100% disagree. We have treaties that prevent use of gas weapons. We need governments to coordinate and cooperate rather than race each other to murderous death.
See: cluster munition and mine bans
Chemical weapons being banned is an example of a mostly inexplicably altruistic action on the part of major powers. Well, inexplicable if you're a cynic.
They are very effective against civilian populations though. Which is likely the real reason behind the ban. Especially when you consider that certain chemical weapons are only selectively banned; they can't be used against a target for toxicity, but it's completely fine to use it to use it in another manner. White phosphorous is most famous example if this, it's a war crime to poison people with it, but a-okay to light them on fire with it, even though that's a horrific way to die.
The only explanation for this hypocrisy is that chemical weapons don't have much value against military targets anymore. So substances are banned unless they are actually useful in other capacities.
They are not. It's the most ineffective weapon outside swords and bows.
A sibling comment provided the link discussing it: https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...
Also, surely, none of those are anywhere near as bad as mustard gas. Yes, agent orange gives people cancer, but presumably not everyone (?), and anyway mustard gas immediately burns your lungs. That’s just a different league.
My understanding is that DU tends to be favored for three primary reasons(ish)
1. It's super dense and thus packs a super hard punch in terms of momentum you can slug at a distance for a given caliber barrel.
2. It's incredibly hard and can deflect things that steel can't stand a chance against.
3. That momentum from firing is often high enough that it actually ignites on impact in most circumstances, causing a lot more material damage to whatever you're shooting.
DU might honestly be phased out soon anyways - it's primary strengths are that it's wicked heavy and not stupid soft like lead, but there are some replacements out there for it and a lot of countries have signed on to banning it in warfare - just not the big ones yet.
I don't have a link, I read a pretty interesting analysis is that the only reason we have such treaties is because those weapons are ineffective against a 1st tier military and are also useless to them. Basically, defense is possible as the needed PPE is relatively cheap and can be used effectively by highly-trained troops, and high-tech conventional weapons used by a trained force are far more effective than gas.
So basically, those treaties were about giving up something advanced militaries would have abandoned anyway.
It's probably this: https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...
1. Send trained 19-30 years old to risk there's life, minimum civilian casualties, but highest chance of combat casualties.
2. Bomb urban area out of existence, with massive civilian casualties, medium chance of combat casualties.
3. Send terminators with medium civilian causalities and 0 combat casualties.
Given the track record of how many unjust wars that have been fought, we need more preventative measures against wars, not more technology to make wars easier and more palatable.
Civilians will suffer the most in wars and in violent conflict times.
Urban warfare is the highest intensity warfare, with highest casualty rates both combat and civilians.
First failed attempt of drone attack with chemical weapon was in 90's in Japan, I believe this if first recorded attempt of terrorist attack using drone.
AI warfare with sci-fi flying, crawling, walking terminators will be more humane then carpet bombing population into oblivion (Soviet–Afghan War and Vietnam War), it will have substantially less combat and civilian casualties, in general it will increase kinetics (weapons effects), precision, accuracy, and decisiveness (RISTA).
You created a false dichotomy - as if those are the only two outcomes and we have to choose between them. When obviously (as your follow up comment shows), there are other scenarios where numerous innocent non-combatants will die.
Every major player has these and will show them when there is a global war.
Treaties do shit.
A slightly unrelated example: There are major laws that you can't kill a journalist in your embassy. But did those stop it from happening?