WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION: OPTIONS FOR INDIA
Edited by Raja Menon,
Sage, Rs 540

The last decade of the twentieth century saw the transformation of conventional warfare owing to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Along with nuclear weapons, chemical toxins and biological agents fall within the category of WMDs. The ten essays in this volume, written by diplomats, academics and armed forces? personnel, dwell upon the threat posed by WMDs to the world in general, and India in particular.

Biological weapons comprise bacteria, viruses, toxins and bio-regulators. As a result of advances in genetic engineering, these weapons are becoming more dangerous. Agents used in chemical warfare include nerve gases like Sarin and Tabun; vasicants, blood agents, lung damaging chemicals like Phosgene, psychochemicals and plant-damaging agents.

Chemical and biological weapons, says Arundhati Ghose, are looked upon as the poor man?s atomic bombs. Most of them can be prepared quite easily and cheaply in hospitals or laboratories. Smaller states, threatened by the sophisticated conventional weapons and nuclear arsenal of big states, might resort to them for survival. These agents can be easily sprayed on enemy territory with the help of ultra light aerial vehicles.

B.S. Malik traces the history of the use of chemical and biological warfare. The Soviets in Afghanistan and the Americans in south-east Asia resorted to such tactics, not to support tactical battles, but in a strategic role ? to bomb villages in terrain denial missions. In 1982, Iraq used MI8 helicopters and artillery shells to spray mustard gas, which caused 10,000 casualties among the Iranians.

Chemical weapons are more effective in snow-covered regions or during winters. So chemical warfare would not be of much use in, say, a set-piece battle in tropical south Asia. In Raja Menon?s view, an army using chemical agents has to provide protective gear to its entire force so as to prevent any side-effects among its own personnel. This, in turn, would reduce the effectiveness of its soldiers. Thus, instead of a dispersed battlefield, chemical weapons are much more effective in densely populated cities.

For India, the real danger lies in non-state actors resorting to chemical warfare. The danger has become much more palpable since there have been reports of the theft of chemical agents after the break-up of the Soviet Union. The North West Frontier Province in Pakistan is a known market for illegal chemical and biological warfare agents for terrorists. The New York Times once reported on how Sarin gas made in Russia made it to al Qaida in Jalalabad from this area in Pakistan.

The essays in this collection are of unequal merit. But, information about chemical and biological weapons being hard to come by, this volume will be useful for defence strategists as well as the interested lay reader.

Kaushik Roy