Chemical weapons elicit a very specific emotive and political response from populations, namely, anxiety. What are the drivers behind the fears surrounding chemical weapons? 

“War, like revolution, is founded upon intimidation. A victorious war…destroys only an insignificant part of the conquered army, intimidating the remainder and breaking their will…Terror…kills individuals, and intimidates thousands”.

Writing in 1920, Leon Trotsky thus attributed the power of war and terrorism to its psychological effect. The ability to intimidate and coerce is the key strategy in a world in flux; fear and uncertainty are the weapons of choice for terrorist groups. The observation that terrorists endeavour to kill few and create fear among many has been woven tightly into the fabric of terrorism discourse for decades.  

But the current century has witnessed an evolved threat paradigm in which the aim of a new type of terrorist group is to achieve “a lot of people watching and a lot of people dead”. Chemical weapons are often presented as the apex of such a goal. Yet increasingly it is argued that chemical weapons are merely a tool to elicit fear that far exceeds their actual destructive clout. This fear is a very human response. The psychological power of chemical weapons is intrinsically linked to their contaminant nature, indiscriminate harm and ability to undermine an individual’s sense of security.

Are chemical weapons really weapons of mass destruction, with a devastating impact on infrastructure, life, and property? Or, are they weapons of terror? Distinguishing between the two, this article queries how uncertainty feeds the fears surrounding chemical weapons. To what extent does the weapon of terror moniker depend on the concept of mass destruction?

The enduring power of contamination

Image credit: New York National Guard/Flickr.

Chemical weapons have an ancient history. Early hunter-gatherers learned to poison their arrows to ensure an effective kill. Poison gas as a weapon of war was recorded by Thucydides in 428 BCE. The scorched earth tactic of poisoning wells using the rotten corpses of people who had died from infectious disease was used across the Ottoman era and Middle Ages. Chemical weapons have been utilised – or attempted – in many conflicts since then. The British government, for example, approved the use of sulphur fumes at the siege of Sebastopol during the Crimean War. Even in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US Army used white phosphorous grenades, as did the British.

As scientific advances began to allow a greater multiplicity of chemical agents in industrial quantities, concerns mounted over potential consequences. In recognition of the sentiment that injury or death by poison is inhumane, the Hague Conventions (1899 & 1907) outlawed the battlefield use of poisoned weapons and toxic gas via projectiles. The declaration prohibiting the dissemination of asphyxiating and deleterious gases was ratified by all major powers except the US which refused to sign, arguing that projectiles as detailed in the convention had not yet been fully developed.

The use of poison has long been regarded as morally reprehensible. This harks back to disdain inherent to poisoning and its associations with chemical weapons: in contrast to the hero’s death by sword in battle, poisoning is regarded as cowardly and secretive. Yet this became more acute in the aftermath of the Hague Conventions: moral indignation follows the breaking of accepted conventions, shattering indoctrinated agreement as to non-use. In the early 20^th century, both Allies and Axis powers were reluctant to be the first to breach the law.

Even General John Pershing, having established the U.S. military’s first gas warfare unit in 1917, denounced chemical weapons as “abhorrent to civilization…a cruel, unfair and improper use of science…fraught with the gravest danger to non-combatants”. By the end of WWI, over 124,000 tonnes of chlorine, phosgene and mustard gases had been dispersed, causing approximately 90,000 deaths and 1,230,853 injuries and earning WWI the moniker, “the chemist’s war”. Though the development of gas masks reduced the number of casualties in the later years, the scale of chemical warfare had set the precedent for a lingering psychological and moral response. That even Hitler refused to use chemical weapons on the battlefield (if not in the gas chambers) cemented their standing as a wholly unacceptable weapon of war.

For decades, the threat from chemical weapons remained largely in the hands of states. Almost two decades since the Chemical Weapons Convention came into force outlawing the production, stockpiling, and use of chemical weapons, the threat of non-state actors obtaining or producing chemical weapons has become of increasing concern. Large quantities of improperly disposed unconventional weapons have been unearthed in recent decades. After WWII, for instance, tons of mustard gas, sarin, soman, tabun, hydrogen cyanide and many other agents were left in storage facilities near towns and cities, buried in landfills across the world or dumped at sea. During the Cold War, chemical weapons facilities proliferated across the world, shrouded in secrecy. Throughout this time, in the Soviet Union thousands of tonnes of chemical materials were simply dumped in undisclosed, unchartered locations. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, some chemical research units were abandoned, leaving available a mass of untraced and unacknowledged weaponry.

Chemical weapons and non-state actors

Various terrorist organisations have spent years working on developing chemical weapons, of which the so-called Islamic State (IS) is but one. The eleventh volume of al-Qaida’s Encyclopaedia of Jihad provides instructions on how to construct chemical and biological weapons, although al-Qaida seems to have balked at actually using such weapons. Where groups have succeeded in their use, they have created vast shockwaves, with minimal outlay. In 1978, a Palestinian group injected non-lethal quantities of mercury into Jaffa oranges leading many countries to cease imports, jeopardising a market worth $172 million to Israel at the time. In 1989, terrorists reportedly laced Chilean grapes with cyanide, costing the Chilean fruit industry $333 million, despite the chemical only having been identified in two grapes.

In 1995, Aum Shinrikyo unleashed the largest gas attack in peacetime history on several lines of the Tokyo subway, killing 12 people and injuring thousands. Though the proportion of people killed was relatively low compared to numbers injured, the attack demonstrated the ability of non-state actors to obtain and use significant quantities of non-conventional weapons. It has subsequently been cast as a “crossing of the Rubicon” (to pass a point of no return), foreshadowing further similar attacks.

Chemical anxieties

Chemical weapons elicit a very specific emotive and political response. When the threat and impact of terrorist attacks using conventional weapons against Western targets is so real, why does the as-yet unrealised potential for chemical terror attacks in the West retain a particular power over our thinking?

Attempts to explain the anxieties surrounding chemical weapons remain incomplete when considered alongside conventional weapons with similarly cruel capabilities. Why, as in Aleppo or Homs, do we regard using explosives to tear people apart as more humane than burning or asphyxiating them to death? Weapons such as “soft nosed” bullets (which disintegrate upon entry to the body) were banned alongside asphyxiating gases by the 1899 Hague Conventions, yet they do not receive such global censure.

Part of the concern specifically attributed to chemical weapons lies in the human fear of unpredictable, adverse events such as the potential to develop illness after exposure. The most terrifying threats are those perceived not just as lethal but as dehumanising. The fear of chemical weapons is therefore, at least partially, a result of their potential to cause insidious harm.

So the potency of chemical weapons lies in the unknown and in how they fester in the imagination of those who have felt threatened by them. Chemical weapons attacks are distinguished by the propagation of functional somatic – medically unexplained – physical symptoms, bestowing unconventional weapons a “psychogenic” hallmark. A result of the potential for chemical weapons to yield psychiatric illness, the notion that the long-term psychological consequences of unconventional weapons may be worse than acute physical, is popular in psychological circles. The many chemical incidents in which low-risk patients far outnumbered those whose exposure could be confirmed, contribute to this “weapon of terror” epithet: the perception of exposure to a toxin is a greater determinant of health status and anxiety than actual exposure. After the Aum Shinrikyo attack, over 4,000 people with no sign of exposure sought medical care.

Many chemicals are perceived by the public as having a high to extreme degree of uncertainty; many, too, elicit strong anxiety, which can drive somatic symptoms. In order to form judgement under uncertainty, people form intuitive assessments upon relevant information. Attempting to decrease their uncertainty, people may apply preconceived beliefs (for instance, that chemicals are dangerous) to symptoms, even if benign, constructing a causal link between symptom and event.

Consider, for instance, cases in Israel, a nation so subject to the corollaries of war that it has been termed a natural station for the study of stress. During the 1991 Gulf War, Israel endured 18 Scud ballistic missile attacks from Iraq. The stress of conventional bombardment was compounded by the fear that the missiles contained nerve agents; residents had been instructed to carry gas masks and prepare for Iraqi use of biological or chemical weapons. Fearing contamination, over 1,000 patients attended medical facilities with symptoms such as tremors and breathing difficulties. Only 22% of patients had been genuinely injured: none by biochemical agents. 27% of casualties had mistakenly injected themselves with atropine, an antidote to nerve agents.

Conclusion

There are two schools of thought explaining the power of chemical weapons. On one hand is the argument that chemical weapons can be harnessed as weapons of mass destruction. This bears significant political pull. On the other, there is scepticism as to their capabilities, where instead they are branded weapons of psychological terror. The schism between “weapon of terror” and “weapon of mass destruction” is rarely acknowledged. Conflation of the two allowed Tony Blair to drawn upon their psychological power to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which shattered the Middle East.

The truth lies somewhere in between. The psychological and physical fallout of chemical weapons are, essentially, two sides of the same coin. Feared or sustained physical harm gives rise to short-term anxiety and long-term psychological distress. Chemical weapons victims may never be definitively free from the physical effect, thus the psychological effects may endure. Uncertainty directly impacts upon fear, and is thus one of the most influential features of human history. As human experience is a complex nexus of affect, behaviour, cognition and physiology, chemical weapons are disturbing for their ability to bear upon each, fracturing this integration. Uncertainty can become visceral. While war does not accommodate certainty, the potential use of chemical weapons will feed doubt and continue to draw substantial political influence.

Clare Henley divides her time between acting as Assistant to the Director of the Oxford Process, and as Project Officer at Refugee Trauma Initiative. She previously worked on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons Initiative at Chatham House, and at the Maudsley Hospital’s Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma. Prior to this, she interned on a decontamination project with the Behavioural Science team at Porton Down, Public Health England. Clare has an MSc in War and Psychiatry from King’s College London, where her thesis focused on the psychological impact of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons. Her other work focused on topics such as the impact of war on child soldiers and of being held hostage. She also has a BSc in Psychology from the University of Exeter.

Authors Note: This article summarises key findings of my book Malte Brosig (2015) Cooperative Peacekeeping in Africa: Exploring Regime Complexity. London & New York: Routledge.

Introduction

Peacekeeping enjoys an unprecedented popularity amongst policymakers at the moment. At no point in history have there been more peacekeepers deployed worldwide. The United Nations (UN) and regional organisations are currently deploying more than 100,000 troops and police in missions around the globe but most are located in Africa. The challenges individual missions are facing are well-discussed among experts. Much of the relevant literature focusses on dos and don’ts of peacekeeping practices. Regardless of individual cases we can observe the emergence of a larger inter-organisational peacekeeping system which I refer to as African peacekeeping regime complex in which the most relevant organisations such as the UN, the African Union (AU), Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and European Union (EU) are intimately inter-connected. Thus, the challenges actors are facing are not only individual ones and so solutions to these challenges are increasingly based on multi-actor coordination. How the peacekeeping regime complex emerged and how actors are positioned within it will be explored in this contribution.

Peacekeeping Today

Modern peacekeeping is confronted with high expectations and an enormous task complexity. Peacekeeping activities reach far beyond ceasefire monitoring, and also involve countering rebel and terror groups, protecting the civilian population, disarming combatants, supporting elections, reforming the security apparatus, state building and engaging in humanitarian relief. In sum, the expectation is that peacekeepers are not simply administering fragile peace, but also working to prevent a relapse into conflict by addressing its root causes. Naturally, these activities are conducted under considerable insecurity in a fragile environment where conflict has not often ceased, but is instead suppressed. Progress is uncertain and backlashes are likely.

Zambian peacekeepers from the United Nations Mission in Sudan. Image by United Nations Photo via Flickr.

The demand for peacekeepers and the existing complexity and high expectations peacekeeping is confronted with in practice lead to an overburdening of single actors. For the African continent, we can identify a group of relevant organisations which play a central role within the African peacekeeping regime complex. These are the UN, AU, RECs and EU. None of these actors are capable of dominating the regime complex fully. They all are facing the harsh realities of resource scarcity. Resources can be material goods (financial, military) or social kinds like competences or political (in) capacities or deployment doctrines.

Examples of this resource scarcity and its effects are easy to find. While the UN remains the most essential actor, it does not have command over the resources which would allow it to outperform regional organisations. This becomes very clear when looking at deployment times and/or the issue of peace enforcement. With its heavy bureaucracy in the background, the UN’s response times are on average around six months which is far from a rapid response. Issues of peace enforcement and counter-terrorism are also politically controversial within the UN and thus the UN’s missions find it difficult to engage in this kind of activity. In practice, there remains a considerable gap in the UN response to severe crises.

On the part of African actors, much has been achieved within the last decade. An African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) has been erected which builds on close cooperation between the AU’s headquarters in Ethiopia and RECs. Considerable efforts have been made to establish the African Standby Force (ASF). Indeed, the AU is now actively involved in practically all emerging conflicts on the continent. Still, it falls short of being able to independently respond to crises in a sustainable and comprehensive manner. The design of the ASF which consists of around 25,000 troops only makes up a minority of all deployments to the African continent. While the AU is willing to deploy in situations where the UN is reluctant to do so, the AU’s resource constraints are significant. The lack of funding is a compelling example. Despite efforts of the Commission chair to reduce external dependencies, the peacekeeping budget is predominately being financed by international donors. AU peacekeeping missions are not sustainable to maintain and can only operate with much reduced task complexity. Thus, because of resource constraints, they are neither long-term nor comprehensive in nature.

In the case of the EU, the situation is different. It is the most well-resourced organisation of all but does not have a global mandate. While the EU has deployed around 17 missions to Africa since 2003, these have been rather small in ambition, scale and duration. Most missions train security forces, but only a few are actively engaging in operational peacekeeping. This does not result from an absence of resources but is wanted politically.

How the Multi-Actor Approach is Shaping Modern Peace Operations

Given the very visible limitation of each single actor, it is hardly surprising that peacekeeping today is a multi-actor game forming a regime complex. A regime complex can be characterised as a form of decentralised and non-hierarchically organised governance. Actors are overlapping with regard to their membership and/or operational ambit and are tightly interconnected which makes it difficult to decompose the system into individual units. What a regime complex constitutes is mostly defined in terms of the relationship of its constituent parts which are constantly interacting with one another. In the case of peacekeeping in Africa, we can detect such a system.

In the overwhelming number of cases, we can observe forms of cooperative peacekeeping in which actors are pooling their resources. The most pervasive forms of cooperation are the sequential and co-deployment of troops. This has also led to a division of labour and institutional specialisation between the involved actors. For example, the AU often functions as a first-deployer, sending out troops in situations which are not consolidated and remain hostile and fragile. These deployments which are rather short-term oriented aim to prepare the ground for a larger more comprehensive and longer-term engagement from the UN. The UN’s response is often slower but more sustainable and also covers complex peace building tasks and stays in countries for an extended period of time. The role of the EU is less ambitious, but not less important. In the operational peacekeeping theatre, the EU contributed a high number of missions which are targeted and confined in terms of deployment times (short-term) and tasks (usually training missions). They aim from the beginning not to take over comprehensive tasks but are designed to fill in functional niches other actors leave. Financially, the EU is one of the main donors for AU peacekeeping missions. Since 2004, the EU’s African Peace Facility has provided €1.9bn for institutional capacity building and peacekeeping missions. Recent peacekeeping missions deployed to the Central African Republic (CAR) and Mali broadly follow this track of interaction.

However, the exchange of resources between the AU-EU-UN which forms the backbone of the peacekeeping regime complex is not a simple functional mechanism. The exchange of resources is, for example, also influenced by peacekeeping doctrines. These are not automatically complementary. In the case of the AU and UN, the AU’s exit strategy is not necessarily compatible with the UN’s entry strategy. While the AU deploys in situations of continuing hostilities and aims at stabilising the situation, the UN takes a more conservative approach aiming to deploy only in situations where at least a ceasefire is in place. What happens if the AU stabilisation efforts do not lead to tangible progress can be seen in Somalia. Although the AU has called for UN take over since the deployment of AMISOM in 2007, no UN takeover occurred.

Doctrinal divisions also exist with regards to robust peacekeeping in already deployed missions. While the AU and African states often accept that within peacekeeping missions the use of force is sometimes needed to actively deter and encounter rebels or terrorists, this view is mostly not shared by the UN and EU. As a consequence, active peace enforcement in cases of deployed UN missions (CAR, Mali, DRC) tend to be outsourced. In case of the DRC, a Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) was set up and staffed by African countries or France continued its military operations hunting down terrorists in Mali.

Apart from questions of doctrinal complementarity, the supply and demand for resources varies significantly between actors. An organisation which is stronger on the supply side can chose how to design its involvement in peacekeeping while an organisation which is experiencing a strong demand but little supply is in an inferior position. This can be seen when comparing the EU and AU. The EU is in the position to provide what it deems adequate (many small scale targeted missions), the AU is in the complete opposite situation. It cannot maintain longer-term missions on its own and relies both on external funding and operational handover to the UN.

Conclusion

Modern peacekeeping operates in a multi-actor environment which displays decentred governance structures to which we can refer as a regime complex. Apart from the fact that the UN Security Council bears a general responsibility for peace, there is no overarching or strict hierarchy between the UN-AU-EU. Despite the absence of externally delegated roles within the regime complex, assumed roles emerged as a consequence of individual institutional resource scarcity, doctrinal compatibility and the size of demand vs supply of resources. Certainly politics is not missing in this system. There is no formally agreed script according to which organisations can be expected to act and thus the exact mode of interaction varies between cases. Domestic conflict dynamics leave their imprint too.

In the end, taking an inter-organisational perspective to peacekeeping is not a trivial under-taking because it constitutes a form of global governance which transcends the individual organisation. While we have long accepted that the classical nation state has lost parts of its domestic sovereignty to the forces of globalisation we also have to recognise that the same is true for international organisations. In this regard actorness and governance qualities do not exclusively rest in actors themselves but also in how they organise interaction with one another. The peacekeeping regime complex is one example and one that is shaping the lives of millions who live in some of the most vulnerable situations.

Malte Brosig is Associate Professor in International Relations at the Department of International Relations at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He joined the Department in 2009 after he received his PhD from the University of Portsmouth. His main research interests focus on issues of international organization interplay and peacekeeping in Africa. He is the author of Cooperative Peacekeeping in Africa: Exploring Regime Complexity which was published at Routledge. Prof Brosig is a rostered consultant for the United Nations University’s Centre for Policy Research in Tokyo and holds fellowships at the Canadian Centre for R2P at the University of Toronto, the European Centre for Minority Issues in Flensburg and the German Institute for Global and Area Studies in Hamburg.