INTRODUCTION

The following research paper has been compiled to provide an insight into Chemical Weapons (CW). It deals with the description and the usage of various chemical reagents used by various countries and their negative effects. The following also shows the policies of countries towards chemical weapons, their stockpiles and their lethality and disposal. The following report also shows the history of chemical warfare, their demilitarisation, proliferation and the various councils set up to reduce their use. It also includes a news release by the sunshine project on the use of chemical weapons by the US military. All in all it tells you everything about chemical weapons and explosives.

Chemical Warfare

Chemical warfare (CW)
Examples include dimethyl methylphosphonate, a precursor to sarin but which is also used as a flame retardant and Thiodiglycol which is a precursor chemical used in the manufacture of mustard gas but is also widely used as a solvent in inks. * Schedule 3 – Have legitimate large-scale industrial uses. Examples include phosgene and chloropicrin. Both have been used as chemical weapons but phosgene is an important precursor in the manufacture of plastics and chloropicrin is used as a fumigant. The OPCW must be notified of, and may inspect, any plant producing more than 30 tonnes per year.

Technology
Although crude chemical warfare has been employed in many parts of the world for thousands of years, "modern" chemical warfare began during World War I - see Poison gas in World War I.
Initially, only well-known commercially available chemicals and their variants were used. These included chlorine and phosgene gas. The methods used to disperse these agents during battle were relatively unrefined and inefficient. Even so, casualties could be heavy, due to the mainly static troop positions which were characteristic features of trench warfare.
Germany, the first side to employ chemical warfare on the battlefield, simply opened canisters of chlorine upwind of the opposing side and let the prevailing winds do the dissemination. Soon after, the French modified artillery munitions to contain phosgene – a much more effective