Warfare has been a constant battle -pardon the pun- between the minutiae and the massive. The effects of the massive are, well, massive. Surprisingly, the effects of the minutiae can be equally massive.
In the middle ages, catapults and trebuchets were used to launch large blocks to knock down fortifications. The Mongols would also launch decaying bodies of livestock, occasionally even human remains infected with Smallpox, to spread panic and disease. This was an early form of germ warfare.
In the eighteenth century, the British used Smallpox-infected blankets against enemy Indians during the Pontiac Rebellion. The success of this insidious attack was not recorded, but the intent was to kill enough Indians to end the siege.
During the early twentieth century, all sides experimented and used germ warfare to various effects. The targets were not just enemy soldiers; they used biological agents to attack enemy livestock and even fungal agents to infect enemy crops.
The Geneva Protocol of 1925 tried to close the chapter on biological agents; however, it did not ban the experimentation, or storage, of such agents. Many countries, including Britain and the US, created large facilities to research the potential uses of these weapons. The imperial Japanese tested germ warfare on innocent people in Manchuria, China during the Second World War. Many of the victims died in extreme pain. Even during the Cold War, Britain and the US tested and stored chemical and biological agents, mainly so they could devise counter measures. Still, an implicit threat remained.
The massive had a world changing turn when, in 1945, Robert Oppenheimer borrowed a verse from the Hindi book, Bhagavad Gita. After seeing the world's first nuclear explosion, the Trinity Test, Oppenheimer quoted, "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Whether he said it or merely thought it is often in dispute. What is not in dispute, however, is the advance in the ability to kill large amounts of people in the shortest possible time. This was further advanced by the development of the Hydrogen bomb, which, unlike its predecessor, has a theoretically unlimited maximum yield.
But what of the minutiae today? What breakthroughs are waiting in the wings? Has germ warfare really been assigned to the history books, or could the stocks that the west still hold be used again? There are also the advances in Quantum mechanics, nanotechnology, genetic manipulation using CRISPR, and ever smaller drones to consider. The minutiae are back with a vengeance and their effect is bigger than ever.
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Operation Desert Swarm by Michael Whateley
ActionChemical Weapon Warfare is a severe threat to our modern world. It has a fictional storyline but gives an accurate depiction of the response that might take place if Chemical Warfare occurred. The book begins as a pilot of a small aircraft is taken...
