them still oppose a standard marking. Progress in this field is therefore urgent.

At the regional level, the Inter-American Convention against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and other Related Materials, adopted in 1997, made a significant contribution by requiring appropriate markings of the name of manufacturer, place of manufacture, and serial number at the time of manufacture, as well as the importer’s name and address on imported firearms, and also appropriate markings on any firearms confiscated or forfeited.

In contrast, the Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, negotiated in Vienna after a long dispute with China, allowed two methods of marking at the time of manufacture instead of setting a standard. This instrument accepted any alternative unique user-friendly marking with simple geometric symbols, in combination with a numeric and/or alphanumeric code, permitting ready identification by all States of the country of manufacture.

The Programme of Action adopted at the 2001 Conference did not solve the problem, since it only calls to ensure that henceforth licensed manufacturers apply an appropriate and reliable marking on each small arm and light weapon as an integral part of the production process, noting that this marking should be unique and should identify the country of manufacture and also provide information that enables the national authorities to identify the manufacturer and serial number so that each weapon can be identified and traced. It is therefore important to highlight the current work of the Group of Governmental Experts on Tracing Illicit Small Arms and Light Weapons, established by the General Assembly, and the need to negotiate a binding instrument of universal application.

The Programme of Action includes a commitment to eve op common understandings of the basic issues and the scope of the problems related to illicit brokering in small arms and light weapons, with a view to preventing, combating and eradicating the activities of those engaged in such brokering”. The commitment has been the subject of several informal discussions in recent years, but still needs to materialize through a concrete proposal to adopt common policies and legislation to control brokers’ activities, which are often difficult to locate, so as to identify the country of jurisdiction. Legitimate brokers and other intermediaries recognize the need for controls, since they realize the importance of their activities to reduce illicit trade in small and light weapons. Their cooperation, as well as from the manufacturers, is very important in identifying the individuals involved in criminal activities.

The issue of acquisition and possession of small arms and light weapons by civilians was considered during the 2001 Conference, but some countries, particularly the United States, made it clear that they would not accept any form of control or limitation, not even an encouragement to look into these issues at the national level. The original proposal only encouraged States to seriously consider the prohibition of unrestricted trade in, and private ownership of, small arms and light weapons specifically designed for military purposes. A revised version even recognized explicitly that this would be done without discouraging or diminishing lawful leisure or recreational activities, such as travel or tourism for sport shooting, hunting and other forms of lawful ownership and use recognized by States