Counter-proliferation
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Counter-proliferation refers to military efforts to combat weapon proliferation, including the application of military power to protect armed forces and interests, intelligence collection and analysis. The types of weapons include both conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction.
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[edit] Weapons of Mass Destruction
[edit] Nuclear Weapons
[edit] Biological Weapons
[edit] Chemical Weapons
Proliferation of chemical weapons is the hardest to verify, given that there is the greatest range of legitimate chemical industry activities where there could be diversion to a weapons program. Balancing that, however, is that chemical weapons have significantly less potential mass effect capabilities than biological or nuclear weapons. The release, which still might require tons of chemical, would need to be in a populated area, as in Bhopal (see below). The volume of chemical agent needed would suggest that the easiest way for terrorists is to cause a major release from an existing chemical production or storage facility, rather than trying to smuggle classic chemical warfare agents into the target areas.
Given the huge casualty tolls at industrial accidents such as the Bhopal Disaster, a release of toxic gas, and industrial explosions at the Halifax Explosion in Halifax, Canada; Texas City Disaster, USA; and Oppau, Germany, there is as much reason to consider improved warning, separation of dangerous centers from populated areas, and more emphasis on chemical safety, as there is reason for protection against explicit chemical weapons development.
Chlorine is not a terribly effective chemical weapon by modern standards, but the historical reality was that chlorine was the first chemical used in a deliberate chemical attack, and was brought to the release area by railroad. Chlorine, and other dangerous industrial chemicals, routinely travel by rail, and sometimes truck, in militarily significant quantities. The risk here can be mitigated in two ways: changing to processes using safer agents, such as chloramines rather than chlorine for water purification; and, where more toxic agents such as phosgene or hydrogen cyanide are needed as intermediates in chemical production, to make them in secure facilities on site rather than ship them.
The most toxic chemical warfare agents are nerve agents, which, biologically, are cholinesterase inhibitors. There is some dual use here, particularly with insecticides, and the most toxic insecticides of this class, such as Parathion, approach the lower edge of the toxicity range of true military agents. A world effort to move to safer insecticides may be appropriate. Tiny quantities of Diisopropylfluorophosphate are used in human and veterinary use and in neuroscience, and can be monitored and controlled as are biological agents under the
There is a world Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), with schedules of especially dangerous chemicals that must be monitored in manufacturing and transportation. See Chemical Warfare and Improvised Chemical Devices for military grade open-air detectors.
Enforcement of the CWC involves spot inspection with some of the instrumentation mentioned, sales and shipping controls of the materials scheduled in the CWC, and monitoring the sales and shipment of certain chemical production equipment that would be needed for nerve agent production. There are stages in the synthesis of these agents that involve reacting with elemental fluorine, which may require piping and reaction vessels lined with Teflon, silver, platinum and sometimes nickel.
[edit] Radiological Weapons
Radiological weapons, built as such, have not been used, but there have been a number of accidental radioactive material accidents that give some insights. Such weapons do not seem to have military potential, but could be used by terrorists.
While the Chernobyl disaster did much of its health damage by distributing Caesium-137, the size of the radioactive source and the violence of its explosive disruption are less typical than might be seen in a terrorist incident. The Goiânia accident is perhaps a better example, although it did not involve explosive scattering of the radioisotope.
A start toward counterproliferation here is reviewing the availability of radioactives, and, especially, making certain that they are sold under verifiable controls, and, when they are ready for disposal, that they are received by a capable radioactive waste handler, which did not happen at Goiânia.
[edit] Weapons Delivery
[edit] Missile Technology
Long-range missile technology is of greatest threat when the missiles carry weapons of mass destruction, but long-range weapons with precision guidance can be serious threats with explosive or other conventional warheads. This has been supplemented by the International Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation(ICOC), also known as the Hague Code of Conduct.
Technical means of verification, including space-based sensors that can scan large parts of the world, can provide early warning of long-range missile development. Space-based Staring Infrared Sensors can detect the heat of rocket launching motors. Various radars can monitor range and other characteristics, but they need to be in a place where they have line-of-sight to the missile trajectory. The United States, probably Russia, and possibly other nations have aircraft-based and ship-based sensors that can monitor such tests, but there has to be warning of potential tests so these sensors can be deployed.
[edit] Land mines and related explosive weapons
The issue here involves several issues: the manufacturing and availability of antipersonnel land mines, and the mitigation of existing minefields. Unfortunately, it is not difficult to improvise land mines, so even if all manufacturing were banned, a problem would still exist, as evidenced by the improvised exolosive devices in Iraq, and the extensive casualties caused by improvised boobytraps in Vietnam.
[edit] Cluster munitions
[edit] Conventional Weapons
[edit] Expanding bullets and related ammunition
These were some of the first weapons put under control, in the Hague Convention.
