Nerve gas arms race looms in Europe

Press, 18 April 1980, Page 12

Nerve gas arms race looms in Europe

By

IAN MATHER

in London

A new twist to the arms race is threatened as a result of a decision by N.A.T.O. to consider equipping its troops with chemical weapons. The super-Powers have been working towards an outright ban on chemical warfare, and there are two reasons for N.A.T.O.’s aboutturn. First there is the clear evidence that the Russians have large stocks of chemical weapons and consider their use an integral part of their battle plans. Second, less convincing, there are reports that Soviet troops have been using chemical weapons, particularly nerve gas. in Afghanistan. These reports derive from rebel sources and have not been substantiated by medical evidence. What is indisputable is that the Soviet Union has between 80,000 and 100,000 specialist chemical troops, commanded since 1970 by Lieutenant-General (Technical Troops) V. K. Pikolov. Their responsibilities include reconnaissance, identification of targets for Soviet chemical strikes and of

enemy chemical warfare sites, flame-throwing, smoke generating, and decontamination. A leading specialist, on the Soviet armed forces, Professor John Erickson, Director of Defence Studies at Scotland’s Edinburgh University, estimates that as much as 50 per cent of all ammunition for missiles and bombs stockpiled by the Warsaw Pact forces in Eastern Europe is chemical. Most of these chemical weapons are nerve gases of three types: tabum, the earliest form of nerve gas, originally produced in Germany before World War 11, soman, a later more toxic substance, of which one milligram is lethal if inhaled; and the modern VR-55, similar to agents developed in the United States and at the Porton Defence Research Establishment in Britain before this type of research was halted. The latter makes gas masks alone useless as a defence. Soldiers and civilians attacked by “V” agent gas would survive only if completely covered with protective clothing.

All three types of gas kill. Their action prevents muscles from relaxing, causing spasms, vomiting, convulsions, coma and death. The Russians also have stocks of hydrogen cyanide, a highly toxic blood agent which is lethal for only a few minutes. Delivered by rockets or by aerial spray it would kill enemy soldiers before allowing their equipment and installations to be taken over quickly by the attackers. The Warsaw Pact armies undertake frequent and prolonged exercises in contaminated environments on about 1000 ranges, using diluted nitrogen-mustard-thinned to produce minor blisters on troops caught without their protective clothing. N.A.T.O. has retained small quantities of old nerve gas, 'but has recently confined its research in this field to defensive techniques. For the last two years N.A.T.O. military and air bases have been carrying out regular exercises against chemical warfare attacks.Last week I happened to be at the United States Air

Force base at Ramstein, south of Frankfurt in West Germany, when such an exercise took place. When the alarm sounded office staff scurried to shelters, and for several hours the camp took on a science fiction aspect as troops in masks and protective clothing reloaded aircraft with bombs and missiles. The 1925 Geneva Protocol bans the use of poison gas in armed conflict. However, some parties to that treaty, especially the Russians, have interpreted this as a ban on first use, so excluding defensive measures and stockpiling. In 1972 the United States and Russia agreed to ban biological warfare, but were unable to agree to extending the ban to chemicals, largely because Russia resisted a mutual inspection system. If N.A.T.O. decides to buy American-made binary nerve gas shells, which is one possible outcome, this verification problem will be even harder to solve, since binary weapons are made by combining two non-lethal agents which become lethal only when mixed together. Copyright, London Observer Service.